15 years later and one of the strangest murder scenes of Northern Virginia remains unsolved. The Triangle Murders was a triple homicide that took place in a trailer parked nearby a construction site. One of the victims includes teenager Katie Claypool, who was starting her first day on the job. Even after years of investigation, the police and family of the victims are searching for answers behind this terrible attack.
On the evening of June 24, 2004, Joan Claypool arrived at the construction site of Brookhaven Homes, which was building a new business complex, to pick up her daughter Katie. The teen would have been just wrapping up her first day on the job, and Joan parked her car a short distance from the trailer that Katie had spent her day in working. After a short time passed another vehicle pulled up in the parking lot, and manager Jim Macintosh waved at Joan and made his way through the fence and towards the trailer. A minute later, Jim was sprinting back towards the parking lot, where he told Joan that something had happened inside and that he needed to call the police. Joan rushed to the trailer and would walk upon the gruesome scene that Macintosh had just witnessed. Three bodies were laying face down on the floor, a pool of blood under them, and a bullet wound in the back of their head. One of those bodies belonged to her daughter.
Despite her grievous wound, Katie was still barely just alive and had a faint pulse. Unfortunately just minutes later, right before the ambulance would arrive, she would pass away in her mother’s arms.
A team of dozens of police officers and investigators would launch an investigation into the Triangle Murders, which claimed the lives of Katie Claypool, Frank Covington, and Eliza Mueller. The nickname of the crime came about from the repositioning of the bodies into a triangular shape on the floor of the office trailer.
In the weeks that followed, investigators would attempt to search for suspects, find out why the other two victims were on the site, and if and how the three knew each other. Answers to any of those questions would remain a mystery. Even after all this time, not much is known about the circumstances surrounding the triple murder. Several people were questioned, but no prime suspect ever was found. Links between the three victims were farfetched and circumstantial. What brought Covington and Mueller to the trailer of a construction company in a remote area is anyone’s guess. Whether only one of the victims was the intended target, or if all three were, or if the whole crime was completely random, is also completely unknown.
While clues and leads to the crime lead to a dead-end investigation, loved ones of the victims remain hopeful that one day justice will be found. Janie Claypool, Katie’s older sister, continues to post about her sister and seeks to bring attention back to the crime to this day. Frank Convington’s fiancé at the time contributed a sizable chunk of money as a reward for anyone who has information about the crime. This past weekend marking another anniversary of the crime going by without answers had the Claypools and Convington family spreading posters and flyers around the Fairfax community asking for help.
Anyone with information about the crime is encouraged to contact Fairfax Police.