Gina Hall

Do you know where Gina Hall is?
Gina Renee Hall was an 18-year-old White female from Coeburn, Virginia, known for her pleasant, soft-spoken nature and popularity. A freshman at Radford University for the summer session in June 1980, she was living with her older sister, Dlana, in Radford. Friends and family described her as a beautiful person inside and out, a great friend, daughter, and sister who was close to her family. In high school, she had been voted "most popular" and was athletic enough to play on the men's golf team.

On the night of June 28, 1980, Gina was in a celebratory mood after finishing a challenging week of midterm exams. She decided to go dancing at a Marriott nightclub in Blacksburg. Her sister Dlana, who had planned to go with her, stayed home instead. Gina left their apartment around 10:00 p.m., driving Dlana's brown Chevrolet. At the club, she met 28-year-old Stephen Epperly, a former Virginia Tech football player. Witnesses saw them leave together around midnight. Epperly drove Gina in her car to a secluded cabin at Claytor Lake in Pulaski County. Between 1:00 and 1:30 a.m., Gina called her sister. She told Dlana she was at a lake house with a man named Steve and would be home in the morning. It was the last time anyone ever heard from her.

When Gina failed to return the next day, her family reported her missing to the Radford Police Department. On June 30, Dlana's Chevrolet was found abandoned under a railroad trestle on Hazel Hollow Road. The driver's seat was pushed all the way back, a position impossible for the petite 5-foot-tall Gina to have driven in. Inside the trunk, investigators discovered bloodstains. The investigation, led by the Virginia State Police, quickly focused on Epperly. He admitted to being with Gina at the lake house but claimed he went for a swim while she stayed on the dock, and that she later dropped him off in Radford.

The evidence, however, told a different story. At the lake house, police found signs of a violent struggle, including numerous bloodstains matching Gina's blood type that someone had attempted to clean. A blue towel covered in blood and carpet fibers was also found. Near the river where the car was located, a bundle containing Gina's blood-stained clothes was discovered. Based on the mounting circumstantial evidence, Stephen Epperly was arrested and charged with Gina's murder. His trial in December 1980 was historic, as the prosecution proceeded without a body, a murder weapon, or a confession.

In a landmark case for the state, a Pulaski County jury found Stephen Epperly guilty of first-degree murder based entirely on circumstantial evidence. He was sentenced to life in prison, becoming the first person in Virginia's history to be convicted of murder in the absence of a body. Epperly has maintained his innocence for decades and has been repeatedly denied parole. The most recent denial was in May 2024.

For forty years, Gina's family, led by her sister Dlana Hall Bodmer, never stopped searching for her remains. In 2016, a tip led them to a new search area after a witness came forward claiming his grandfather had seen two men dismembering a body near Meadow Creek in 1980. With the help of a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Arpad Vass, and a device he invented to detect buried DNA, some of Gina's partial remains were discovered across eight different locations in the New River Valley. In July 2020, the remains were formally identified, bringing a partial, long-awaited resolution to her family. The case has been the subject of books, including "Under the Trestle" by Ron Peterson Jr., and a documentary film based on the book is in development as of July 2022.