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00:01:42
welcome to True crb garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:48
as always is a man that likes big trucks and he cannot lie ladies and gentlemen the captain big truck it's good to be
00:01:55
seing and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music]
00:02:05
today we are chilling and swilling some tropical beer hug from Goose Island this
00:02:11
is a double dry hopped double IPA that grabs you like a big bear hug plus I love the notes of mango pineapple and
00:02:19
Peach and like Christopher Cross said it's good for me good for you four out of five bottle caps and here are some
00:02:26
folks deserving of a big beer hug themselves first up we have aah from Boston and a big cheers to Matthew and
00:02:34
Floyd Virginia next up we have a cheers to John sitting somewhere on top of Meritt Island Florida and a big we like
00:02:41
you JP to Melissa in Lincoln Nebraska next up a big cheers to pamila and Danville PA and last but certainly not
00:02:48
least we have Olga that's Olga B and Parts Unknown everyone we just mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer
00:02:55
run by going to our website and helping us out with this week's beer fund yeah BW are you in beer run thank you so much
00:03:03
for supporting the show but if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs
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don't be a finger sniffer go to Stitcher premium.com and sign up or you can go to
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our website True Crime garage.com and click on the off the Record link and Colonel Captain Colonel finger sniffer
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that is enough the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true cry
00:03:30
[Music] [Music] on True Crime garage yesterday we started off by talking about the still
00:03:54
unsolved 2003 homicide of 22-year-old Kristen Schmidt from California and then the creation of the FBI's Highway serial
00:04:04
killer initiative is where we left off a lot of what we will be covering in today's show is information collected
00:04:12
from and found on the FBI's website fbi.gov and we left off by talking about vulnerable victims living high-risk
00:04:22
Lifestyles getting picked up and later found a great distance away and then discovered to be victim of a homicide
00:04:30
the FBI website points out these types of cases are very difficult to investigate the US interstate highway
00:04:39
system began in 1956 it incorporates 47,000 mes of roadway that's a lot of ground to cover the mobile nature of the
00:04:49
offenders the unsafe lifestyles of the victims the significant distance and multiple jurisdictions involved and the
00:04:57
scarcity of witnesses referring forensic evidence can make these cases incredibly
00:05:03
tough to solve a long haul trucker can pick up a sex worker at a truck stop in Georgia rape and murder her and dump her
00:05:11
body on the side of the road in Florida later that same day the victim has no connection to the area where she is
00:05:18
found and there is no forensic evidence to collect because the crime scene is long gone the inside of the truck where
00:05:26
she was killed if the trucker keeps the deceased victim with him for a day or two he can dumper her literally 1,000
00:05:34
mil or more from any place either of them where last scene as a long haul trucker he may even be familiar with the
00:05:42
most remote places to discard his prey uring he will never be found and his truck will be just one of thousands of
00:05:51
anonymous big rigs passing by on interstates all over the country on any given day it will be nearly impossible
00:05:59
to track further the victims are often transient and sometimes are not missed when they vanish because they aren't
00:06:06
rooted to any one place many of them are drug addicted and are weary of law enforcement often they are disinclined
00:06:14
to report violence inflicted on them so the culprits are even more difficult to catch well they're also trained to
00:06:22
travel large distances the highway serial killer initiative website contains a fairly horrifying map of the
00:06:30
United States this has red dots on it depicting where each of more than 750 murder victims have been found along US
00:06:40
highways in every state but Hawaii the eastern half of the country has the most dots well that makes sense but the area
00:06:49
where Kristen Schmidt was taken Portland Oregon has its own little cluster of red
00:06:55
dots the website says that the FBI list of suspect truckers now numbers nearly 450 now this is really interesting quote
00:07:04
the analysts also began to develop a detailed timeline on many of the suspects the information obtained from
00:07:11
company logs gas station receipts and other records this would be some of the stuff that we talked about yesterday
00:07:18
Captain such as the way station records and then we also have digital toll records such as easy pass as well will
00:07:25
help pinpoint where a suspect was when murders were committed Christine palalo elaborated quote it is not unusual for a
00:07:34
driver to pass through five or even seven states in one day the amount of ground they cover and the lack of any
00:07:42
connection to where they're passing through makes it difficult to tie the cases back to them end quote but of
00:07:49
course that's exactly what makes tracking these guys so difficult as pointed out in a USA Today article from
00:07:56
2010 stopping crime at the thousands of rest areas truck stops and travel plazas
00:08:01
remains difficult in part that's because the responsibility for policing rest areas varies from state to state that
00:08:09
often means no consistent records are kept about the rate of crimes and no single agency takes ownership for
00:08:16
fighting it but these crimes also are difficult to stop because of the location of the rest areas along major
00:08:23
roadways that makes getting away easy just jump onto an interstate and speed off well think about your own driving
00:08:30
history I mean just to drive a state away can be a chore sometimes and and these individuals like she was saying
00:08:38
can go three four five states away within a day no problem the other issue here is when we're not able to identify
00:08:47
the victims yeah either they're not easily identifiable or we're just not able to identify them because they're
00:08:54
several states away when they were picked up alive and well and Kristen Schmid case we got lucky that we have
00:09:01
the eyewitness who sees the big rig but also we get lucky because they find an ID they find identification in her
00:09:09
backpack in many of these other cases in fact many many of the other victims found along the nation's highways are
00:09:17
found with no identifying papers or marks whatsoever well let's think about that for a second let's say we weren't
00:09:24
able to identify Kristen as far as her family knows she's going to go visit her long-distance boyfriend in Colorado this
00:09:32
is she's found in a whole separate State chances are they wouldn't be able to put
00:09:38
two and two together in that 2010 article from the USA Today where Michael herrian the special agent who oversaw
00:09:46
this task force says that you know part of the problem here too for investigators is that they have at that
00:09:54
time anyway more than 80 cases in which authorities couldn't identify the remains that are found or recovered only
00:10:03
body parts in fact he references a barow case from 2010 February of 2010 where a woman's severed head was
00:10:14
found in a backpack a few hundred yards from a truck stop just off of Interstate
00:10:19
15 not far from I40 but police had no idea who she was Baro Jane Doe remains un identified to
00:10:30
this day the main way in which they're helping with this task force is to be able to connect these cases with smaller
00:10:38
departments well it it's kind of the reverse of that they're helping smaller departments local smaller departments
00:10:46
and agencies connect their case to a case somewhere else in the nation right so somewhere on the national level yeah
00:10:54
because what they're thinking here if you follow the victim ology as well as the modus operandi of this type of
00:11:02
killer it would be generally believed that a local agency would recover a body find a homicide victim but then they
00:11:12
have no clues to really even take their investigation any steps forward toward getting it solved and once the local
00:11:21
agency can conclude that well we don't have anything to follow up on here we don't really have any investigation
00:11:28
because we don't know much about the victim where they're from or the crime scene we don't have anything to
00:11:34
investigate well let's put this on the highway serial killer initiatives website on their
00:11:41
database and let's look for similar types of crimes you know if you find something that's very specific that
00:11:48
matches up with the victim you found well you might have a match here and if we can take that a step forward now
00:11:55
we're going to go okay well who could have been let's say your your victim your crime
00:12:01
seems to match up with 15 other almost identical crimes throughout the United States right that you you locate them
00:12:10
off of this database well then you're going to go there's only a certain number of people
00:12:15
that could have been in all 15 of those locations given those dates and times when the bodies were recovered and now
00:12:24
you have a pool of people a much smaller pool of people it could be five six 10 15 people to look at that even had the
00:12:33
possibility to be connected to all of those crimes then you can look at it on a smaller basis of well who could be
00:12:41
connected to a percentage of those crimes basically it's the idea of hoping to lead you to a a suspect B the crime
00:12:51
scene if in fact the victim was killed inside the truck the mobile crime scene so one thing that they can do the local
00:13:00
law enforcement agencies the smaller agencies not only can they upload their information about their victim and put
00:13:07
it on this database but also the website allows them to search for different things like for
00:13:14
example manner of death circumstances whether the victim were sexually assaulted or not other
00:13:22
specifics about the case yeah it's pretty fascinating we've referenced vicap on this show many times we've also
00:13:30
mentioned the more local databases that exist like here in Ohio we have the Attorney General's website that list
00:13:38
Ohio Cold Case homicides unsolved homicides in the state of Ohio sadly there are many unsolved homicides in the
00:13:47
state of Ohio that are missing from that database because in all of these situations with these databases it is up
00:13:55
to the local authorities the local agency to to submit the information that they have on their Cold Case or their
00:14:03
unsolved homicide for whatever reason sometimes the agency just does not pass along that information they do not
00:14:11
upload their information to these databases and I think that that's a one it's a poopy thing it's a slight on the
00:14:19
victims yeah it's I believe a miscarriage of Justice it's a godamn shame well it's something small that
00:14:27
they can do that takes very little time and effort and costs very little Manpower or dollars to do and look at
00:14:36
what happened with the Sam little case look at how many homicides were solved using this method word it's a tried and
00:14:45
true method it's not going to work all the time it's not even going to work a high percentage of the time but it does
00:14:51
work and the thing a question that I'm often asked how do you put up with the captain Nick why were the serial killer
00:14:57
numbers so much higher higher in the 60s and 70s and 80s rather than what we see
00:15:04
today well the short answer is one serial killers are not racking up these types of numbers because of Technology
00:15:13
this is part of it these monsters are being identified faster because of technology and communication much better
00:15:22
communication between jurisdictions and all kinds of uh law enforcement agencies
00:15:27
be it on the federal level state level county level City level what have you there's better communication today that
00:15:34
catches and apprehends these guys faster it's not that we have less monsters out
00:15:39
there it's just we're getting better from technology and communication at catching them faster so you don't have a
00:15:46
Ted Bundy that goes out kills 15 or 20 people M instead you have a Ted Bundy that kills one or two women and then
00:15:53
he's apprehended and he gets to spend the rest of his life in prison so all you're saying is the there's still just
00:15:59
as many pieces of [ __ ] there's piles and piles of [ __ ] but we're catching those
00:16:05
people after their first crime or second crime faster we're getting we're getting
00:16:10
to them faster than they can rack up victims all right calm down Colonel sassy pants well like you're saying this
00:16:16
is a simple task that they could do and I go back to what you like to say uh lazy or stupid seems like this falls
00:16:24
into the lazy category well part of it though too I think is unclear to these agencies right who is the designated
00:16:32
person that is supposed to upload this information or provide this information to these different databases in a lot of
00:16:39
cases I'm guessing we don't have a a chief of police or a sheriff that has delegated that responsibility to one
00:16:46
individual or even gone as far to tell the lead investigator this is part of your
00:16:53
investigation and so I'm I'm reaching out there to all the good lead investigators out there and asking them
00:17:01
please please submit this information to these different databases it could very
00:17:06
well help you on your case or think about this could help somebody else out one of your fellow women or boys and
00:17:15
blue somewhere else in another jurisdiction solve one of their cases at the very least it gives the families
00:17:23
some form of hope it's a different tool a different tactic to use and it's the right thing to do for your victim now
00:17:30
the highway serial killer initiative isn't just a data point collection website the crime Analyst at vicap
00:17:39
continually monitor the site for new cases that they think might be the work of serial killer Truckers when they get
00:17:48
one they reach out to the local agency working the case and connect them with others who have similar crimes in their
00:17:55
areas then they assist the local agencies with trying to track suspects who should be looked at helping them
00:18:03
obtain Trucking records and teaching them how to track certain suspects the FBI's website states that this
00:18:09
initiative was supported by the trucking industry yeah and the thing here it's it's the FBI going out of its way as we
00:18:16
did in yesterday's episode saying that we're not we didn't come up with this idea to just say all truckers are bad
00:18:24
people all of them are serial killers no that couldn't be further from the truth
00:18:29
now whether or not the it's a very very very very small percentage incredibly small
00:18:35
percentage whether or not the highway serial killer initiative is an insult to truckers the program has allegedly
00:18:43
helped solve a number of sexual assaults and murders attributed to truckers the website claims that the program has
00:18:51
resulted in the arrest of 10 male Long Haul truckers collectively responsible for 30 murders in its first four years
00:18:59
of operation and it reports that at least 25 Long Haul truckers are in prison in the US for serial murder well
00:19:08
what about the initial investigation that kind of kicked this off with uh investigator Terry Turner yeah Terry
00:19:15
Turner is the one that kind of discovered this series of women series of victims that she believed were
00:19:20
connected this ultimately became the Genesis of this whole initiative the series of women and murders that she was
00:19:27
investigating these were women that were dumped along Interstate 40 fast forward
00:19:32
to today we know that the these crimes were solved and the killer was indeed a trucker John Robert Williams age 28 was
00:19:41
arrested along with his girlfriend for the murder of a sex worker they kidnapped from a casino in Mississippi
00:19:49
Nikki Hill was the victim she was found dumped along a royal County Road Williams girlfriend was worried that
00:19:55
they had been seen leaving the casino with the victim so she called police and pretended that they had found the body
00:20:03
under interrogation the couple's story collapsed and Williams confessed to that murder and many other murders this is
00:20:11
from an article from the Toledo Blade dated August 11 2007 written by Robin herb it says from a sweltering
00:20:22
Mississippi prison earlier this week a long haul trucker admitted that he killed a for former Toledo woman and
00:20:30
more than 30 others authorities said John Robert Williams confirmed what any homicide detective knows all too well
00:20:37
truck stop prostitutes are easy to kill Captain Clark fine and Lieutenant Roger Co of Indiana's Hendrick County
00:20:46
Sheriff's Office interviewed Williams who is being held in a supermax unit of the Parchman Mississippi prison they
00:20:53
were investigating the death of Buffy Ray Broly a 27-year-old Toledo woman whose partially clothed body was found
00:21:01
March 24th 2004 in a desolate parking lot about 10 mil outside of Indianapolis her murder was particularly cruel duct
00:21:11
tape was pressed over her face and her killer bashed in her head and strangled her why the investigators asked the
00:21:19
answer was simple she tapped on the cab of a truck Lieutenant call said but the captain added the 31-year-old man
00:21:28
Williams knew details that only the killer might know like when Miss Broly died he remembered something else
00:21:34
without being asked Miss bry's Rose Tattoo with the name ebony over it it is the name of her daughter Williams was a
00:21:43
long-distance huler who had worked for several companies during the past three years his girlfriend Rachel Cumberland
00:21:49
rode along with him they were arrested and charged in August of 2004 with the fatal shooting of Nikki Hill of
00:21:58
Mississippi the couple met her at a casino once the couple were in custody the man Williams he confessed to
00:22:06
murdering more than a dozen women many of whom were the cases that Terry Turner was investigating and Williams the
00:22:12
killer he knew details such as whether they were strangled with a ligature or manually whether and how they were
00:22:19
sexually assaulted and whether that occurred before or after death so these are all things that your killer is going
00:22:26
to be the only one that knows the answer to these questions or his sidekick that's riding along with him in his big
00:22:35
rig now he is serving a life sentence plus 20 years in Mississippi for Hills murder Williams though however was as
00:22:45
free as a bird in roaming the country in his truck when Kristen Schmidt was killed scary enough to think that this
00:22:52
serial killer is driving around looking for another victim and basically his mobile killing machine but he's not the
00:23:02
only one they suspect over hundreds of these monsters out there on the [Music] roads
00:23:19
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to answer call us at 1888 freedom [Music] all right we are back cheers mates tall hands in the air
00:26:18
not only do the gas prices scare people but now we have to be afraid of all the trucks well before we get into some of
00:26:27
the Cal killers in the this episode and the coming episodes I wanted to show who
00:26:35
fit this modus operandi who fit into these serial killer truckers and review some of the ones that were apprehended
00:26:45
both before and after the creation of this highway serial killer initiative but before we get into the serial
00:26:53
killers let's talk a little bit about how the FBI was well slow yeah on the uptake on this one so this is not really
00:27:03
an idea that even though we we went through the Genesis of it and how this all started and came about through the
00:27:09
good work from Terry Turner and other colleagues of hers but this was always something that had been suspected or at
00:27:17
least much further back than the creation of this initiative and I remember a case that was on Unsolved
00:27:27
Mysteries when I was a kid that talked about these types of patterns and talked about this type of serial killer the
00:27:34
highway serial killer initiative started up in the mid 2000s right but the Pittsburgh Press started reporting on
00:27:41
the murder of truck stop sex workers back in April of 1987 we'll get into some of that stuff
00:27:48
here in a little bit later but the one that I remember from Unsolved Mysteries here Captain was an Ohio journalist also
00:27:57
covered CED the pattern in 1991 this is Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Barons who was doing a story for
00:28:05
our local paper The Columbus Dispatch doing a story on serial killers for The Columbus Dispatch when he's putting
00:28:13
together his story he noticed a pattern of murdered sex workers using news stories and police reports Barons found
00:28:20
similarities in the slayings of multiple women from 1985 to 1990 most were strangled or asphyxiated and suffer
00:28:27
blunt Fort trauma to the face and most of their bodies were dumped along in Interstate this is directly from the
00:28:34
dispatch article dated March 10th 1991 a serial killer may be trolling Ohio interstates and truck stops claiming at
00:28:43
least nine female victims who are linked in both life and death A dispatch investigation has revealed most of the
00:28:52
victims are known or suspected prostitutes part of a flourishing sex for sale industry centered on truck
00:28:59
stops and linked by freeways in citizens ban radios since 1985 bodies have been found scattered across four states six
00:29:09
have been discovered in Ohio the other three were found near interstates in Illinois Pennsylvania and New York three
00:29:16
of the Ohio victims worked from the Union 76 Truck Stop in Austin toown Ohio police record show the truck stop east
00:29:25
of akan and west of Youngstown is the state's largest eight victims were missing clothing mostly undergarments
00:29:32
and shoes FBI experts say serial killers often keep victims Trophies the victims
00:29:39
were all beaten strangled or suffocated all were killed someplace other than where they were found no weapons have
00:29:45
been found no Ohio law enforcement agency has comprehensively tracked the unsolved homicides FBI agent John Dunn a
00:29:55
spokesman for the Cleveland office said the bureau informally reviewed five of the slangs but is unaware of any
00:30:02
forensic evidence linking them but more Ohio investigators are now saying some of the slangs appear to be connected all
00:30:10
agree the Killer is most likely a truck driver who is believed to have used the names of Dr No Stargazer and dragon
00:30:19
while luring women to his cab using a citizen ban radio truckers often use fake names called handles when talking
00:30:29
on CBS well Colonel if I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times never trust
00:30:34
a man with a fake name but never ever trust a man named Dragon serial killer expert John Douglas of the FBI's
00:30:43
Behavioral Science unit who says for the article that serial killers often Escape
00:30:48
early detection when crisscrossing jurisdictions Douglas and other experts say a lack of communication between
00:30:55
police agencies is one of of a serial Killer's greatest advantages and Barons discovered that this use of a CB radio
00:31:03
for communication between sex worker and trucker was not exactly a secret one of
00:31:10
the victims went by the CB handle tongue teaser as described in his article the sex workers used the CB radio to put
00:31:18
their availability out there using a cute or alluring handle a sex worker looking for a John would get on the
00:31:26
radio and give her hand and a known catchphrase that she had developed and the trucker would answer
00:31:32
back and say yeah this is the blue Peter built in row three come meet me and she
00:31:38
goes off to the truck and then usually once they are done she'll use the trucker CB to radio to her next
00:31:46
potential customer at least two of the Dead women in Ohio from this article were seen getting into a black
00:31:53
Peterbuilt tractor trailer after the dis dispatch ran the story about all of the
00:31:59
victims in Ohio and the three nearby States all whom seem to be linked the Ohio attorney general and the sheriff's
00:32:07
Association formed a task force to figure this out they determined that the counties were not communicating about
00:32:14
the murders and so had not put the pieces together that they could be dealing with a trucker serial killer
00:32:21
pretty crazy when you think about it by March 15th 1991 the dispatch ran an article that reported quote detectives
00:32:29
from New York to Tennessee who are investigating the possible serial killings of 10 women plan to gather
00:32:35
within 2 weeks in Ohio the meeting will be the first for a task force in Ohio that includes more than a dozen law
00:32:42
enforcement agencies looking into the slangs from 1985 to 1990 yeah law enforcement officials first began
00:32:50
speculating that a serial killer was loose on the interstates in 1987 the task force also undertook to
00:32:58
print and distribute 4,000 posters bearing images of five of the victims who have been identified and drawings of
00:33:06
three who were Jane Doe they handed them out and posted the Flyers at 130 truck stops in Ohio and
00:33:16
1,350 in nine other states as well as at 147 rest stops along highways in Ohio the flyer advertised a 10,000
00:33:27
reward for information about the murders and a tip line so let's think about some
00:33:33
of those numbers that they're saying here and big give big kudos to uh Barons who was writing that article for The
00:33:39
Columbus Dispatch and you know what we'll give give a little bragging rights here to say that looks like our state
00:33:45
was ahead of the curve here right oh uh we were on to this thing maybe a little faster than the rest of the country and
00:33:52
it seems like Pittsburgh as well so America yeah you're welcome that's right but we have the numbers in
00:34:01
there really point out how difficult these cases will be to investigate when they talk about Distributing these
00:34:09
posters that they created with images of five of the victims who were identified
00:34:15
and then we also have three unidentified Jane doees that were on these posters as
00:34:19
well they're handing them out to 130 truck stops just in Ohio alone 1,3 50 truck stops in nine other states
00:34:30
and that doesn't even include the 147 rest stops along highways in Ohio so this is a a a big undertaking yeah a
00:34:38
massive project to undertake but the reality is that means that there are so many victims that don't have Justice and
00:34:48
some of them aren't even identified it's pretty scary world that we are operating
00:34:53
in that it is another way of looking at it here captain is that there's some pretty scary people operating in the
00:35:00
world that we are living in now I don't want to jump around here A whole lot because there's a lot of directions that
00:35:08
we can go with this from here I think the the thing that makes the most sense is to stick in this General location and
00:35:16
start by finishing our story that we said started here with the newspaper of The Columbus Dispatch so we jump now to
00:35:25
another publication and this quote is taken from an article in CDL life which is a trucking industry newsletter and
00:35:34
the quote says news that a serial killer was attacking women in truck stops in Ohio was first reported in the early 90s
00:35:42
that again The Columbus Dispatch article that we've been referencing the Pittsburgh Press actually first covered
00:35:49
the murders in 1987 like we said it's April 5th 1987 article entitled killings of truck stop hookers baffle police
00:35:59
reports on a slew of murders that seem to form a pattern the article talks about the realities facing truck stop
00:36:08
sex workers with call signs like bad girl Twilight champagne butterfly and sex machine over the CB they flirt with
00:36:19
the truckers on the prow at truck stops like the one near Youngstown Ohio probably easy for these truck drivers to
00:36:27
figure out which places have surveillance and and they have so much ground to cover and such big stops that
00:36:35
if they just go a little bit further out it's like we just meet me down a little
00:36:39
further down the way so we're not around any of the cameras and when we're talking about the 80s and early 90s I'm
00:36:46
guessing that a lot of these truck stops have less surveillance if any compared to what we have now right the other
00:36:54
thing too is so many of these workers are using assumed names they're using aliases they're not so easily
00:37:02
identified these would be the would be potential victims for such monsters that I don't know that they have to worry
00:37:10
especially back then so much so as who sees who get into whose truck right because there's so much of this activity
00:37:18
going on that I don't know that many of the other truckers are paying a whole lot of attention to this and so that's
00:37:26
where everything gets very difficult to investigate these crimes yeah it'd probably be easier to find a needle on a
00:37:33
hay stack back to that CDL life newsletter it goes on to say that similarities in cases of murdered
00:37:40
women led many to believe it could be the work of one person it became apparent that one man was soliciting sex
00:37:48
workers over the CB channels and the sex workers were turning up all over Ohio dead but then it wasn't just Ohio this
00:37:57
particular trucker was believed to have been responsible for a string of murders
00:38:02
women that were killed and dumped near roadways in Ohio Illinois New York and Pennsylvania at least nine women and
00:38:11
then 10 in total were found in Ohio between 1981 and 2004 and then three more in other states
00:38:20
Jesus most of them were missing underwear and shoes several of the victims were associated with the largest
00:38:27
truck stop in Ohio the Union 76 truck stop that we mentioned in Austin town but who was this guy no one knew his
00:38:36
name the still living sex workers in the area did not like dealing with him they
00:38:43
were afraid of him and generally refused to get into his rig so they came up with
00:38:49
this term they termed him Dr No as some kind of code name like Dr no don't go with that man man right let's take a
00:38:57
look at some possible victims of this doctor no one of the earliest was a woman that was found in April of 1981 in
00:39:06
Miami County Ohio founded a ditch on greenle Road near State Route 55 approximately 5 miles west of
00:39:15
I75 this victim was known only as buck skin girl she was finally identified via forensic genealogy in 2018 as as Maria
00:39:25
King the next three victims marshia Matthews who was found by a State Trooper in June of 1985 on i7 north of
00:39:35
Mansfield with her head smashed in she was this is crazy she was still alive when found but died two days later in
00:39:44
the hospital that's awful Shirley Dean Taylor was found July 1986 strangled and beaten at a rest stop on i71 near the I
00:39:56
76 interchange and April Barnett who in December of 1986 was strangled and dumped over a guard rail on the
00:40:05
southbound Lanes of i71 this is west of akan 3 miles north of US Route 30 they were all near or were last seen at this
00:40:16
Union 76 Truck Stop the next victim and Marie Patterson was discovered to have made an appointment at an Austin Town
00:40:25
truck stop VI CB radio with a client she did not like called Dr No her pimp overheard the CB exchange as quoted on
00:40:38
Mysterious Universe as no thank you I know this is what the pimp overheard her saying to the trucker that evening he
00:40:48
was calling but they wouldn't go to his truck for some reason the pimp later said they said he was trouble so so
00:40:56
they're being told that this guy's trouble but in fact an Marie had been arrested for solicitation earlier that
00:41:03
day had told an officer she had some sketchy information about who may have been responsible for killing three other
00:41:10
known prostitutes who frequented truck stops in the Youngstown area but an Marie was scared and didn't tell them
00:41:18
any helpful details the next day after the CB exchange overheard by her pimp an Marie went back to work
00:41:26
went back to work at the Venango County truck stop and never met up with her pimp as planned she was then found in
00:41:35
March of 1987 but she's found 250 mil away wrapped up in a sleeping bag this in a
00:41:43
ditch next to the I70 north of Cincinnati they're Travelers having been in a refrigerator for a
00:41:50
month she was found 5 months pregnant this is awful after hearing all this I'm going to have to up my prescription of
00:42:00
vodka but at least in this case we have an eyewitness yeah we have the pimp who ends up telling police that when she
00:42:08
spoke with this doctor no and then gets into a truck she's never seen alive again he's able to tell police that the
00:42:17
doctor no that she responded to drove a long-nosed dark colored Peterbilt Truck and drove forward North American
00:42:27
Van Lines so now we got a really good lead here in one of these cases yeah what a bad handle doctor no my handle
00:42:35
would be Dr Feelgood two weeks later the Pittsburgh Press came out with the article titled mysterious Dr No saw an
00:42:44
Ohio truck stop prostitute murder probe the article reported that anarie Patterson one of our victims had been
00:42:52
afraid of this air quotes Dr No and there were other truck stop sex workers that were afraid of him as well Dr No
00:43:01
was wanted for questioning and some believed he might be a serial killer a serial killer or the serial killer that
00:43:09
they're looking for yeah in relation to these cases that we're talking about what's interesting here Captain is at
00:43:15
least two of the four victims were last seen entering a dark blue or black Peterbuilt truck right that fits the
00:43:24
description we were given by the witness to one of the last victims and it may have been a
00:43:31
refrigerated trailer remember anarie Patterson's body had been refrigerated before being dumped the man called Dr No
00:43:40
was sought to have possibly used the CB radio handles Stargazer and dragon as a result of the
00:43:50
murders a multi-county task force was established to investigate the crimes and figure out whether they were were
00:43:56
dealing with one killer or several authorities from four different counties in Ohio where bodies were found
00:44:03
disagreed as to whether they had a serial killer trucker on their hands or not although there were no Witnesses
00:44:10
weapons or Os linking the crimes some were convinced there was a serial killer humming along the Ohio highways killing
00:44:20
and dumping women all along the interstates so the problem with these cases for a group of investigators to
00:44:27
just sit down and quickly review them and compare notes and say yeah I think we got one guy killing all these
00:44:35
women it got a little dicey because there were not there were similarities with some of the cases but there were
00:44:42
also great differences as well right some of them were killed in different manners some of them were found
00:44:47
obviously they're found in different locations one thing connecting them was their air quotes
00:44:53
occupation and the idea that they were were working these truck stops and some of them that one major truck stop there
00:45:01
in Ohio it's easy to see why somebody would think they're connected and why others would disagree the other problem
00:45:09
with this type of killer is truck drivers don't always own their vehicles so they could be getting a new vehicle
00:45:18
or driving a different style of vehicle every few weeks well and we talk about these four victims but while we have
00:45:25
this task force looking at this doctor no and how many murders he may or may not be connected to that number will
00:45:32
eventually grow to 10 victims in Ohio and three and other states so we quickly go from well he may be responsible for
00:45:43
one to four murders to well he may be responsible for 1 to 13 murders let's think about this for a second this task
00:45:52
force is saying there's probably about 400 of these types of serial killers okay 400 so we got 50 states that's
00:46:00
eight per state roughly probably more in some states Less in other states but if
00:46:05
the average Trucking serial killer has three victims well that's 1,200 victims if they have 10 that's 4,000 victims
00:46:14
that's insane well and watch The Killing season you know we had Joshua Zan on here feels like forever ago to talk
00:46:24
about The Killing season on we' been doing this a long time very long we had him on 1951 it was the summertime I
00:46:31
remember it like it was yesterday um we had him on to discuss the Long Island serial killer case and that's because
00:46:39
his series The Killing season does speak about the Long Island serial killer case
00:46:45
on a couple of those episodes one thing that they explored during that series was these Long Haul trucker killers and
00:46:54
there was some thought that there could be a trucker involved in the list case as well so what everybody's going to
00:47:02
want to know right Captain was this doct no ever caught well a 2019 arrest put behind
00:47:11
bars the man that is widely believed to be Dr no yeah doct yes got him first a cus hit in
00:47:21
2005 showed that the same killer was responsible for two Highway murders so let's break this down a little bit we
00:47:29
have in Wood County the Frozen nude body of Victoria Collins was found December 20th 1996 found behind the Union 76
00:47:39
truck stop on Route 420 near exit 71 of the Ohio Turnpike in Lake Township the victim Collins was an exotic dancer from
00:47:50
Cleveland who had been out with some friends party she argued with her friends and was let out of a vehicle on
00:47:57
I90 near Cleveland she was last seen on December 16th or the early morning hours
00:48:03
of December 17th 1996 she was reported missing by a friend on the 18th then we have October 23rd 1997
00:48:14
Julia Kul was found strangled and dumped behind a centers truck stop in Lake County
00:48:22
Illinois cotus also contained DNA from an 1992 murder in Mahoning County Ohio which was a match to an unknown
00:48:31
perpetrator in the Collins and the cul case this was Sharon kaderi who was found dead at a truck stop near
00:48:39
Youngstown this victim Sharon she died from blunt force trauma she was found on April 9th 1992 near the edge of the
00:48:48
universal truck mall parking lot in Austin Town Ohio she had been deceased for approximately 20 24 hours and died
00:48:57
as a result of multiple blunt force injuries to the head face and upper chest what codus tells us here Captain
00:49:05
is the same man had killed three women right in 2019 the DNA from the unknown suspect in
00:49:14
the three truck stop murders was also matched to a rape in Madina County a familial DNA search resulted in the name
00:49:22
of a man who was the brother of a man who had been an original suspect in the rape case his name was Samuel leg in
00:49:33
1997 Long Haul trucker Samuel leg had been suspected of raping a 17-year-old female
00:49:39
hitchhiker in the Medina area he gets picked up after giving this teenage girl a ride to Cleveland and he
00:49:48
had drugged her and raped her in the cab of his truck and what happens is the case
00:49:55
somehow against leg falls apart a leg to stand on but they have the DNA on file good so now in 2019 they had a familial
00:50:07
DNA match to Samuel leg showing that he was the prop suspect in multiple unsolved cases so charges are filed and
00:50:16
Ohio investigators tracked Samuel leg down at a group home in Arizona arrested him and took a DNA sample it showed that
00:50:25
Samuel leg was the contributor of the DNA in all four cases right the three murders unsolved murders and that 1997
00:50:35
rape soon more murders would be attributed to him after he confessed well leg is going to be picked up in
00:50:43
February of 2019 and he's going to eventually confess to the crimes and even showing them demonstrating to law
00:50:51
enforcement how he choked and strangled the victims he admits that he picked them up he admits that he choked all
00:50:58
three of them and in 2019 he would have been 51 years old at that time so after he's picked up now we got to bring him
00:51:06
back to Ohio so he can stand trial but first he has to undergo a competency hearing or competency exam he fails this
00:51:16
exam the courts were given a year to rehabilitate him to the point that he could face his charges in court but
00:51:23
again psychiatric evalu ation showed that he was not competent to stand trial right he big diagnosed schizophrenic in
00:51:31
the past and he was not a Wellman based off of these reports in order to institutionalize him they had to show
00:51:39
that he was responsible for these crimes authorities in several jurisdictions filed charges to make sure that he
00:51:47
stayed locked up this brings us to 2020 when a Wood County grand jury did indict
00:51:54
Samuel A on two counts of aggravated murder and single counts of murder rape and kidnapping in connection with the
00:52:02
murder of one of the victims her named Victoria Collins he was also indicted for the murder of Sharon kazery piece of
00:52:09
[ __ ] in Illinois he was charged with two counts of first year murder for the death of 39-year-old Julie conl remember
00:52:18
she was pregnant at the time Samuel EG was also the prime suspect in the 1990 murder of his stepdaughter
00:52:25
which is 14-year-old Angela Hicks I guess he would have been about 21 at the time now Angela Hicks her skeletal body
00:52:35
her skeletal remains were found in a wooded area off of West River Road near Midway Mall in Lorraine County well law
00:52:42
enforcement believes they know who did this but they don't know how to prove it yes that is the case with the Angela
00:52:50
Hicks case but we saw some reports that say that there's DNA evidence linking leg to Angela's murder but her case was
00:53:00
reopened after Samuel leg was arrested and he was interviewed as part of the initial investigation way back in 1990
00:53:10
as well right we do know that Samuel Le was one of the last people to see Angela
00:53:15
Hicks alive prior to her death again back in 1990 they thought they knew who did it they couldn't prove it and then
00:53:24
after this after the death of his stepdaughter Samuel Le became an independent truck driver a position that
00:53:31
he held for nearly a decade Samuel Le had various arrests for failure to pay child support theft trespassing and
00:53:39
receiving stolen property he was divorced from at least four wives that we could find then in 2016 to
00:53:47
2019 he was required to live at a group home for the mentally ill in Chandler Arizona after his mental state deter
00:53:55
deteriorated and he became delusional right he often heard voices that told him to escape and he would climb out
00:54:02
windows ironically tried to Hitch rides with truck drivers at one point he succeeded in getting 100 miles away yeah
00:54:12
Mr leg or Dr No whatever the hell you want to call him he's a real piece of [ __ ] this takes us to News 5 News 5 says
00:54:21
quote Ohio attorney general Dave Yos that's our current attorney general said it is fair to consider leg a former
00:54:29
truck driver a serial killer how many cases leg may be connected to remains unclear it's an open question at the
00:54:37
moment there may be more than three in Ohio yoast said because they had a living witness in the rape case they
00:54:46
decided to use that one as the means to ensure that we're going to lock up this Samuel leg but it wasn't a tradition IAL
00:54:56
trial and he wasn't found technically guilty right Madina County Common Polie judge Joyce kimbler ruled that Samuel
00:55:06
Lake had committed the crime and ordered that he remain in Columbus's Twin Valley
00:55:12
Behavioral Health Care Facility so you're right Captain he's technically not found guilty and it's not a
00:55:19
traditional trial so rather the judge held that there was clear and convincing evidence that Samuel leg was responsible
00:55:28
for the rape this was a sufficient finding justify involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility so Samuel leg
00:55:38
or possibly AKA Dr No is currently housed at Twin Valley Behavioral Health Center in Columbus Ohio which is a
00:55:47
maximum security facility where he has been involuntarily committed he will stay there for at least 10 years years
00:55:55
at which point they will find a way to keep him from the Medina Gazette says ensuing rulings across listed
00:56:02
jurisdictions have spelled an effective lifetime placement in the Columbus mental health facility for Samuel Le
00:56:10
who's been diagnosed with schizophrenia it's also been determined that his mental capacity cannot be restored to
00:56:17
the point of the ability to stand trial so it seems like leg doesn't have a leg to stand on the murders of Marsha
00:56:24
Matthews Shirley Dean Taylor April Barnett an Marie Patterson and many others remain
00:56:32
[Music] unsolved me me me you could be anywhere but you are here with us and we appreciate it we
00:56:54
love you and because we love you we have some recommended reading for you Colonel
00:56:59
that's right Captain this week we are recommending I the creation of a serial killer by the late great Jack olon this
00:57:07
is based on access to interviews Diaries court records and the actual killer himself I the creation of a serial
00:57:16
killer is jesperson's Keith jesperson's chilling story it Chronicles his Evolution from angry child to
00:57:23
Psychopathic murder from Tormentor of animals to torturer of women check out I the creation of a
00:57:31
serial killer you'll find that recommendation and many others on our website true Crim garage.com and like
00:57:39
always don't forget to tell a friend and until next week be good be kind and don't
00:57:44
[Music] litter [Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable could surgeons use a
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patient's own Anatomy to create 3D printed life-size organ models to map out challenges ahead of time making
00:58:33
surgery more precise efficient and less invasive is it possible it already is because every day we're doing what's
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never been done learn more at mayoclinic.org Sloss mayoclinic you know where to go