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

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grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] [Music] crime [Music] [Music] tell [Applause]
me tell me that you miss [Music] me tell [Music] me [Music] me [Music] the date June 26th
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 and till 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 [Music] 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 [Music] garage [Music] newspapers from L Grand Oregon blared that a body was found by a camper at
hillgard 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 Rond River the area is about 250 Mi east of Portland a major city and
just 8 miles west of a small town called L Grand 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 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 Smidt she was just 22 years old an autopsy revealed that she had been strangled Union County
district attorney Martin Brin bomb said that they were able to determine this because of the subcutaneous bleeding in
her eyelids and cheeks bin bomb 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 OS 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 part 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 Brin
bomb said that it appeared that Christen was strangled elsewhere and dumped where
she was eventually found Brin bomb told the East Oregonian it does appear that the body
was just dumped at hillguard 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 Kristen
Alice Schmidt was born in St Louis Obispo in 1980 so this is her hometown which would be about 190 Mi Northwest of
LA and located on Highway 101 on the California coast its population is about 44,000
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 20 2003 Kristen was reportedly a good student now the LR 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 Louis Obispo and Kristen had been staying at her
mom's place before she left town on a trip to visit her longdistance 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 lran police and the Union County
Sheriff's Office all working in unison together on this investigation Montgomery was quoted in the local news
is 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 Kristen's timeline that would require investigators to reconstruct Kristen's movements and figure out how
she went from St Louis 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 longdistance
boyfriend which would be a lot harder to have a long-distance relationship back then because you'd be riding to them and
and longdistance calls cost 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 to family that she was leaving to visit a long-distance boyfriend friend 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 16th 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 St Louis oiso and arrived in Portland Oregon on the same day 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 awakened sometime around 3:00 a.m. by noises that
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 Don 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
3:00 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 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-ft embankment now just to be perfectly clear here Captain some of these
articles say that this would have been about 3:15 a.m. Janes says that she then went back to her campsite and tossed and
turned and had trouble going back back to sleep well the sun comes up and now she's saying around 6:00 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 for 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 beaten 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 Jan'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
Chris was dumped was between the campground and the dayuse 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 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 where 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 trout Dale 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 2518 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 DA 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 stop in Troutdale so beforehand we are told that she was seen hitchhiking in the
Troutdale area and then later as they released 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 and OSP pointed out saying that H 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
Christen wasn't just on the road or on the side of the road at the truck stop sticking her thumb out unfortunately she
did something even more dangerous she was 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 and 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
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[Music] 2023 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
3:00 a.m. on the 26th so we're not dealing with a large large window of time here remember we have Joan Don who
is committed to the statement of it was roughly 3:00 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 but as far as the
Super Convenience Store truck stop right mhm we don't have well we believe she got here at 9 in the morning 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 butto 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 and 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 22y 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 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 one 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 within side 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 CBS 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 evct them 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 9th 2003 that stated quote
to determine who was on the road when the murder occurred the investigator said they have been conducting
interviews in checking way stations and truckers travel logs they concentrated on way stations along I
84 but we have to say often when we drive by those way stations they are closed detective Crutcher also said that
admittedly some truckers run past A Way 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 P 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 i84 near where Kristen was believed to have been picked up anytime
on both June 25th and 26th 20 3 think about that 1,000 truckers and I know that that's a 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 crer 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 believe that this would be a long a lengthy yeah investigation into figuring
out who killed her I'm guessing that based off of the sighting 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 is 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 happened 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 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 Point according to the LR 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
truck ERS 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 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 schuber 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 lran 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 lawyers update. 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 fiance from the airport where he was arriving after flying in from San Diego go 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 4 months after his arrest for car theft his real
identity was finally discovered when his fingerprints were run against the National Database this suspect is Darren
O'Neal back then he was 27 he's a native of Albuquerque New Mexico facing a murder charge in the torture slaying 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 Neil 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-year-old woman from watcom 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 the last seen April 25th 1987 leaving Bellingham Washington this was a
restaurant where she spotted leaving with O'Neal 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'Neal also is sought for questioning in the strangulation
death of Leah subbert 22 of Twin Falls Idaho who we just discussed earlier there were some eyewitnesses who
reported to have seen a man fitting O'Neal's description near where Leah's car broke
down and then he popped up in Spokan 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 eily similar to Kristen case and one worth looking at so
since he was in prison we at the time of Kristen'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 referenced
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 and the same I hope everybody out there
listening is familiar with the FBI's vicap 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 vicap 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 viia 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 and 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 vicap website
contains a 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 hul 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 I40 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 say on September 18th 2003 a Tulsa
area pharmaceutical salesman was driving east on Interstate 40 when his bladder began to get the best of him realizing
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 ft 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 for similar types of crimes within 3
days this is when she learned of two women who died similar deaths mhm beard was the third sex worker to die in a
space of just three months so because of the time and the and 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 3-month time span mhm 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 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 Garder she was a West Memphis local in July 2003 a USPS letter carrier
happened upon vanilla's body in shererville Arkansas left under an interstate freeway onramp she was discovered 15
miles from the West Memphis Flying Jay a month later the body of 24-year-old sex
worker Jennifer for Haymon of Oklahoma City turned up in the tahachi 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 sandre beard also a sex
worker who frequented truck stops was uncovered alongside I40 on the Eastern end of Oklahoma each of the women's
bodies showed evidence that their limbs had been bound before they were killed killed part of the pattern spotted by
Terry Turner over the next four months four more women Vicky Anderson sandre Richardson pany Leonard and Casey Joe
Pipestem were found dead from all the evidence Terry Turner reasoned that the suspect must be a l 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 wouldbe 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
Kristen'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 CRI 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 roll unfortunately the the corpse one she or
fortunately I guess if you want to look at it from 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 found in 200 three it's really in 2004
when this whole longdistance 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 4 million active
drivers out there active truck drivers and that 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 there Captain and the
good work of Terry Turner along with a colleague from Texas that notified vicap and viap analysts took a look at all of
these similar cases on a national level and they realized 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 and 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 palalo an 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 resp effectively Michael harrian who
originally oversaw the highway seral 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 [Music] quote [Music] 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
[Music] litter [Music] you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well
visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

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

Part 1 of 4

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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.

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Brief Summary

Kristen Alice Schmidt's unsolved murder raises concerns about hitchhiking and truck driver involvement.

Key points

A Secretive Businesswoman's Crime. A strange new crime involving puppy laundering is uncovered, shocking consumers.
The Unsolved Homicide of Kristen Alice Schmidt. A young woman's body is discovered in a ravine, leading to a chilling investigation.
The Investigation's Challenges. Detective Crutcher expresses frustration over the lack of progress in Kristen's case.
The Big Rig Sighting. The sighting of a truck could narrow down potential suspects in Kristen's case.
Truck Drivers and Serial Killers. The FBI suggests a troubling link between truck drivers and serial killings.
Highway Serial Killer Initiative. In 2004, the FBI launched an initiative to document hundreds of bodies found near truck stops.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was no accidental death, not an overdose, not a hit and run.

Describing the nature of the homicide.

6:11WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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