America’s Highway Serial Killers /// Part 1 /// 590 | Forensic Files

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[Music] foreign [Music] the date June 26 2003. the setting it's summertime at a state park
designated campsites are full of campers enjoying some outdoor RNR the lush green scenery is matched by the
peace and Tranquility of the environment for campers escaping their busy lives it
is quiet and relaxing but then at the break of dawn the peace and Tranquility of the
campground is shattered the body of a woman lies at the bottom of a rocky ravine
some kind of monster tossed her there like trash her corpse rolling and rolling down the
steep grade until it comes to a stop for all to see this was no accidental death
not an overdose not a hit and run no this woman was the victim of a brutal homicide
but how did she get there where she was found one minute her killer was pushing her
down the slope the next he was gone in the night the only clue to his identity the big
rig pulling away on the interstate above and as its lights disappeared Into the Night
so did any clues as to who killed this young woman this is the unsolved homicide case of
Kristen Alice Schmidt and the trucker murders warning there's a killer on the road
and this is true crime garage [Music] newspapers from Legrand Oregon blaird that a body was found by a camper at
hilguard Junction State Park this was on June 26 2003 the location this park is right
next to Interstate 84 where it intersects with Highway 244 near the Grand Ronde River
the area is about 250 miles east of Portland a major city and just eight miles west of a small town called
Legrand which has a population today of about 12 500 people this is in Union County in the eastern
part of the state the campground features 18 campsites restrooms and river access
the female body was lying at the bottom of a Shale slope near the campground's common area
she had frizzy red hair and was clothed in a brown wool sweater and black jeans the young woman was identified because
found near the body was an olive colored backpack which contained an ID bearing her name
the backpack was thrown down the embankment as well just like her body the victim's name was Kristen Alice
Smith she was just 22 years old and autopsy revealed that she had been strangled Union County district attorney
Martin brinbaum said that they were able to determine this because of the subcutaneous bleeding in her eyelids and
cheeks brinbaum would only say that other parts of her body also bore scrapes scratches and bruising he would
not initially comment if Kristen had been sexually assaulted but by Late July police acknowledged that she had been
years later OSP detective Greg Rutherford told the LA Grand Observer she had been
sexually assaulted and brutally beaten he also described her body as partially clothed now we know she was found in
jeans and a sweater but what aren't the police saying what items of clothing were missing that led
investigators to describe her as partially clothed we asked the OSP the Oregon State police and they declined to
answer because of course Kristen's case is still considered an open and very active investigation district attorney
brynbaum said that it appeared that Kristen was strangled elsewhere and dumped where she was eventually found
brynbaum told the East Oregonian it does appear that the body was just dumped at
Hilgard and that she wasn't killed there so who was this young woman and how did
she end up at the bottom of a ravine off of an interstate in a place that many might call nowheresville Oregon Kristin
Alice Schmidt was born in San Luis Obispo in 1980. so this is her hometown which would be about 190 miles Northwest
of L.A and located on Highway 101 on the California coast its population is about
44 thousand we really know next to nothing about Kristen she had been a student at SLO community school during
the 1998-99 academic year then she began taking classes at another College in the
fall of 1998 and and last attended during the Spring of 2002 during that semester it's unclear what she did in
2002 and three but she had applied to take classes again at the community college in the fall of 2003.
Kristen was reportedly a good student now the Legrand Observer newspaper had no luck connecting with her family and I
could not find any interviews with them but that publication reports that her mom and grandma both lived in San Luis
Obispo and Kristen had been staying at her mom's place before she left town on a trip to visit her long distance
boyfriend of course her mom was heartbroken at the news of her daughter's death let's get
into the investigation and try to put together some kind of timeline here for our victim the Oregon State Police took
control of this investigation lead investigator Pat Montgomery headed up a team of nine investigators this from the
OSP the Legrand police and the Union County Sheriff's Office all working in unison together on this investigation
Montgomery was quoted in the local news as saying the investigation would be a long and slow process
they were really going to need to try to figure out a key part of Christian's timeline that would require
investigators to reconstruct Kristen's movements and figure out how she went from San Luis Obispo to a rocky Ravine
in Central Oregon well this case is very difficult because we don't know much about her and then this boyfriend that
she was seeing this long distance boyfriend which would be a lot harder to have a long distance relationship back
then because you'd be writing to them and and long distance calls costs a lot of money back then depending on how far
away they were and so we don't even know where this individual was located at yeah again it just goes back to stating
that we don't know much about Kristen's personal life other than her stating two
family that she was leaving to visit a long distance boyfriend so the police and the investigators from the state
police as well as the Sheriff's Office what they discovered they they discovered and were able to put together
that on June 16 2003 Kristen left home telling friends and family she was going to Colorado to
visit her boyfriend we don't know whether she was traveling alone but it seems that she was it's also not clear
what her exact travel plans were or if she was just going to kind of make them up as she went along hoping to find
herself in Colorado but police discovered she had boarded an Amtrak train in San Luis Obispo and arrived in
Portland Oregon on the same day okay this is about a 13 hour drive so it's a fairly long trip Kristen reportedly
stayed with a friend in Portland for a few days now who this person is or was has never been released
a week after Kristen's body was found investigators said that it was still unknown whether she was traveling alone
they were working on establishing a timeline of Kristen's movements and when they did it would tell them quite a bit
well they're going to get some information from some of the Campers at this park yeah so where her body is
found these campers they tell investigators that they were awake and sometime around 3 A.M by noises it
sounded like someone emptying garbage now it's not clear whether this was like metal trash can sounds or or Oscar the
Grouch talking something being dumped or dumpsters being dumped kind of sounds they don't really go into any real
description other than couple of campers say it sounded like someone was emptying garbage somewhere
but that's an interesting and hopeful lead in their investigation now later we end up learning that Joan Doan that's
her real name was sleeping at the campground with her husband Charles she says that she had to get up in the
middle of the night to use the restroom this would be about 3 A.M and she says that she left their trailer around this
time and in the dim light she says that she saw a big rig a semi truck pulled over on the side of the highway
up above and something that looked like a large bag being thrown out of the truck and down into the ravine
she said that she yelled in this direction but the truck drove off immediately Joan could not see much in
the darkness and she assumed that someone was dumping garbage down the 50-foot embankment
now just to be perfectly clear here Captain some of these articles say that this would have been about 3 15 am
Jones says that she then went back to her campsite and tossed and turned and had trouble going back to sleep well the
sun comes up and now she's saying around 6 a.m her Curiosity has gotten the best
of her she wants to go out and see what caused that noise waking her up in the middle of the night be careful for what
you wish she walked in the direction of the noise and found the woman's body so she's the first person to discover
Kristen's body she ran back to her campsite and her husband called the police Joan would later describe the
body she found as a young woman in her 20s who had clearly been terribly beat well think about the horror when she
finds Kristen's body because they heard these noises at night if they would have went and investigated
more they could have been face to face with the killer or killer there was a little question based on Joan's account
that the driver of the 18-wheeler had been the person who dumped Kristen down the embankment from the interstate
highway so if Joan hadn't witnessed this dumping the nature of Kristen's killer would be
entirely theoretical right we would may have never come up with this possible lead but now investigators knew that
they should be looking for a trucker and looking for a truck we've said this several times on this show vehicles are
easier to find than people in most cases so I would start by looking for that truck the Ravine where Kristen was
dumped was between the campground and the day use area it's unknown whether the trucker even knew that there was a
campground down there in the dark it may have just looked like a wooded area with no houses or people
around and could have seemed like the perfect place to anonymously dump a corpse and then get the hell out of
Dodge yeah initially investigators were cryptic when speaking with the public saying that they were looking for a
killer within a particular occupation that's the words they use particular occupation they clearly didn't want to
show their hand in case the trucker was local or in case someone were to come forward and have that profession but
unfortunately the pool of truckers using the nation's interstates on any given day numbers in the hundreds of thousands
and investigators learned that any number of truckers could have had access to Kristen it becomes very difficult
when you don't know where Kristen was heading to what was her destination between point a B and C there's so many
possibilities of where maybe she would have been abducted we do learn a little bit more here though Captain so when
Kristen left her friends in Portland she tells them that she was heading to Troutdale to look for a ride what's
what's Troutdale OR what's in Troutdale this is part of the Portland Oregon metro area so it's about 15 miles
outside of the city as I understand it the interesting thing here as it pertains to our case and our lead that
we're currently working on is there is a huge truck stop in Troutdale that has parking for 250 18 wheelers
this is a location where people can get food there's a barber shop a game room a
pet area and so on so it's massive that's what she said initial reports said Kristen was last seen hitchhiking
in Troutdale on the evening of the 25th Union County D.A burn bomb confirmed that the OSP they're looking for a
suspect among truckers as they believed Kristen was picked up by a trucker in Troutdale
years later it was confirmed by law enforcement that Kristen was actually at the truck stop in Troutdale so
beforehand we are told that she was seen hitchhiking in the Troutdale area and then later as they release more
information to the public we learned that it it was in fact at that very large truck stop I love those super
truck stops they were always my favorite to stop when I was touring around playing with bands the confirmation we
end up with your captain is that Kristen was actually at the truck stop in Troutdale
trying to hitchhike a ride or looking for a ride out of there this would be on the night
of June 25th so she had been seen there and heard and we'll get into that here in a minute
this is the day before her body was found remember she was found on June 26th this is June 25th well and she
wouldn't just be looking for a ride from a truck driver they also have you know gas pumps and stuff for regular Vehicles
this is from investigator Greg Rutherford he says quote she was there trying to pick up a ride as a hitchhiker she
wanted to go to Colorado to see her boyfriend it turned out that Kristen was known to hitchhike and did not appear to
consider the risk that could be involved it's not a situation I would want to put
myself in well an OSP pointed out saying that hitchhiking is not only dangerous but it's particularly dangerous when it
involves truckers their words don't come at me uh truckers investigators told this to the newspaper
saying that she was definitely a victim of her lifestyle saying if you are jumping in with
truckers all the time it will eventually catch up with you especially if you are
a young single girl and detective Randy Crutcher who also worked the case for OSP said she was the
kind of person who wasn't afraid of hitchhiking that is what she did but Kristen wasn't just on the road or on
the side of the road at the truck stopped sticking her thumb out unfortunately she did something even
more dangerous she's sticking her toe out she put it out there to the whole Trucking community that she was trying
to get to Colorado and was looking for a free ride so she's heard By Truckers on
a CB radio that day asking for a ride from Troutdale to Colorado so it wasn't just bad luck for her that
a bad guy came along and grabbed the opportunity to give her a ride secretly intending to assault her
she made a public request over the CB which vastly expanded the pool of truckers learning about a young woman
traveling alone willing to get into a truck for a ride so ultimately she broadcast her
vulnerability to a wide audience in anyone with nefarious intentions who heard it and who was within a few hours
drive could have zoomed over to Troutdale picked her up she didn't just fall into his lap
unfortunately in this case our victim jumped into it [Music] [Music] all right we are back cheers everybody
cheers to you captain Kristen's exact time of death has never been publicly revealed but here in the
garage we like to figure these things out for ourselves so we can extrapolate that it was sometime between the
sighting of her hitchhiking at the truck stop and then 3 A.M on the 26th so we're
not dealing with a large window of time here remember we have Joan Doan who is committed to the statement of it was
roughly 3 A.M maybe 3 15 a.m when I hear the noise and I see something being dumped down into the Ravine from this
semi truck as far as the super convenience store truck stop right we don't have well we believe she got here
at nine in the morning and she left by noon those are fictitious times right right yeah we don't have an exact time
of when she was cited and I believe that police will have a pretty firm buttocks
idea of what time that would have been because she would have been seen by multiple people and as we said heard by
dozens over the CB radio well probably there would be some surveillance there as well but the difficulty like you said
you're putting yourself at extreme risk of danger because you're broadcasting to
CB radios hey I'm at this truck stop so even if it's way out of somebody else's way
way out of a trucker's way they hear all this young 22 year old needs a ride I don't even have to be going to
Colorado if I'm thinking nefarious thoughts or to Portland or anything if you can hear
that invitation and you're a bad guy you're somebody that is into this sort of thing you can
make your way to Troutdale and pick her up yeah especially all you really got to
be concerned with is can I get there faster than the other bad guy now again I want to before we go too deep into
this because we're going to get really deep into these different truckers and serial killers with inside that
profession I want to be clear up front here we're not saying that truckers in general are bad in fact we have a lot of
truckers that listen to the show and we're very happy and proud of that now but just with any profession there are a
small percentage of the people that are bad with inside of that profession most truckers are great awesome nice
wonderful people but it's it just goes to show that it's really no different here Captain if she announces over CB
radio for a ride or for a trucker to come pick her up you announce over that CB radio anybody
that has a CB that can hear that would be a potential suspect that could have come and picked her up and if we lived
in a world where everybody had Seabees in their cars then think of the hundreds and hundreds of people that may have
heard her invitation for hey I'm seeking a ride I'm alone I need to make it out to Colorado I'm not trying to victim
blame here I'm just pointing out the vulnerability that one may put themselves into and possibly suggest
that spend a few bucks and get a bus ticket to where it is that you may need to go for a lot of these killers one of
the hardest parts is to actually abduct the person to get them into your vehicle
so you can take them somewhere else Kristen's willing to do so so how will investigators go about finding truckers
who were on the road in this region where Kristen was picked up from and found the SLO Tribune put out an article
on September 9 2003 that stated quote to determine who was on the road when the murder occurred the investigator said
they have been conducting interviews and checking weigh stations and truckers travel logs they concentrated on way
stations along I-84 but we have to say often when we drive by those weigh stations they are closed detective
Crutcher also said that admittedly some truckers run past away station skipping it so the truck would not be on record
but he said that those truckers are usually caught it's not clear whether there are cameras
recording the stations that would show if a truck blew past without stopping or what in 2003 who knows the likelihood or
the probability of that situation if he's saying that they are usually caught then there must be some way of checking
on this situation yeah the OSP reportedly looked into over 1 000 truckers in the Kristen Schmidt case
these were rigs that had traveled the stretch of I-84 near where Kristen was believed to have been picked up
anytime on both June 25th and 26th 2003. think about that 1 000 truckers and I know that that's a roundabout number but
they're saying over 1 000 truckers that is an almost incomprehensible amount of work if any of them were determined to
be potential Persons of Interest for whatever reason the investigators would have to track them down and speak with
them directly which would be very difficult to do because they're not confined to one area exactly now
detective Crutcher told the Observer that Kristen's case was the most extensive case he had ever worked on at
that time for the OSP in terms of manpower he felt demoralized that the case was not solved he says quote it is
frustrating when you put that much effort into it you expect it to pay off but the investigators acknowledged that
they were up against a brick wall interestingly enough though Captain remember the early statements from
investigators that said that they believed that this would be a long a lengthy investigation into figuring out who
killed her I'm guessing that based off of the siding of the big rig from our person down below
that they're going well this very likely could be a stranger on Stranger crime and we know that those those are the
most difficult to investigate with all these eyewitnesses at the truck stop nobody sees Kristen get into a vehicle
she's seen hitching a ride I think that we might have a solved case if we saw her getting into an actual
truck on that day really when you think about it though the sighting of that big
rig is huge for a number of reasons because if you have a stranger on Stranger homicide we know how difficult
those are to investigate how difficult it is to connect killer to victim or victim to killer
right but seeing that truck now eliminates a lot of people for you in your investigation it really brings the
number down the sheer number of people that you're going to have to look into at the initial stages of your
investigation yeah this is very difficult for law enforcement as you pointed out Captain it would be
incredibly wonderful for our investigation if somebody came forward that said they saw
her getting into a vehicle or knew more about the vehicle that she got into and from what we've seen and again osp's not
super willing to discuss a lot of the details of her case because it is not just open but I'm happy to report I can
I believe by their statements that this is a very active investigation they may even be closing in on the individual
responsible so based off of what we know it doesn't seem like any of those things happen
unless it did and we're just not being told so and like you said her family is devastated by the loss of their loved
one but they haven't really come out and did a lot of interviews but maybe they just feel like that wouldn't help much
of the situation I don't know that they have a lot of information to provide right because everybody seems to agree
investigators her family the newspapers and so on that she had hit the road and was out of state
when she was picked up by her killer the interesting thing to me though is what I
would really like to know from investigators and again they don't need to tell us anything but I would like to
know has any trucker come forward to say I was the one that allowed her to use my
CB because she's not walking up to that Troutdale truck stop with her own CB in hand and making these announcements out
to other truckers that's a excellent point according to the Legrand observer in October of 2003 news stations in St
Louis Obispo reported that Oregon State Police may be tracing a trucker's possible connection to the death now if
we're going to kind of parse out words here and try to figure out what this sentence means because it's a little
vague my question was does this mean that they were on to one specific trucker or using the word truckers in
generic terms we just don't know when you have a case like this where you're basically
in the dark right as far as the investigation goes you can only do so much with the the little information you
have you want to start looking at other cases that are similar to Kristen's case
and there is another case which a body was found in Oregon that mirrored Kristen's case eerily this is Leah
Elizabeth Schubert age 22 she's last seen at the gear Jammer truck stop in Idaho on June 9th 1987 she had been
driving through the area when she had car trouble later her nude body was found on June 13th when two motorists
stopped to take a pee in the woods on the side of Interstate 84. this is just 12 miles east of Legrand so
we're in the same general area here the victim that they found she lay at the bottom of an embankment right off of
the highway she too had been strangled this from the lawyersupdate.co.in which states quote the Oregon State
Police learned that Leah had left Twin Falls for Boise on June 9th 1987 to pick up her fiancee from the airport where he
was arriving after flying in from San Diego but on her way to Boise her car broke
down so she calls a friend from the gear Jammer truck stop near Mountain Home Idaho along Interstate 84. then she
disappears so nobody hears from her again and she was reported missing that same evening
there is a suspect however in this case this is from a an article from September
of 1987 it says quote the search for one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives ended when authorities discovered the
accused killer was already in jail where he was serving time under an alias four
months after his arrest for car theft his real identity was finally discovered when his fingerprints were run against
the National Database The Suspect is Darren O'Neill back then he was 27 he's a native of Albuquerque New Mexico
facing a murder charge in the torture sling of a Washington woman and was wanted for questioning in five other
killings in the Pacific Northwest this according to FBI spokesman Cliff Anderson Well Neo was charged with first
degree murder in the 1987 case of Robin Smith he was also wanted for questioning
in The Disappearance of a 29 nine-year-old woman from Whatcom County Washington whose body has never been
found this according to the FBI he also is charged with car theft in The Disappearance of Wendy agahi 29 in
Washington she was last seen April 25th 1987 leaving Bellingham Washington this was a restaurant
where she spotted leaving with O'Neill who reportedly was using the Alias of Mike Johnson back then that's why
they're not able to connect the dots right away he's on their 10 most wanted list yet they find him already in jail
four months later O'Neill also is sought for questioning in the strangulation death of Leah Suber
22 of Twin Falls Idaho who we just discussed earlier there were some eyewitnesses who reported to have seen a
man fitting O'Neill's description near where Leah's car broke down and then he popped up in Spokane
Washington but he has never been charged with Leah's murder he remains in prison for
his other crimes and could not have been the trucker who killed Kristen in 2003 since he was in prison at the time so
let me just see if I'm picking up what you're putting down this guy is a real piece of [ __ ] yeah
we're not really certain how many murders he is responsible for but eerily similar to
Kristen's case and one worth looking at so since he was in prison we at the time
of Christian's murder we know that he didn't he's not responsible for that but what we're saying is that there's
individuals out there like this and they're not just committing one crime they're committing multiple murders this
truck driving serial killer you know it's not just a theory that that law enforcement has these are
actual individuals that's exactly right captain and we reference Leah's case saying it was eerily similar but
even though he suspected the man that we just mentioned O'Neal is suspected in that case Leah's case is unsolved eerily
similar to Kristen's it stands to reason that possibly the killers of one of those women are or one in or both of
those women are one in the same I hope everybody out there listening is familiar with the FBI's VI cap program
because we talked about it extensively in our recent coverage of the Sam little murders and we've talked about it
throughout the history of this show because it comes up so often but a little refresher here or if you've
not listened to the Sam little episodes The Vi cap program run by the FBI this is where state and local law enforcement
agencies upload specific information about certain kinds of cases in their jurisdiction to the federal database via
cap is a federal database these are typically homicides sexual assaults missing persons cases and John
and Jane Doe cases the database allows for searching in comparison of cases this facilitates the finding of similar
crimes both to help solve serial crimes committed by the same killer and to pinpoint serial offenders based on their
patterns and Mos the FBI's VI Camp website contains a page that says quote if there is such a thing as an
ideal profession for a serial killer it may well be as a long-haul truck driver they go on to say the pattern the
website says is unmistakable it attracted notice when in 2004 a senior crime analyst from the Oklahoma Bureau
of Investigation named Terry Turner detected a crime pattern the bodies of murdered women were being dumped along
the interstate 40 Corridor in Oklahoma Texas Arkansas and Mississippi Turner was investigating seven cases in
which truck stop sex workers had been bound raped killed and dumped along i-40. I know all these crimes are taking
place out west but when you look at the Long Island serial killer case people have
had theories that the killer could have been a truck driver that's exactly right
now this is from a newspaper called the Oklahoman and it says quote in a way the
FBI's National Highway serial killings initiative originated with an Oklahoma man who needed to take a restroom break
they go on to stay on September 18 2003 a Tulsa area pharmaceutical salesman was
driving east on Interstate 40 when his bladder began to get the best of him realizing he couldn't make it to the
next rest stop he exited at rural Tiger Mountain Road near Henrietta at the end of the ramp dirt roads LED off in three
directions the area was isolated and undeveloped High Grass Rose around out of ditches and something smelled
terrible at first the salesman didn't recognize the object that he spotted in the ditch
which was about 10 feet away later we're told quote she was buck naked and face down he said he says your mind tells you
it's a deer it's a goat it's anything but a human being my mind would not even allow me to entertain that as reality
until as I looked at her Limbs and followed her arm out to one of her hands I saw a
ring on her finger at that moment in that second it was undeniable and in my mind finally I accepted that this was a
human the salesman whose story was confirmed by law enforcement and who asked that his name not be published
well he found the body of 43 year old Sandra beard she was a truck stop sex worker with
ties to Oklahoma City our investigator Terry Turner a crime analyst with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
sent out a teletype to other agencies looking for similar types of crimes within three days this is when she
learned of two women who died similar deaths beard was the third sex worker to die in a space of just three months so
because of the time and the in the distance it's very possible it's committed by the same
person yes that's exactly right and the thing too it's not just you know time and distance but also the way that the
victims are found the similarities between the way that they suffered their their violent deaths
this is really truly the Genesis of the FBI's Highway serial killings initiative
which is all focused on the occupation of long-haul truck drivers and serial killers working within that profession
now back to the cases we were talking about those sex worker cases from truck stops
all in that three-month time span well by January 31st of 2004 four more women were killed so a task force was formed
to investigate the deaths and information about each case was then sent to the FBI's violent criminal
apprehension program or vicap as we've been calling it well we have to recognize Terry Turner for
putting this all together hard work and diligence pieced this together and uh I'll read a little something from the uh
about the Oklahoma cases this is from a 2022 magazine expose that says when Turner began her investigation in 2003
the murders were seen as one-offs for instance there was Vanilla a 47 year old sex worker known for her honeyed voice
from her advertisements that went out over the CB radio she was born Margaret Holmes Gardner she was a West Memphis
local in July 2003 a USPS letter carrier happened upon vanilla's body in shearerville Arkansas left under an
interstate freeway on-ramp she was discovered 15 miles from the West Memphis Flying J A month later the body
of 24 year old sex worker Jennifer Heyman of Oklahoma City turned up in the Tallahatchie River just past Oxford
Mississippi not long after that another woman with ties to Oklahoma City was found dead the
remains of 43 year old Sandra beard also a sex worker who frequented truck stops
was uncovered alongside I-40 on the Eastern end of Oklahoma each of the women's bodies showed
evidence that their limbs had been bound before they were killed part of the pattern spotted by Terry Turner over the
next four months four more women Vicki Anderson Sandra Richardson Patsy Leonard and Casey Joe Pipestem were found dead
from all the evidence Terry Turner reasoned that the suspect must be a long-haul truck driver she believed he
also wasn't the only truck driving serial killer operating on America's interstate highways and they're picking
victims that a lot of times their family members don't know their whereabouts so
it's hard to report them missing or to figure out who they're connected to or where they
came from yeah and being dumped so far away from where they're being picked up and something else that's key to this
modus operandi of this type of killer something you had suggested and hit on earlier these are victims that are
willing to get into the vehicle with the would-be killer they don't have to go too far to look for them or to grab them
off of the side of the road so going back to Chris's case though we we believe that she was badly beaten
she was bound so it's a very good chance that her her killer took her somewhere almost
to torture her and then and then dump her out in this in the woods possibly what I think happened here Captain is a
situation where the crime scene we're looking for is this guy's truck right I think whatever happened to her and again
we don't have a great description I I can't say 100 that she was tied up or bound all I can say is that she was
found partially clothed she was beaten she was strangled and she was dumped what he likely thought was out in the
middle of nowhere but it wrote unfortunately the the corpse when she or fortunately I guess
if you want to look at it from a glass half full perspective is fortunately this caused enough noise and her body
rolled far enough down this Ravine to be discovered a short time later which then
leads us to this breadcrumb trail of well maybe Kristen's killer is a truck driver and
we can start there by looking at truck drivers in the area the whole thing though is really
interesting to me because she's founded 2003 it's really in 2004 when this whole
long distance truck driver serial killer initiative gets put together so relatively quickly here and now we have
what's going to start to be detectives FBI and people coming together and putting together what will
be a list and a map of potential victims that fall within this category that we believe
the likely perpetrator to be a long-haul trucker in a weird way it's very much similar to
what was happening in the Sam little investigation where somebody spotted a pattern decided that it must be a part
of a much bigger picture now we need to reach out to everybody out there cast a wide net
and we need to start to be able to see some of those other pieces of that puzzle some other pieces of that bigger
picture I mean it's crazy to think that there's roughly what four million active drivers
out there active truck drivers and then they think that there could be 300 of them Plus
that are active serial killers well it's for all those reasons that I just stated
their Captain and the good work of Terry Turner along with a colleague from Texas
that notified vicap and vicap analysts took a look at all of these similar cases on a national level
and they realize that there were hundreds of these types of cases for that reason it was in 2004 that the FBI
launched the highway serial killer initiative a separate database separate from vicap to document hundreds of
bodies found in sexual assaults occurring on the sides of roadways near truck stops
and in or near motels along major Trucking routes all across the country and to attempt to track the movements of
possible suspects the FBI notes that the majority of the victims were women living high risk Lifestyles such as drug
addicted transients sex workers all who frequented truck stops or gas stations along major highways
the suspects were naturally truckers because of where the victims are being picked up Christine Palazzolo and FBI
crime analyst who worked on the highway serial killer initiative also was instrumental in identifying Samuel
little and his victims is quoted on the website as saying quote we had an inordinate number of victims and
offenders from this rather specific population pool obviously referring to sex workers and
truckers respectively Michael Harrigan who originally oversaw the highway serial killings initiative said in 2009
that the victims were generally drawn from a vulnerable population saying quote we don't want to scare the public
and make it seem like every time you stop for gas you should be looking over your shoulder many of these victims made
poor choices but that doesn't mean that they deserve to die end quote [Music] this way
so much more to get to and we'll get to that tomorrow same bat Time same bat Channel and until then be good be kind
and don't litter [Music] foreign

America’s Highway Serial Killers /// Part 1 /// 590

Part 1 of 4

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we start off by looking at an unsolved homicide of a young woman from California. Twenty two year old Kristin Alice Schmidt’s body was recovered from a State Park in Oregon. She was killed elsewhere and her body dumped and discovered by campers. As we started to look at Kristin’s still very active case investigation we learned that something larger may be at hand. Something so much larger than any one investigation. Something larger than an Oregon state investigation. America has a problem that was first identified back in the 1980’s. In April of 2009 the F.B.I. announced their Highway Serial Killings Initiative to raise awareness among law enforcement agencies and the general public about this issue and the F.B.I.’s offered assistance in these cases.

Beer of the Week - Tropical Beer Hug from Goose Island Beer Company

Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

Recommended Reading - “ I ” The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen

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Brief Summary

Kristen Alice Schmidt was murdered in 2003; her case remains unsolved, with truck drivers as prime suspects.

Key points

The Discovery of Kristen's Body. Kristen's body was found at the bottom of a ravine, revealing a brutal homicide.
Investigation Begins. The investigation into Kristen's death reveals troubling details about her last movements.
Hitchhiking Risks. Kristen's lifestyle choices put her in danger, as she sought rides from truckers.
Investigators' Frustration. Detective Crutcher shares his feelings about the extensive efforts put into Kristen's case.
Possible Serial Killer Connection. Discussion of a suspect linked to multiple murders, raising concerns about truck drivers.
Victim Vulnerability. The victims were often from high-risk lifestyles, making them more vulnerable to predators.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

this was no accidental death.

Describing the nature of Kristen's death.

4:35WatchOct 21, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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