New details are emerging in what the sheriff is calling a random home invasion murder of the mother of an up-and-coming country singer from rural Virginia, but members of the tight-knit community are still searching for answers as the suspect showed no warning signs until he appeared to snap out of the blue.

The Shenandoah Valley is an idyllic community known for its heritage and local landmarks – not for crime. But around midnight on Aug. 3, a 41-year-old Maryland man named Kevin Moses Walker broke into the home of Holly and Michael Hatcher, 62 and 65, armed with a knife. He killed Holly, a former teacher beloved by the local community, and fought with her husband until Michael retrieved a handgun from his vehicle and fired a single deadly shot into the intruder. 

It happened at the Hatcher family’s 19.4-acre property in Timberville, Virginia, near James Madison University and less than 5 miles from the landmark Endless Caverns, where the suspect took a tour and booked a campsite just days before the attack.

“Everybody knows a little bit of everybody over here,” said Mike Stewart, the general manager at Endless Caverns. “Everybody has questions.”

Michael Hatcher, left, seen with a bandage on his right forearm, discusses the attack with Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson in a still image taken from video. (Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office)

Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson said over the weekend that his oldest son had the victim as a schoolteacher and said previously the home invasion attack was unprecedented in his 31 years of law enforcement.

Walker lived in Pikesville, Maryland. Hutcheson said he had no known criminal record.

“I’ve heard a lot of you say that there are no words to explain this, and there aren’t – and there’s going to be questions that will never be answered,” Michael Hatcher said in a video posted by the sheriff’s office, in which he thanked law enforcement and the local community for their support. “But all I can tell you is, we’ve cried, we’ve hurt, we’ve hugged, and we have found more love than we have ever known has existed between us and between you. Thank you.”

Public records indicate Walker never owned a home and appears to have lived with family in the Baltimore suburb. Police said the vehicle was registered to him.

“We’d like to know what he came from and what his past was, but we’re just thankful that nothing really happened here (at the caverns),” Stewart said. “We’re grieving for our community and our neighbors.”

Holly Hatcher would have turned 63 on Tuesday. Stewart said the campground’s sign, visible from the family’s home nearby, would be illuminated in pink light in her honor after sundown.