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GameChanger [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:43
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that wonders who's buried in the grave of the guy that
00:01:49
invented the old Switcheroo ladies and gentlemen here is the captain yeah it's good to be seen good to see you thanks
00:01:56
for listening and thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are switching things up a bit
00:02:07
here we are still drinking fine beer from our friends at Fat Bottom Brewing Company but today we are going with
00:02:13
their other beer made for major league soccer in Nashville's own soccer club this delightful Brew is called pitch
00:02:20
Invasion this is a logger it's crisp it's clean it's delicious it's a traditional American logger with super
00:02:28
Crush ability ABV 4.5% garage grade 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise
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and thank yous to our good friends for helping us out with this week's show first up a big cheers to Regina in MAA
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Illinois and a big shout to Gwen and Alexandria Virginia here's a cheers to Fatma and Dearborn Michigan a big shout
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out to Jill and Elkart Indiana next we have Valenta and we also have Diane both who reside in beautiful Parts Unknown
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Swanson please and thank you because they along with everyone else we just mentioned here today well they went to
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True Crim garage.com and helped us out with this week's shows and for that we thank you yeah B are you in beer run how
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lights on keep the beers flowing and uh keep that paycheck coming into the colonel and Colonel that's enough of the
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business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:55
[Music] crime I don't need you it's [Music] me I you miss [Music] me most of us are used to driving on the
00:04:30
interstates and hardly give it a second thought but we should some of the nation's worst criminals including
00:04:36
serial killers prow those busy highways tonight news 13's Kim Holland is on special assignment to report on the
00:04:43
danger and a new weapon to fight it she was Somebody's Daughter most likely murdered and dumped in the harsh
00:04:52
New Mexico desert she still had a ribbon on her from a County Fair in Missouri and she wore handmade jewelry her bloody
00:04:59
body buried in a shallow grave two men on Horseback stumbled upon the body here in 1999 just outside of Grant the case
00:05:07
had grown cold so 10 years later in 2009 the FBI headed back out to the woman's grave site her body has never been
00:05:14
identified so we never found a wallet or any ID the interstate roadway system connects cities towns and communities
00:05:21
across the country allowing anyone with a vehicle to move quickly easily and anonymously because the New Mexico Jane
00:05:29
was found near Interstate 40 the FBI wondered if she could have been murdered by a serial killer we look at any
00:05:36
connection to the highway just this year the FBI utilized a new tool to try to crack the New Mexico case they entered
00:05:43
it into a program the agency created in 2004 all the cases in the database have one thing in common the victim or
00:05:51
suspect had some link to the interstate local law enforcement officers are able to submit violent crime cases involving
00:05:58
rape murder found human remains and suspicious kidnappings to the FBI the FBI then decides if the case should be
00:06:05
included in the database this map shows the more than 500 cases that are in the serial killing database the FBI and
00:06:12
officers across the country can search the system to see if any of the cases can be connected and traced back to a
00:06:18
serial killer often times interstates allow for a crime of opportunity for Killers who Target drug users
00:06:24
prostitutes and hitchhikers investigators for example will look for a link to a transient or or a truck
00:06:30
driver follow an interstate and you may find a death here more victims down the road and a killer at the end of the line
00:06:37
that's exactly what spurred the FBI's Highway serial killings database in 2004 investigators noticed patterns in up to
00:06:45
200 unsolved cases numerous prostitutes working truck stops had been killed and dumped mostly along I40 from Oklahoma
00:06:53
all the way to the east coast the feds along with local agencies linked a bunch of the cases and arrested Long Haul
00:06:59
trucker John Williams and his girlfriend at the time Rachel Cumberland for about
00:07:03
20 of the murders the FBI then realized Cas is not obviously related might be so
00:07:09
it created the highway serial killings database and opened it up to police and Sheriff's departments across the country
00:07:16
so every law enforcement agency now can look into the database put their cases in there modify their cases and do their
00:07:22
own searches and the system works agencies across the country with the help of the FBI have identified about
00:07:28
200 Suspects in nearly 600 unsolved cases since the database began detectives in New Mexico have solved two
00:07:35
of four cases in the database although it doesn't appear they're connected to a serial killer yet but they're still
00:07:41
looking for the killer of New Mexico's Jane Doe investigators hope the highway serial killers initiative will help
00:07:48
Crack the Case and bring a daughter back home to her family Kim Holland krq News
00:07:53
13 now if you would like to see the highway serial killers initiative map or check out the specific items found on
00:08:00
Jane Do's body go to our website at krqe.com [Music] I don't need you miss me if you go to fbi.gov and you go to
00:08:21
the category of seeking information you will find a report and a poster seeking information to help solve the murder of
00:08:31
Tammy J zwicki and I'm going to read some information from that poster I wish everybody will go to fbi.gov and view
00:08:41
that there and review that information this is a good review of everything that we covered here yesterday in the garage
00:08:48
Captain uh and it says that Tammy zwiki was found murdered in Lawrence County Missouri August 23rd
00:08:58
1992 and it has a picture of her 1985 Pontiac T1000 that she was driving that was a
00:09:06
white vehicle with New Jersey plates the description of our victim they have her
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listed as blonde hair height 5'2 in tall green eyes 120 lb and she was a Caucasian female there is a reward the
00:09:23
FBI is offering a reward for up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification of the individual or
00:09:31
individuals responsible for this crime and it gives us a little bit of a brief history in this report this says Z wiki
00:09:39
was reportedly last seen with her vehicle at mile marker 833 on Interstate 80 in Central Illinois between 310 p.m.
00:09:48
and 400 p.m. on August 23rd 1992 it was also reported that a tractor trailer was seen near Z Wiki's vehicle
00:09:57
during this time per period the driver of the tractor trailer is described as a white male between 35 and 40 years of
00:10:06
age over 6 feet tall with dark bushy hair some of the victim's personal property is known to be missing and I
00:10:14
want everybody to pay close attention to these items here because finding these items locating one of these items could
00:10:22
be the breadcrumb in the trail that we need to create to lead us to Tammy's killer so these missing items these are
00:10:30
known to be missing items include a Canon 35mm camera a musical wristatch the watch is Loris brand this one's very
00:10:42
interesting to me here Captain because this doesn't it's not a one-of-a-kind item but it's an item that I've never
00:10:48
heard of before so it must be somewhat rare right this wristwatch Loris brand l r u in case I'm not saying that corre
00:10:57
correctly but at the time that she went missing the watch played the tune Raindrops Keep
00:11:04
Falling on My Head that's interesting so this item would be of particular interest if anyone can locate an item
00:11:12
like that and why these are important cuz we know that a lot of killers like to keep items of their victims as
00:11:19
souvenirs might be some items that you would stumble upon your uncle's office or something where it
00:11:28
doesn't make sense for them to have these items now we went through The Disappearance yesterday we went through
00:11:33
all of the items in the timeline as and the details of the early investigation and what we have now here
00:11:44
Captain is we're kind of lost in the aftermath a little bit we have her parents her family who are searching for
00:11:51
answers we have investigators in three different agencies that we know of that are working the case we have Tammy's
00:12:00
parents Hank and Joanne who they appeared on a couple of different TV shows and radio shows trying to raise
00:12:08
awareness for their daughter's case they appeared on am Philadelphia and they also appeared on the opra Winfrey Show
00:12:16
and on the Oprah Winfrey Show they were focusing in on Highway murders of women we have a quote from Joanne her mother
00:12:24
who says as tough as it was emotionally to talk about we decided on lots of exposure to keep Tammy's story alive her
00:12:32
husband Hank added that they wanted to help take back America's highways then expressing his frustration at the slow
00:12:41
pace of the investigation at the time of the Oprah Winfrey Show he stated I just
00:12:46
want them to find the person who killed our daughter if they don't catch that son of a [ __ ] I don't know what I will
00:12:53
do yeah sad stuff now we have Joanne's sister Bonnie who says losing your kid is every parents worst nightmare she
00:13:02
said I just told Joanne hang in there if you let yourself fall apart the criminal
00:13:10
hasn't only taken one life but two or more and I understand the parents frustrations but these types of crimes
00:13:16
are very hard to investigate because we don't know exactly who was in that area or why they were in that area agreed and
00:13:24
this is very likely a stranger on Stranger crime and we're probably dealing with an individual that has the
00:13:31
ability to travel a great distance in a short period of time again the other problems with the investigation will be
00:13:39
that we don't know when exactly she was killed or where so we are missing at least one crime scene in this case we
00:13:48
have some more quotes from her mother Joanne and she says it's coming on one year so this is leading up to the oneye
00:13:56
very sad anniversary of their daughters first disappearance and then death right
00:14:01
she says it's coming up on a year still no results from the investigation but what can I do I have no faith in the FBI
00:14:09
or police in particular she is concerned about a recent loss of possible evidence
00:14:15
the evidence was this we have witnesses at a gas station near where Tammy's body
00:14:20
was found they reported seeing a truck and a trucker that might be could be linked to Tammy's case yet police who
00:14:29
initially said they had collected receipts from this gas station turns out that they never actually did and the
00:14:38
receipts were eventually thrown away Master Sergeant Harold Hendrickson of the Illinois State Police said the
00:14:45
oversight occurred because they were simply stretched too thin in this case like many others the victim's parents
00:14:54
take on this responsibility on themselves they don't trust the FBI they don't trust the police department so
00:15:00
they're going to start reaching out and trying to support other individuals that
00:15:04
have been through the same type of situation and trying to bring awareness to crimes of this nature the first of
00:15:12
these situations of giving back and being an advocate not only for their daughter but for other victims out there
00:15:19
to my knowledge Captain came before just the day before Tammy would have turned 22 years old when we have Joanne her
00:15:27
mother who stood before about 50 or so students she was a speaker for a talk sponsored by the South Jersey survivors
00:15:37
of violent crimes to have an impact to make people aware of Highway homicides in America of prevention of such crimes
00:15:45
and the role of police this would become a mission one that would soon blossom into other talks other support group
00:15:54
visits from Joanne and members of Tammy's family in Iowa a local private detective had
00:16:03
volunteered his services to Tammy's family this is former grenell police chief Jim ains he was investigating
00:16:13
trucking companies and their routes he and the police believed the likely killer of Tammy was a trucker because
00:16:21
Tammy's body was found a sufficient distance down the onramp to have been dumped from from the back of a truck so
00:16:31
this is really interesting here Captain because we got two angles to this Theory
00:16:35
right one angle is that because her body was transported such a great distance away in a somewhat relatively short
00:16:44
period of time it makes sense that the killer had the ability to do this and so therefore a trucker would fit this
00:16:54
scenario and could be a a possible occupation of our suspect yeah makes sense but they're going to double down
00:17:01
on this thought and this Theory this Jim aons who is saying that us and the police when we look at where her body
00:17:08
was located where where was actually found 14 ft from the side of that on ramp or offramp they're saying that it
00:17:17
if you took a truck and you lined it up to just where where it would meet to you
00:17:23
know get almost to the turn so we have a tractor trailer right the back of the trailer is about the
00:17:32
distance from where her body was found to where the vehicle would make the turn that makes sense so it almost like fit
00:17:40
perfectly right like it's almost like a puzzle piece when you're looking at this
00:17:45
crime scene of where her body was eventually located the private detective goes on to say that he also belied that
00:17:52
the murder may be responsible for other unsolved cases in that region he said I want nothing to do do with the reward I
00:18:00
just want to catch the guy I believe he's still out there and I think he's going to do it again now at the time of
00:18:07
that interview the private detective was referring to the $100,000 reward that was offered up by
00:18:15
an anonymous Pennsylvania donor to anyone with a tip that would help arrest and convict the murderer of Tammy zi
00:18:23
right as he had in the past her father Hank continued to feel that he was somewhat somehow partly responsible for
00:18:32
his daughter's fate because of the faulty car well so they've heard a lot of push back from the general public
00:18:41
right they've a little bit of victim blaming here saying you know why wasn't she driving a a safer vehicle a better
00:18:47
running vehicle why was she traveling alone and because she's a college student and you know how much College
00:18:54
cost well and not only that this this is here's the thing we don't don't need the
00:18:59
public to point that out to the parents of a dead child that when their child has been murdered they russle with all
00:19:06
these with all these thoughts and and second-guessing themselves and questioning everything they did every
00:19:13
day every day so we don't have to do that for them trust me th this is something that when when your child is
00:19:21
taken from you and when you're a loved one is killed especially a child that you you are supposed to be protecting
00:19:28
right that you're going to blame yourself you're going to blame things that you did or did not do through the
00:19:35
course of their lifetime and say constantly go what if I could have done this what if I maybe I should have done
00:19:42
this and this is just another example he's saying that he feels partly responsible for his daughter's fate
00:19:48
because he he raised her to be cautious with strangers saying that maybe if she had
00:19:54
been more of a free spirit or if I had raised her to be more of a free spirit then she would have just taken the first
00:20:00
ride that was available to her and got through the whole thing without a problem you know we did say that
00:20:07
multiple people according to Witnesses stopped that day so maybe the killer the abductor would seem to be one of the
00:20:16
last or the last person to stop and he's saying if I just would have raised her different and and taught
00:20:23
her to not be so cautious and worried about strangers then maybe she would have just taken the
00:20:28
first ride and just got in and maybe that wouldn't have been a problem it would have been somebody that would have
00:20:33
been okay for her to ride with but the the first person that stops could be the the murderer you know like I I I
00:20:41
understand what you're saying in this case it seems like a multiple people stop but there could be a situation
00:20:47
where the only person that does stop is somebody that's there to harm you EXA well exactly there's no correct answer
00:20:54
to these questions or these things that that eat these family members up of victims I mean this stuff eats at you
00:21:01
and he goes on to say in this article he said that what's so frustrating there are prostitutes and other kinds of women
00:21:07
in Crazy situations and they're still alive then there's a kid like Tammy someone you protected nurtured and
00:21:14
guided she worked hard went to school on a scholarship did all of the right things and someone takes her life it's
00:21:22
unfair totally wrong he says people talk about God and how he can contrs things well why did he let this happen right I
00:21:32
do want to go on to point out some of the better things here in regard to the family and and their thoughts you know
00:21:40
when when pressed with those types of questions why was she traveling alone the zis have said quote
00:21:50
tamy has incredibly good judgment she wouldn't get into a car with a stranger her mother pointed out Tammy Street
00:21:57
smarts adding that her daughter was a strong willed tough cookie who worked in many jobs throughout her life and keep
00:22:06
in mind she traveled to Spain on her own she was in another country for a semester less than a year before she is
00:22:16
abducted and killed right but um person with a knife or a person with a gun it's
00:22:22
a whole different scenario maybe she is the type of person that wouldn't have got in a car with a stranger but that
00:22:28
gun that knife told her otherwise agreed you may not have a a choice in the matter but what the family is pointing
00:22:37
out is they're saying what why would we have any concern of her traveling by herself right you know this is nothing
00:22:43
new to her she went to a whole another country by herself for aest well and as a parent at some point you have to let
00:22:50
go and let them Venture off into the world you can't protect them 24/7 yeah if your kid is 57 years old and you're
00:22:58
still a helicopter mom well there's other problems going on in that Dynamic yeah I mean you could put your child in
00:23:04
a bubble if you want Bubble Boy well let's get into some of the possible suspects because we do have suspects
00:23:12
that have been that we will recognize by name here so the first one is Clark Perry Baldwin he's a Long Hall trucker
00:23:22
from Iowa he was arrested in May of 2020 this after for forensic genealogy linked
00:23:29
his DNA to the 1990s era slangs of three different women women from Wyoming and Tennessee the De Moine register reported
00:23:42
that Clark Perry Baldwin h58 at the time was taken into custody at his waterl home after investigators linked his DNA
00:23:51
with Sean and other materials recovered from the victims uh two of whom were pregnant Baldwin worked as an over the
00:24:00
road truck driver for most of his career living in NASA and Waterloo Iowa and Springfield and Springfield Missouri in
00:24:11
1991 he was charged with raping a 21-year-old hitchhiker at gunpoint in Wheeling County Texas the woman told
00:24:19
police that Baldwin struck her on the head bound her hands and mouth and tried to choke her to death he allegedly
00:24:27
admitted to the assault but was released pending grand jury proceedings the charges were then dismissed after the
00:24:34
state was unable to locate the victim that's according to court documents well what else do we have on this giant pile
00:24:41
of donkey turds we'll go back to the register for this next bit which says the 1990s murders Baldwin is accused of
00:24:50
include the 91 murders in Tennessee of 32-year-old Pamela Rose McCall and her unborn fet
00:24:58
Pamela was last seen at a Tennessee truck stop days before she was found in the woods off of Interstate 65 in Spring
00:25:06
Hill Tennessee she was located in March of 91 an autopsy determined she had neck
00:25:12
injuries and died of strangulation sperm was recovered from panty hose that she was wearing in
00:25:20
Wyoming Baldwin was charged in the deaths of two women whose bodies were found in
00:25:26
1992 the bodies were found roughly 400 mil apart the women were never identified unfortunately and are
00:25:35
referred to as Bitter Creek Betty and I90 Jane do all these crimes are going to be linked through codus and forensic
00:25:44
genealogy was conducted to lead detectives and investigators to Baldwin according to investigators they
00:25:53
had always suspected that a truck driver killed the three women women in all three cases here we learned captain that
00:26:01
investigators zeroed in on Baldwin after finding DNA in commercial genealogy databases of someone related to this
00:26:10
suspect to his profile uh court documents State this now we had waterl FBI who secretly collected DNA from
00:26:18
Baldwin's trash and a shopping cart he used at a Walmart and testing revealed that we have a match got him and
00:26:26
according to CBS News investigators from multiple States this after we've already
00:26:32
figured out boom this guy is a long haul trucker and boom he's a serial killer investigators from multiple states
00:26:40
started looking into whether Baldwin could be responsible for several other unsolved homicides and we have
00:26:48
detectives with the Iowa division of criminal investigation that stated we are looking at any connections that
00:26:54
Baldwin may have had to other code cases right one case involves the 1992 death of tamy Joe zi age 21 an Iowa college
00:27:04
student who was last seen after her car broke down on Interstate 80 in Illinois so investigators from multiple states
00:27:12
are looking at looking at this Clark Perry Baldwin for possible involvement in any of their unsolved Highway
00:27:20
killings good news here they have his DNA they've already connected his DNA to multiple cases that we know of
00:27:29
unfortunately shortly unfortunately recently what we learned here Captain is that while they
00:27:37
were looking at Baldwin in the case of Tammy Joe zwiki they have recently backed away
00:27:44
from that idea now I have seen it reported that DNA evidence has proven that he's not the
00:27:53
perpetrator of Tammy's murder however it's it's a little inconclusive I've not seen anything to back that
00:28:00
statement up I've only found that in one location so I'm a little I'm a little sketchy of that being the
00:28:09
absolute in this case but it would make sense knowing that they do have his DNA right we should note though that the
00:28:16
case that kicked off all of these different stories that we've reviewed this week and last week is the unsolved
00:28:24
murder of Kristen Schmidt we should note that Baldwin was a free man driving around this country when Kristen Schmidt
00:28:32
was killed he wasn't apprehended until 2020 maybe not responsible for murdering Tammy but possibly responsible for
00:28:41
murdering [Music] [Music] [Music] Kristen this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
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[Music] that all right we are back cheers mates we have no bad edits ever ever but we've had a couple people
00:31:04
complaining saying that they're listening to the show and it's like repeating lines so you want to make sure
00:31:10
that one you're subscribed to that you're downloading the episodes or that you're listening through Wi-Fi if you're
00:31:17
not and it loses signal it will rebuffering as you're streaming so that's why you're probably hearing lines
00:31:29
repeated so you want to make sure that you subscribe download or listen to the show through WiFi thank you so much for
00:31:38
that this is going to lead us to a case where the highway serial killer initiative by the FBI provided
00:31:45
information that assisted local law enforcement with homing in on a killer a killer trucker this takes place in 2007
00:31:55
when Sergeant Pat postigo own a veteran homicide investigator with the Nashville
00:32:01
Police Department had a case in which a 25-year-old sex worker named Sarah hbert
00:32:07
was found on June 26 2007 her body was found behind a truck stop in Nashville Tennessee she had been shot with a 22
00:32:17
caliber gun and a plastic bag fastened over her head with electrical tape just 3 weeks
00:32:24
earlier on June 6th 48-year-old Samantha winters also a sex worker had been found
00:32:31
in a trash can at the Pilot Travel Center on Highway 231 in Lebanon Tennessee she was also shot with a22
00:32:42
caliber and her head was bagged as well now on a hunch our detective called the FBI and
00:32:51
learned that sure enough there were a number of recent cases in which sex workers were found dead along highways
00:32:59
in the states of Georgia and Tennessee and they all had been shot with a 22 caliber gun so our detective
00:33:07
and his partner spent hundreds of hours reviewing videotaped footage from the truck stop from the night that Sarah
00:33:15
disappeared checking out all the big rigs that came in and out and looking for anything
00:33:22
suspicious they noted one yellow truck that parked and departed within a third 30 minute window so very short for a
00:33:29
typical trucker stop they put out a be on the lookout for the truck purely on Instinct and the next day our detective
00:33:40
found that truck at a truck stop near an area known to be frequented by sex workers so he goes up to the truck
00:33:48
knocks on the cab we get a generic looking white man that comes out of the truck his name was Bruce mendenhal now
00:33:55
this is from the LA time quote his shirt was unbuttoned and he wore no shoes as postly own that's our detective sized
00:34:04
him up he said he noticed a speck of Blood on the man's thumb and what he thought were several corresponding drops
00:34:12
on the driver's door of the truck menend and Hall calmly agreed to submit to a DNA swab and signed a consent form
00:34:20
granting the detective permission to search his truck guess what they found in the truck a thong some whipped cream
00:34:27
and a nine iron a cell phone an ATM card that did not belong to him in fact it belonged to a 31-year-old mother of two
00:34:36
who had gone missing from a truck stop near Indianapolis just 12 hours earlier he
00:34:43
also found bloody women's clothing in a plastic bag gun cartridges a rifle tape a night stick latex gloves handcuffs sex
00:34:55
toys and more than three 300 items of what was listed as items of Interest they found blood or DNA that would link
00:35:05
him to five victims linking him to at least five female victims this all located inside his truck and that is not
00:35:15
the worst of it you think it can't get worse than anything that these two garage yahoos have already listed for me
00:35:22
no it does because they found a piece of cutout flesh containing the tattoo of what would turn
00:35:30
out to be one of his victims so he does had a random piece of Flesh that had a tattoo on it as a souvenir yeah who
00:35:37
knows I'm not going to try to get inside his mind I don't think this is a um Jane
00:35:43
Gum situation Buffalo Bill situation where he's creating a skin suit this to me might be we've seen this in some
00:35:50
other cases where a killer will in the hopes of the victim not being able to be identified will remove a tattoo by
00:36:01
cutting off the flesh where the tattoo is on the body and so that appears to be what he did here either to deter
00:36:12
investigators make it more difficult for them to identify the victim or as you said who knows this could just be some
00:36:21
kind of sick weird souvenir that he kept for any number of disgusting reasons now
00:36:29
fortunately he's picked up by this good detective who not lazy not stupid did all the extra work did all the smart
00:36:37
stuff and got this monster off of our highways and in 2010 this Bruce Manden hall guy was convicted of first-degree
00:36:46
murder he was sentenced to life in prison he eventually confessed to killing Six Women these were women who
00:36:53
had last been seen near truck stops in Tennessee Indiana Georgia and Alabama we prefer the smart not stupid not lazy
00:37:04
police officers but on the flip side of that Captain we prefer stupid and lazy criminals so listen to this because when
00:37:12
this Bruce menen Hall while he's awaiting trial yeah he digs himself a little bit
00:37:19
deeper right by offering to pay two other inmates to kill three Witnesses who were scheduled to testify against
00:37:28
him what a dumbass now police catch on to this as well this ends up earning men and Hall a conviction for conspiracy to
00:37:36
commit murder and an additional 30 years test run on the blood that was found in
00:37:43
men and Hall's truck showed that it belonged to Leticia milikin a 28-year-old drug addicted transient from
00:37:51
Tennessee lria was reported missing in June of 201 seven her family hadn't heard from her in some time now blood
00:38:02
links him to her disappearance unfortunately she has never been located her body has never been found so he's
00:38:11
he's a scumbag but how would he be connected to smid's case or Zu Wiki's case well the of course the
00:38:20
obvious answer here is that he's a Long Haul truck driver and in both situations
00:38:25
that is where the investigation is taking investigators so mhm he's reportedly a suspect in multiple other
00:38:34
murders keep in mind men and Hall was a trucker for 18 years who knows how many women he could have killed during that
00:38:42
time period we know that he's guilty of six um he's suspected in several other homicides one of those is in fact Tammi
00:38:51
zawicki our grenell college student that was found stabbed to death in 92 the one
00:38:57
that we spent the majority of yesterday talking about now this report here states that menen Hall is the prime
00:39:07
suspect in Tammy's murder and I think that part of this is because he was based in Illinois this is where Tammy
00:39:15
went missing from the last known location of where Tammy was before she was later found killed but it's
00:39:23
interesting to me here captain that on several news Outlets we find that Bruce menen Hall is listed as the prime
00:39:32
suspect in Tammy Za Wiki's case and I'm not doubting those sources I'm simply pointing out that if
00:39:41
you go to other news outlets they actually suggest that another guy is the prime suspect in Tammy's murder now
00:39:50
menen Hall has a few nasty monikers and and is known by the names of the truck stop killer the rest stop killer and the
00:40:01
prosty shooter now those names aren't cool but his name should be more like wrinkly balls panty sniffer killer he
00:40:11
was not picked up until 2007 and as we just stated he is listed by some news outlets as the prime suspect in Tammy's
00:40:21
case but because he was not arrested until 2007 Christ Schmidt could possibly be one of his victims although the
00:40:31
caveat here with Bruce menal being the perpetrator of Kristen's murder is that he was not known to travel to the
00:40:41
Pacific Northwest so we don't have anything directly linking him to Oregon where she was picked up now some
00:40:51
words from the great Detective Pat poig Leone who retired from Nashville homicide after 25 years on the force and
00:41:03
was the one to crack the case that ultimately took down this trucker serial killer Bruce mendenhal he said quote
00:41:12
there's evil out there unfortunately I wish that wasn't the case but there's real evil out there there's true evil
00:41:20
and it lurks everywhere you have to really be aware of your surroundings Bruce menen Hall did not have killer
00:41:27
printed on his forehead you would walk past him in a grocery store and not look twice at him just said stupid this is
00:41:35
going to bring us to another suspect in Tammy's case a short list of suspects which included the name of a man named
00:41:45
Lonnie beard bro this man was detained and interviewed just two months after Tammy's body was found Lonnie then was
00:41:54
Lonnie then was 32 years old he had served some time in prison 9 years for two counts of armed robbery he received
00:42:01
concurrent 20-year sentences but they were significantly reduced unfortunately yes and what this points out though is a
00:42:09
History of Violence or violent crimes committed by this individual right now I don't know how Cooperative he was with
00:42:18
their investigation or during the course of these interviews that took place two
00:42:22
months after Tammy's body was found the reports do State captain that he did give or was forced to give hair samples
00:42:31
and fingerprints but today what we learn is that investigators are saying the problem with that is great he gave
00:42:41
us hair samples and fingerprints but we don't have a whole lot of physical evidence in this case right there wasn't
00:42:48
a whole lot of physical evidence found with Tammy's body and authorities didn't know where the crime scene was or even
00:42:55
when the murder had taken taken place so again we're missing that other crime scene we were missing the location where
00:43:01
she was killed and we know she was killed due to being stabbed but law enforcement has never recovered the
00:43:10
murder weapon right so there's not a lot that we're working with here now they had to let this Lonnie beard
00:43:21
Brook go right because they don't have any evidence directly connecting him to Tammy's murder and when they did even
00:43:28
though they liked him a lot they didn't make they didn't make his name public at
00:43:33
that time now this his story is is really interesting in the way that it's all tied up in with Tammy's case and
00:43:41
this is why I kind of question those other outlets that say Bruce mendenhal is the prime suspect in Tammy's case
00:43:49
right because we have one witness that doubles down on that doubles down on on this lawny person being a good suspect
00:43:58
so in January of 1993 right Tammy was killed in '92 we have a nurse we'll just refer to her as a nurse her husband was
00:44:09
a judge okay so that adds to some credibility here on her part she calls the State Police in regard to Tammy's
00:44:18
case she's calling for the second time this is January of 93 she's calling for the second time the first time she
00:44:26
called her first call was made shortly after Tammy went missing this woman witnessed Tammy on the side of the road
00:44:35
on the side of Interstate 80 she had given a description of a man that she said she saw standing with Tammy on that
00:44:42
day in that question in that in that time that's in question in her second call she said that the man she saw had
00:44:51
came into her clinic so she sees a guy with tamy on the day that Tammy goes missing she
00:45:00
reports this shortly after Tammy goes missing to police now she's on the phone a second time months later in January
00:45:08
because she's going oh yeah you know the guy that I told you I saw standing with
00:45:12
Tammy that day he's in my office right now right it's the same guy so I couldn't provide you with a name before
00:45:20
to go track this guy down and interview him but today I know his name because he's in my clinic
00:45:26
there he is got him so she identified him to police as Lonnie beard bro and this man
00:45:34
was from Missouri uh who had family in the lale area so think about this he has family
00:45:42
in the general area of where she goes missing right he also has ties to the area the general area where she's found
00:45:50
well that's kind of difficult considering that they're 490 miles apart that's a tough coincidence to get
00:45:58
over when you have this guy that you can now interview yeah that's a real quinky
00:46:03
dink I don't know how aggressively police pursued him there's some reports out there that say that they they may
00:46:11
not have taken some of these calls as seriously as they should have I don't want to go too far down that road
00:46:17
because I don't know the details of of such well also sometimes they're just underst staff what we what we do have
00:46:24
today when we look back on the case is detectives saying that they think several things in regard to this witness
00:46:33
her statements and Lonnie as a potential suspect so detectives say one the nurse
00:46:40
we believe her to be a credible witness and on top of that they find her statement her witness statement extra
00:46:49
valuable and they let it carry a little more weight because they say one she knows the time time that she saw Tammy
00:46:57
and this is based off of fact because she had just left a McDonald's restaurant just swung through the
00:47:05
drive-thru picked up some McDonald's and she had her receipt which was timestamped and she said that she went
00:47:13
to the McDonald's shortly before she saw Tammy and the man that she described standing with Tammy so we have we don't
00:47:22
have somebody looking back and going oh I think it was on that day that the girl
00:47:26
went missing no we have a date and a time stamp that puts this witness in the area yeah it confirms the time and
00:47:34
exactly exactly so according to investigators when they start looking into this Lonnie guy [ __ ]
00:47:41
bag [ __ ] face supposedly he's on vacation from his truck driving job he's also a trucker when Tammy went missing
00:47:50
he's supposedly on vacation at this time now his wife says well he couldn't have
00:47:55
picked up Tammy and killed her because he was at home with me in Missouri again where they live is not terribly far from
00:48:04
where Tammy's body was found the other thing too is they figured out that this Lonnie character
00:48:10
once owned a green Dotson truck the one that a bunch of eyewitnesses thought they saw yeah so we have this tractor
00:48:18
trailer truck that's seen and we'll we'll we've provided a description for that and we'll look to put some pictures
00:48:24
on our social media of this tractor trailer truck that they were looking for information on but we also had this
00:48:31
witness that said they saw a green Dotson truck I'm assuming that that witness is the same as the nurse I don't
00:48:39
know that for certain but we do know that at least one witness said they saw this green Dotson truck Lonnie happened
00:48:46
to own one at the time that Tammy went missing and oh by the way uh police later find out that he cleaned it steam
00:48:55
cleaned it and sold the truck shortly after Tammy's body was found surprise surprise it seems like there's a pile of
00:49:04
evidence piling up on this pile of [ __ ] that there is and in fact there's at least one detective uh retired now
00:49:14
that's on record with several news outlets saying look he Lonnie beer broad was our Prime Suspect I believe that he
00:49:24
is guilty of killing Tammy he thinks that the case is solvable so much so that he says that he thinks that there
00:49:31
is enough that they could lay out there to the public to convince everyone that they could go ahead and close out the
00:49:38
case now what's interesting to me is let's find some more evidence on this guy I I don't want to just close
00:49:46
something out it'd be nice to get some DNA connecting this guy one problem though is Lonnie passed away in
00:49:54
2002 another very strange thing in the lon being a suspect situation is it's been reported I I've
00:50:04
not seen any names linking this or really tying down this fact a little bit better or putting a bow on it but it's
00:50:13
been reported that he gave a watch that was similar or damn near the same as the one that was missing from
00:50:23
Tammy and from her car when she was found killed the plays The Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head that
00:50:31
he gave a watch to somebody that he knew I believe a a family member gave this as
00:50:37
a gift again I don't think that that's a one-of-a-kind item but I think we all can agree here in the garage that that
00:50:43
seems like a rather unique item yeah very unique that there's maybe not 100 million of them out there unique New
00:50:51
York and so that seems like there's less than 100 million of them yes it seems like that's an awfully big coincidence
00:50:59
to to kind of get over that's a big hurdle to get over and not connect him to Tammy's case now quinky dink now we
00:51:08
don't have anything linking him to christen's case I know we went through several individuals and in
00:51:16
fact we could have spent a whole year going through this FBI's Highway serial killer initiative once you start looking
00:51:23
at all the suspected serial killers looking at all their victims looking at each of the actual trucker serial
00:51:31
killers that came up and I still think that that is going to be how they track down Kristen Schmid's killer
00:51:43
that is going to be the Avenue that leads them to Kristen Schmid's killer I think it's a very solvable case me too I
00:51:51
think Tammy's case is very solvable and in a lot lot of ways I'm rather pissed off that Tammy's case isn't solved it
00:52:00
seems like there was a lot of meat on the bone there a lot to work with and if maybe certain people at certain agencies
00:52:06
would have just acted a little quicker maybe we wouldn't find ourselves in this situation the situation is this we are
00:52:15
just a month away from the 30-year anniversary of when Tammy was taken and killed a long time has passed but that's
00:52:23
too long without any answers that's too long without any justice well and then double down on that here Captain because
00:52:30
next year in June of next year will be 20 years since Kristen Schmidt was killed now back to Kristen's case we
00:52:42
posed a series of questions on the unsolved murder of Kristen Schmidt to the Oregan State
00:52:50
Police one of them was in reference to a 2015 article and the LR Observer which reports that
00:52:58
police have identified a suspect and a person of interest several years ago but no arrest have been made the Oregon
00:53:06
State Police would not answer our questions about that person or persons but it's worth noting that the OSP
00:53:15
detective Greg Rutherford told the Observer that investigators believe Kristen fell victim to a serial killer
00:53:23
saying quote we suspect it was a serial killer because of the method of death the killer appeared to be experienced he
00:53:32
said that there were details about the manner of death that they were keeping close to the vest because only the
00:53:38
killer would know them then da Martin burn bomb told the East Oregonian way back in 2003 quote they're
00:53:48
running test to try to find out if there's any DNA that can be salvaged from Kristen and guess what they do do
00:53:58
do have DNA from Kristen's killer that's awesome they were able to extract a profile from the sexual assault kit and
00:54:07
some blood found on Kristen right we don't know why the killer was bleeding perhaps Kristen scratched him hopefully
00:54:14
she fought like hell and clawed him damn near to death or perhaps he cut himself
00:54:19
hitting her or on a weapon that has not been disclosed by police the OSP would not tell us when we asked this question
00:54:29
but good news the two samples yielded one consistent DNA profile the OSP told us in an email suspect profile DNA was
00:54:38
loaded into cotus early on and to date there have been no suspect hits from cotus but the agency also told us
00:54:48
something else here is the email exchange True Crime garage what is the current status of the investigation are
00:54:54
you considering the use of forensic genealogy answer forensic genealogy testing is pending for suspect DNA
00:55:03
identification pending to us it sounds as though the DNA profile from Kristen Skiller has been submitted for forensic
00:55:10
genealogy analysis right and we might have some answers soon as to who killed this young woman I'm hoping that the
00:55:18
same thing is happening in Tammy's case and that we are only days weeks maybe even a couple of months away from
00:55:27
solving one if not both of these horrific [Music] murders I you [Music] me fascinating stuff thank you so much
00:55:53
for joining us here here and let us enter your earballs for another couple hours Colonel do you have any
00:56:01
recommended reading for the beautiful listeners we'd like to recommend Ginger strand's book killer on the road
00:56:08
violence and the American Interstate Ginger strand set out to write a book about the interstate highway system but
00:56:16
became so taken with the number of murders that the project morphed into a study on Highway homicides and the
00:56:22
suspects who commit them check out out killer on the road violence in the American Interstate you can find that
00:56:29
great title and many more great recommendations on true Crim garage.com recommended page and make sure you
00:56:36
follow us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook we appreciate it until next week be good be kind and don't
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