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She was two weeks from her due date. On the evening of January 16, 1998, Sherry Ann Culp finished her shift, walked out to the parking lot in the fading light, and got into her teal green Honda Civic. She never drove it home. Within moments of sitting down behind the wheel, she was shot at point-blank range by a gunman who has never been found. She was 36 years old and 8 1/2 months pregnant. Twenty-eight years later, no one has been arrested for it.

Twenty-five years have passed since Sherry and Kelsey's senseless murders, but the FBI and our law enforcement partners continue to search for the perpetrator.

That was the FBI Washington Field Office in January 2023, marking 25 years since the killings. This is the case they were talking about.

Who she was

Sherry Ann Culp lived in Stafford, Virginia, and worked in the accounting department at DesignTech International, a company in the Fullerton Industrial Park in Fairfax County. She was a mother of two young daughters, and she was days from becoming a mother again. At 8 1/2 months pregnant, she was roughly two weeks out from her scheduled delivery. The daughter she was carrying already had a name: Kelsey.

The night of January 16, 1998

At approximately 6 p.m., Culp left work for the day and got into her car in the lot on Dynatech Court, near Cameron Brown Court and Fullerton Road, in the Newington area of Springfield. Shortly after she entered the teal green Civic, an unknown assailant shot her at point-blank range with a handgun.

She was still alive when help reached her. Culp was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where doctors delivered Kelsey by emergency cesarean section. The baby survived only two days. Kelsey died on or about January 18, 1998. It was one shooting that ended two lives, in a workplace parking lot at the close of an ordinary Friday.

The evidence

Several witnesses reported hearing gunshots and then seeing a man running along the sidewalk near the scene. He was wearing a dark-colored hooded jumpsuit. Around the same place, a suspicious maroon pickup truck was seen parked in the vicinity where Culp was shot.

Investigators later released two composite sketches of possible suspects, along with photographs of a newer-model maroon Ford Ranger that the person responsible may have been driving. Fairfax County Police described a possible suspect as a white male in his 30s, about 6 feet tall, with sandy-colored brown hair.

None of these leads has ever been tied to a name. The running man in the hooded jumpsuit, the maroon truck, and the faces in the composite sketches are all unidentified. No one has been charged, and no suspect has ever been publicly named. What is on the record is narrow and grim: Culp was shot at close range with a handgun, and both she and Kelsey died.

The investigation

The case is worked jointly by the FBI Washington Field Office, the Fairfax County Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. For years it has been kept in front of the public mostly through anniversaries.

By 2007, a $1,000 cash reward from Crime Solvers was on the table, and Culp's family had raised an additional private reward of about $50,500 for information. A Fairfax County Police officer, Shelly Broderick, said that year that the killing was one she flagged without fail: "This is one of the crimes where I put out a brief every year on the anniversary."

Culp's mother, Jane Young, refused to let the case fade. As a 2002 Washington Post feature described, she cornered John Walsh to get the case onto America's Most Wanted, and she and her husband Ken spoke to police and FBI seminars, to reporters, and to politicians to keep her daughter's name alive.

On the 25th anniversary, January 16, 2023, the FBI Washington Field Office announced a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever was responsible. Wayne A. Jacobs, the Special Agent in Charge of the field office, said it plainly: "We will pursue justice for Sherry and her daughters, no matter how long it takes." The FBI and Fairfax County Police renewed that appeal and the reward again on the 26th anniversary in January 2024. What has not happened, across more than 25 years, is an arrest.

The theories

No one has ever been charged, so everything past this point is a theory.

There is really only one thread worth pulling, and it belongs to the investigators rather than to speculation. Police have said they believe Sherry Culp may have known her killer. That belief rests on the shape of the crime itself: a woman shot at point-blank range, in a familiar workplace parking lot, at the end of a normal workday. It is a belief, attributed to police, and not an established fact. Beyond that, the record is thin. There is no named suspect to weigh, and no motive has ever been made public.

Where it stands

As of 2026, the murders of Sherry Ann Culp and her infant daughter Kelsey remain unsolved. The case is still open, still worked by the FBI Washington Field Office, the Fairfax County Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the reward of up to $10,000 still stands. Somewhere, someone knows what happened in that parking lot on a January evening in 1998.

Victims: Sherry Ann Culp, 36, and her infant daughter Kelsey
Date: January 16, 1998 (Kelsey died on or about January 18, 1998)
Location: Dynatech Court, Newington area of Springfield, Fairfax County, Virginia
Investigating agencies: FBI Washington Field Office, Fairfax County Police Department, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia
Reward: up to $10,000
Status: Unsolved

Anyone with information can contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov, or the Fairfax County Police Department at 703-246-7800 (fairfaxcrimesolvers.org).