Unsolved Dale City triple murder case turns 45

Prince William police: “On June 24, 1978, Deborah Frank, Sharon Lake & Karen Scarbrough were found dead in a Ryland Homes sales trailer in [Dale City]. Sharon was helping Deborah find a home. This was Karen’s first job upon graduating from high school. All 3 died from a gunshot wound.”

Washington Post: “The three women were each shot once in the back of the head and found lying side by side in a trailer used as a housing development office. Police yesterday called the shootings the worst crime in the history of the county.”

“Police said about $30 in cash was taken from the three women’s purses, along with other personal items that police would not identify. There were no signs of a struggle in the trailer and robbery did not appear to be a major motive for the slaying, police said.”

“Sharon Lake, 25, of Dale City, and her friend, Debra Warner Frank, 23, of Alexandria, were found dead in the trailer they had gone to as part of an afternoon of house hunting for Frank. Also found in the trailer, which sits near the end of a dead-end road and is bordered by excavated land soon to be a housing development, was Karen Rose Scarbrough, 17.”

“Police said Scrabrough, who graduated from high school a week before her death, was working the first day of her first job when she was shot. She died on the way to Potomac Hospital [now Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center] in Woodbridge, police said.”