Eric Witzig

Eric Witzig (M.S.’95/GPA) walked the streets of Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years as both a uniformed police officer and homicide detective. Some of his major cases included the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. and the 1982 crash of Air Florida’s Flight 90 into the frozen Potomac River. He continued his law enforcement career at the FBI in 1989, joining the bureau’s training division, where he worked in the Investigative Support Unit as a crime analyst and major case specialist. He was also an integral part of the bureau’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.

While at the FBI, Witzig enrolled in VCU’s graduate criminal justice program, then part of the College of Humanities and Sciences, taking his classes through the FBI Academy.

Witzig retired from the FBI after 24 years as a unit chief and supervisory intelligence analyst assigned to a special criminal investigation project. During his tenure, Witzig solved the murder of 81-year-old Fannie Whitney Byers of Carl, Georgia, through a records review of the ViCAP database he helped create. Although Georgia officials had arrested and charged two people for the murder, Witzig successfully linked the Byers homicide to Texas “Railroad Killer” Angel Maturino Resendiz, a serial killer believed responsible for 23 murders.

Witzig’s work continued during his retirement, as the vice chairman and founding director of the nonprofit Murder Accountability Project (MAP), which tracks unsolved homicides across the country.