America’s Highway Serial Killers /// Part 2 /// 591 | Forensic Files

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me 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 seen and good to
see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my friend [Music] today we are chilling and swilling some
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finger sniffer that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
talk some true crime [Music] [Music] on True Crime garage yesterday we started off by talking about the still
unsolved 2003 homicide of 22 year old Kristen Schmidt from California and then the creation of the FBI's Highway serial
killer initiative is where we left off a lot of what we will be covering in today's show is information collected
from and found on the FBI's website fbi.gov and we left off by talking about vulnerable victims living high-risk
Lifestyles getting picked up and later found a great distance away and then discovered to be victim of a homicide
the FBI website points out these types of cases are very difficult to investigate the U.S Interstate Highway
System began in 1956 and incorporates 47 000 miles of roadway that's a lot of ground to cover the mobile nature of the
offenders the unsafe lifestyles of the victims the significant distance in multiple jurisdictions involved and the
scarcity of witnesses or forensic evidence can make these cases incredibly 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
body on the side of the road in Florida later that same day the victim has no connection to the area where she is
found and there is no forensic evidence to collect because the crime scene is long gone the inside of the truck where
she was killed if the trucker keeps the deceased victim with him for a day or two he can dump her literally 1 000
miles or more from any place either of them were last seen as a long-haul trucker he may even be
familiar with the most remote places to discard his prey ensuring he will never be found and his truck will be just one
of thousands of anonymous big rigs passing by on interstates all over the country on any given day it will be
nearly impossible to track further the victims are often transient and sometimes are not missed when they
vanish because they aren't rooted to any one place many of them are drug addicted
and are weary of law enforcement often they are disinclined to report violence inflicted on them so the culprits are
even more difficult to catch while they're also trained to travel large distances the highway serial killer
initiative website contains a fairly horrifying map of the United States this has red dots on it depicting where each
of more than 750 murder victims have been found along U.S highways in every state but Hawaii
the eastern half of the country has the most dots well that makes sense but the area where Kristen Schmidt was taken
Portland Oregon has its own little cluster of red dots the website says that the FBI list of suspect truckers
now numbers nearly 450. now this is really interesting quote the analysts also began to develop a detailed
timeline on many of the suspects the information obtained from company logs gas station receipts and other records
this would be some of the stuff that we talked about yesterday Captain such as the weigh station records and then we
also have digital toll records such as easy pass as well will help pinpoint where a suspect was
when murders were committed Christine Palazzolo elaborated quote it is not unusual for a driver to pass through
five or even seven states in one day the amount of ground they cover and the lack
of any connection to where they're passing through makes it difficult to tie the cases back
to them end quote but of course that's exactly what makes tracking these guys so difficult as pointed out in a USA
Today article from 2010 stopping crime at the thousands of rest areas truck stops and travel plazas remains
difficult in part that's because the responsibility for policing rest areas varies from state to state that often
means no consistent records are kept about the rate of crimes and no single agency takes ownership for fighting it
but these crimes also are difficult to stop because of the location of the rest areas along major roadways that makes
getting away easy just jump onto an interstate and speed off well think about your own driving history I mean
just to drive a state away can be a chore sometimes and and these individuals like she was saying can go
three four five states away within a day no problem the other issue here is when we're not able to identify
the victims yeah either they're not easily identifiable or we're just not able to identify them because there are
several states away when they were picked up alive and well and Kristen Schmidt's case we got lucky that we have
the eyewitness who sees the big rig but also we get lucky because they find an ID they find identification in her
backpack in many of these other cases in fact many many of the other victims found along the nation's highways are
found with no identifying papers or marks whatsoever well let's think about that for a second let's say we weren't
able to identify Kristen as far as her family knows she's going to go visit her long distance boyfriend in Colorado this
is she's found in a whole separate State chances are they wouldn't be able to put
two and two together in that 2010 article from the USA Today where Michael Harrigan the special agent who oversaw
this task force says that you know part of the problem here too for investigators is that they have at that
time anyway more than 80 cases in which authorities couldn't identify the remains that are found or recovered only
body parts in fact he references a Barstow case from 2010 February of 2010 where a woman's severed head was found
in a backpack a few hundred yards from a truck stop just off of Interstate 15 not
far from i-40. but police had no idea who she was Barstow Jane Doe remains unidentified to this day the main way in
which they're helping with this task force is to be able to connect these cases with smaller departments well it's
kind of the reverse of that they're helping smaller departments local smaller departments and agencies connect
their case to a case somewhere else in the nation right so somewhere on the national level yeah because what they're
thinking here if you follow the victimology as well as the modus operandi of this type of killer it would
be generally believed that a local agency would recover a body find a homicide victim but then they have no
clues to really even take their investigation any steps forward toward getting it
solved and once the local agency can conclude that we don't have anything to follow up on here we don't really have
any investigation because we don't know much about the victim where they're from
or the crime scene we don't have anything to investigate well let's put this on the highway
serial killer initiatives website on their database and let's look for similar types of
crimes you know if you find something that's very specific that matches up with the victim you found well you might
have a match here and if we can take that a step forward now we're going to go okay well
who could have been let's say your your victim your crime seems to match up with
15 other almost identical crimes throughout the United States right that you you locate
them off of this database well then you're going to go there's only a certain number of people that
could have been in all 15 of those locations given those dates and times when the bodies were recovered
and now you have a pool of people a much smaller pool of people it could be 5 6 10 15 people to look at that even had
the possibility to be connected to all of those crimes then you can look at it on a smaller basis of well who could be
connected to a percentage of those crimes basically it's the idea of hoping to lead you to a suspect be the crime
scene if in fact the victim was killed inside the truck the mobile crime scene so one thing that they can do the local
law enforcement agencies the smaller agencies not only can they upload their information about their victim and put
it on this database but also the website allows them to search for different things like for example
manner of death circumstances whether the victim were sexually assaulted or not other
specifics about the case yeah it's pretty fascinating we've referenced vicap on this show many times we've also
mentioned the more local databases that exist like here in Ohio we have the Attorney General's website that lists
Ohio Cold Case homicides unsolved homicides in the state of Ohio sadly there are many unsolved homicides
in the state of Ohio that are missing from that database because in all of these situations with these databases it
is up to the local authorities the local agency to submit the information that they have on their Cold Case or their
unsolved homicide for whatever reason sometimes the agency just does not pass along that information they do not
upload their information to these databases and I think that that's uh one it's a
poopy thing it's a slight on the victims yeah it's I believe a miscarriage of Justice it's
a goddamn shame well it's something small that they can do that takes very little time and effort and costs very
little Manpower or dollars to do and look at what happened with the Sam little case
look at how many homicides were solved using this method word it's a tried and 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 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 numbers so much higher in the 60s and 70s and 80s rather than what we see today
well the short answer is one serial killers are not racking up these types of numbers because of
Technology this is part of it these monsters are being identified faster because of technology and communication
much better communication between jurisdictions and all kinds of law enforcement agencies be it on the
federal level state level county level City level what have you there's better communication today that catches and
apprehends these guys faster it's not that we have less monsters out there it's just we're getting better from
technology and communication and catching them faster so you don't have a Ted Bundy that goes out kills 15 or 20
people instead you have a Ted Bundy that kills one or two women and then he's apprehended and he gets to spend the
rest of his life in prison so what you're saying is there's still just as many pieces of [ __ ] there's piles and
piles of [ __ ] but we're catching those people after their first crime or second crime faster we're
getting we're getting to them faster than they can rack up victims all right calm down Colonel sassy pants well like
you're saying this 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 into the lazy category well part of it though too I think is unclear
to these agencies right who is the designated person that is supposed to upload this information or provide this
information to these different databases in a lot of cases I'm guessing we don't
have a chief of police or Sheriff that has delegated that responsibility to one individual or even gone as far to tell
the lead investigator this is part of your investigation and so I'm I'm reaching out there to all
the good lead investigators out there and asking them please please submit this information to these
different databases it could very well help you on your case or think about this could help somebody
else out one of your fellow women or boys in blue somewhere else in another jurisdiction solve one of their cases at
the very least it gives the families some form of hope it's a different tool different tactic to use and it's the
right thing to do for your victim now the highway serial killer initiative isn't just a data point collection
website the crime Analyst at vicap continually monitor the site for new cases that they think might be the work
of serial killer Truckers when they get one they reach out to the local agency working the case and connect them with
others who have similar crimes in their areas then they assist the local agencies with trying to track suspects
who should be looked at helping them obtain Trucking records and teaching them how to track certain suspects the
FBI's website states that this 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 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 people all of them are serial killers no they couldn't
be further from the truth now whether or not the it's a very very very very small
percent incredibly small percentage whether or not the highway serial killer initiative is an insult to Truckers
the program has allegedly helped solve a number of sexual assaults and murders attributed to truckers the website
claims that the program has resulted in the arrest of 10 male long-haul truckers
collectively responsible for 30 murders in its first four years of operation and
it reports that at least 25 long-haul truckers are in prison in the U.S for serial murder but what about the initial
investigation that kind of kicked this off with uh investigator Terry Turner yeah Terry Turner is the one that kind
of discovered this series of women series of victims that she believed were connected this ultimately became the
Genesis of this whole initiative the series of women and murders that she was investigating these were women that
were dumped along Interstate 40. fast forward to today we know that the these crimes were solved and the killer was
indeed a trucker John Robert Williams age 28 was arrested along with his girlfriend for the murder of a sex
worker they kidnapped from a casino in Mississippi Nikki Hill was the victim she was found
dumped along a rural County Road William's girlfriend was worried that they had been seen leaving the casino
with the victim so she called police and pretended that they had found the body under interrogation the couple's story
collapsed and Williams confessed to that murder and many other murders this is from an article from the Toledo Blade
dated August 11 2007 written by Robin herb it says from a sweltering Mississippi prison earlier this week a
long-haul trucker admitted that he killed a former Toledo woman and more than 30 others authorities said John
Robert Williams confirmed what any homicide detective knows all too well truck stop prostitutes are easy to kill
Captain Clark fine and Lieutenant Roger call of Indiana's Hendricks County Sheriff's Office interviewed Williams
who is being held in a super max unit of the Parchman Mississippi prison they were investigating the death of Buffy
Ray Brawley a 27 year old Toledo woman who's partially clothed body was found March 24 2000 4 and a desolate parking
lot about 10 miles outside of Indianapolis her murder was particularly cruel duct tape was pressed over her face and
her killer bashed in her head and strangled her why the investigators asked the answer was simple
she tapped on the cab of a truck Lieutenant call said but the captain added the 31 year old man Williams knew
details that only the killer might know like when Miss Brawley died he remembered something else without being
asked Miss brawley's Rose Tattoo with the name ebony over it it is the name of her daughter Williams was a long
distance hauler who had worked for several companies during the past three years his girlfriend Rachel Cumberland
rode along with him they were arrested and charged in August of 2004 with the fatal shooting of Nikki Hill
of Mississippi the couple met her at a casino once the couple were in custody the man Williams he confessed to
murdering more than a dozen women many of whom were the cases that Terry Turner was investigating and Williams the
killer he knew details such as whether they were strangled with a ligature or manually whether and how they were
sexually assaulted and whether that occurred before or after death so these are all things that your killer is going
to be the only one that knows the answer to these questions or his sidekick that's riding along with him in his big
rig now he is serving a life sentence plus 20 years in Mississippi for Hills murder Williams though however was as
free as a bird in roaming the country in his truck when Kristen Schmidt was killed scary enough to think that this
serial killer is driving around looking for another victim and basically his mobile killing
machine but he's not the only one they suspect over hundreds of these monsters out
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cheers mates tall cans in the air 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 the serial killers in the this episode and
the coming episodes I wanted to show who fit this modus operandi who fit into these serial killer truckers and review
some of the ones that were apprehended both before and after the creation of this
Highway serial killer initiative but before we get into the serial 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 an idea that even
though we we went through the Genesis of it and how this all started and came about through the good work from Terry
Turner and other colleagues of hers but this was always something that had been suspected or at least much further back
than the creation of this initiative and I remember a case that was on Unsolved Mysteries when I was a kid that talked
about these types of patterns and talked about this type of serial killer the highway serial killer initiative started
up in the mid-2000s right but the Pittsburgh Press started reporting on the murder of truck stop sex workers
back in April of 1987. we'll get into some of that stuff here in a little bit later but the one that I remember from
Unsolved Mysteries here Captain was an Ohio journalist also covered the pattern in 1991. this is Pulitzer Prize winner
Michael Barons who was doing a story for our local paper The Columbus Dispatch doing a story on serial killers for The
Columbus Dispatch when he's putting together his story he noticed a pattern of murdered sex workers using news
stories and police reports Barons found similarities in the slayings of multiple
women from 1985 to 1990. most were strangled or asphyxiated and suffered blunt for trauma to the face and most of
their bodies were dumped along an interstate this is directly from the dispatch article dated March 10 1991. a
serial killer may be trolling Ohio interstates and truck stops claiming at least nine female victims who are linked
in both life and death A dispatch investigation has revealed most of the victims are known or suspected
prostitutes part of a flourishing sex for sale industry centered on truck stops and linked by freeways in citizens
banned radios since 1985 bodies have been found scattered across four states six have
been discovered in Ohio the other three were found near interstates in Illinois Pennsylvania and New York three of the
Ohio victims worked from the Union 76 Truck Stop in Austintown Ohio police records show the truck stop east of
Akron and west of Youngstown is the state's largest eight victims were missing clothing mostly undergarments
and shoes FBI experts say serial killers often keep victims Trophies the victims were
all beaten strangled or suffocated all were killed someplace other than where they were found no weapons have been
found no Ohio law enforcement agency has comprehensively tracked the unsolved homicides FBI agent John Dunn a
spokesman for the Cleveland office said the bureau informally reviewed five of the slangs but is unaware of any
forensic evidence linking them but more Ohio investigators are now saying some of the slangs appear to be connected all
agree the Killer is most likely a truck driver who is believed to have used the names of Dr No Stargazer and dragon
while luring women to his cab using a Citizen band radio truckers often use fake names called
handles when talking on CBS well Colonel if I've said it once I say it a thousand
times never trust a man with a fake name but never ever trust a man named Dragon serial killer expert John
Douglas of the FBI's Behavioral Science unit says for the article that serial killers often Escape early detection
when crisscrossing jurisdictions Douglas and other experts say a lack of communication between police agencies is
one of a serial Killer's greatest advantages and Barons discovered that this use of a CB radio for communication
between sex worker and trucker was not exactly a secret one of the victims went by the CB handle tongue teaser as
described in his article the sex workers used the CB radio to put their availability out there using a cute or
alluring handle a sex worker looking for a John would get on the radio and give her handle and a known catchphrase that
she had developed and the trucker would answer back and say yeah this is the blue Peterbilt and Row three come meet
me and she goes off to the truck and then usually once they are done she'll use the trucker CB to radio to her next
potential customer at least two of the Dead women in Ohio from this article were seen getting into a black Peterbilt
tractor trailer after the dispatch ran the story about all of the victims in Ohio and the three nearby States all
whom seem to be linked the Ohio attorney general and the sheriff's associate Nation formed a task force to figure
this out they determined that the counties were not communicating about the murders and so had not put the
pieces together that they could be dealing with a trucker serial killer pretty crazy when you think about it by
March 15 1991 the dispatch ran an article that reported quote detectives from New York to Tennessee who are
investigating the possible serial killings of 10 women plan to gather within two weeks in Ohio the meeting
will be the first for a task force in Ohio that includes more than a dozen law enforcement agencies looking into the
slangs from 1985 to 1990 yeah law enforcement officials first began speculating that a serial killer was
loose on the interstates in 1987. the task force also undertook to print and distribute 4 000 posters bearing images
of five of the victims who have been identified and drawings of three who where Jane does
they handed them out and posted the Flyers at 130 truck stops in Ohio and 1350 and nine other states as well as at
147 rest stops along highways in Ohio the flyer advertised a ten thousand dollar reward for information about the
murders and a tip line so let's think about some of those numbers that they're saying here and big give big kudos to
Barons who was writing that article for The Columbus Dispatch and you know what we'll give give a little bragging rights
here to say that looks like our state was ahead of the curve here right we were on to this thing maybe a little
faster than the rest of the country and it seems like Pittsburgh as well so America
yeah you're welcome that's right but we have the numbers in there really point out how difficult these cases will be to
investigate when they talk about Distributing these posters that they created with images of five of the
victims who were identified and then we also have three I unidentified Jane does
that were on these posters as well they're handing them out to 130 truck stops just in Ohio Alone 1 350 truck
stops in nine other states and that doesn't even include the 147 rest stops along highways in Ohio so this is a a
big undertaking yeah a massive project to undertake but the reality is that means that there are so many victims
that don't have Justice and some of them aren't even identified it's pretty scary world that we are
operating in that it is another way of looking at it here Captain is that there's some pretty scary people
operating in the 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 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 start by finishing our story that we said started here with the newspaper of The Columbus
Dispatch so we jump now to another publication and this quote is taken from an article in CDL life which is a
trucking industry newsletter and the quote says news that a serial killer was attacking women and truck stops in Ohio
was first reported in the early 90s that again The Columbus Dispatch article that
we've been referencing the Pittsburgh Press actually first covered the murders in 1987 like we said
it's April 5th 1987 article entitled killings of truck stop hookers baffle police reports on a slew of murders that
seem to form a pattern the article talks about the realities facing truck stop sex workers with call signs like bad
girl Twilight champagne butterfly and sex machine over the CB they flirt with the truckers
on the prowl at truck stops like the one near Youngstown Ohio probably easy for these truck drivers to figure
out which places have surveillance and and they have so much ground to cover and such big stops that if they just go
a little bit further out it's like wait just beat me down a little 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 guessing that a lot of these truck stops have less
surveillance if any compared to what we have now right the other thing too is so
many of these workers are using assume names they're using aliases they're not so easily identified
these would be the would-be potential victims for such monsters that I don't know that they have to worry especially
back then so much so as who sees who get into whose truck right because there's so much of this activity 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 where
everything gets very difficult to investigate these crimes yeah it'd probably be easier to find a needle in a
haystack back to that CDL life newsletter it goes on to say that similarities in cases of murdered women
led many to believe it could be the work of one person it became apparent that one man was soliciting sex workers over
the CB channels and the sex workers were turning up all over Ohio dead but then it wasn't just Ohio this particular
trucker was believed to have been responsible for a string of murders women that were killed and dumped near
roadways in Ohio Illinois New York and Pennsylvania at least nine women and then 10.
in total were found in Ohio between 1981 and 2004. and then three more in other states
Jesus most of them were missing underwear and shoes several of the victims were associated
with the largest truck stop in Ohio the Union 76 truck stop that we mentioned in
Austintown but who was this guy no one knew his name the still living sex workers in the area
did not like dealing with him they were afraid of him and generally refused to get into his rig so they came up with
this term they termed him Dr No as some kind of code name like Dr no don't go with that man right let's take a look at
some possible victims of this doctor now one of the earliest was a woman that was
found in April of 1981 in Miami County Ohio founded a ditch on Greenlee Road near State Route 55. approximately five
miles west of I-75 this victim was known only as Buckskin girl she was finally identified via forensic genealogy in
2018 as as Marcia King the next three victims Marcia Matthews who was found by a State Trooper in June of 1985 on I-70
north of Mansfield with her head smash cashed in she was this is crazy she was still
alive when found but died two days later in the hospital it's awful Shirley Dean Taylor was found
July 1986 strangled and beaten at a rest stop on I-71 near the I-76 interchange and
April Barnett who in December of 1986 was strangled and dumped over a guard rail on the
southbound Lanes of I-71 this is west of Akron three miles north of U.S Route 30.
they were all near or were last seen at this Union 76 Truck Stop the next victim
Ann Marie Patterson was discovered to have made an appointment at an Austintown truck stop via CB radio with
a client she did not like called Dr no her pimp overheard the CB exchange as quoted
on Mysterious Universe as no thank you I know this is what the pimp overheard her
saying to the trucker that evening he was calling but they wouldn't go to his truck for some reason
the pimp later said they said he was trouble so they're being told that this guy's trouble but in fact Anne-Marie had
been arrested for solicitation earlier that day had told an officer she had some sketchy information about who may
have been responsible for killing three other known prostitutes who frequented truck stops in the Youngstown area
but Anne-Marie was scared and didn't tell them any helpful details the next day after the CB exchange overheard by
her pimp Anne-Marie went back to work went back to work at the Venango County truck stop and never met up with her
pimp as planned she was then found in March of 1987. but she's found 250 miles away wrapped
up in a sleeping bag this in a ditch next to the I-70 north of Cincinnati they're Travelers having
been in a refrigerator for a month she was found five months pregnant this is awful after hearing all this I'm
gonna have to up my prescription of vodka but at least in this case we have an eyewitness yeah we have the pimp who
ends up telling police that when she 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 doctor know that she responded to drove a
long-nosed dark colored Peterbilt truck and drove for North American 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 would be Dr Feel Good two weeks later the Pittsburgh
Press came out with the article titled mysterious doctor knows sought an Ohio truck stop prostitute murder probe
the article reported that Anne-Marie Patterson one of our victims have been afraid of this air quotes Dr No and
there were other truck stop sex workers that were afraid of him as well Dr No was wanted for questioning and some
believed he might be a serial killer a serial killer or the serial killer that they're looking for yeah in relation to
these cases that we're talking about what's interesting here Captain is at least two of the four victims were last
seen entering a dark blue or black Peterbilt truck right that fits the description we were given by the witness
to one of the last victims and it may have been a refrigerated trailer remember Anne-Marie Patterson's body had
been refrigerated before being dumped the man called Dr No was sought to have possibly used the CB radio handles
Stargazer and dragon as a result of the murders a multi-county task force was established to investigate the crimes
and figure out whether they were dealing with one killer or several authorities from four different counties in Ohio
where bodies were found disagreed as to whether they had a serial killer trucker
on their hands or not although there were no Witnesses weapons or ammos linking the crimes some were convinced
there was a serial killer humming along the Ohio highways killing and dumping women all along the interstates so the
problem with these cases for a group of investigators is just sit down and quickly review them and compare notes
and say yeah I think we got one guy killing all these women it got a little dicey because there were
not there were similarities with some of the cases but there were also great differences as well right some of them
were killed in different manners some of them were found obviously they're found
in different locations one thing connecting them was their air quotes occupation and the idea that they were
working these truck stops and some of them that one major truck stop there in Ohio
was easy to see why somebody would think they're connected and why others would disagree the other problem with this
type of killer is truck drivers don't always own their vehicles so they could be getting a new vehicle or driving a
different style of vehicle every few weeks well and we talk about these four victims but while we have this task
force looking at this doctor no and how many murders he may or may not be connected to that number will eventually
grow to 10 victims in Ohio and three in other states so we quickly go from well he may be responsible for 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 force is
saying there's probably about 400 of these types of serial killers okay 400 so we got 50 states that's eighth per
state roughly probably more in some states less than other states but if the average Trucking serial killer has three
victims well that's 1200 victims if they have 10 that's 4 000 victims that's insane well and watch The Killing season
you know we had Joshua ziemann on here feels like forever ago to talk about The Killing season on a we've been doing
this a long time very long we had him on 1951 it was the summertime I remember it
like it was yesterday um we had him on to discuss the Long Island serial killer case and that's
because his series The Killing season does speak about the Long Island serial killer case on a couple of those
episodes one thing that they explored during that series was these long-haul trucker killers and there was some
thought that there could be a trucker involved in the list case as well so what everybody's going to want to know
right Captain was this doctor no ever caught well a 2019 arrest put behind bars the
man that is widely believed to be Dr no yeah doctor yes first a CODIS hit in 2005
showed that the same killer was responsible for two Highway murders so let's break this down a little bit we
have in Wood County the Frozen nude body of Victoria Collins was found December 20th 1996 found
behind the Union 76 truck stop on Route 420 near exit 71 of the Ohio Turnpike in
Lake Township the victim Collins was an exotic dancer from Cleveland who had been out with some friends partying she
argued with her friends and was let out of a vehicle on I-90 near Cleveland she was last seen on December 16th or the
early morning hours of December 17 1996 she was reported missing by a friend on the 18th
then we have October 23 1997. Julia concool was found strangled and dumped behind a center's truck stop in Lake
County Illinois CODIS also contained DNA from a 1992 murder in Mahoning County Ohio which was
a match to an unknown perpetrator in the Collins and the cocool case this was Sharon kudzerski who was found dead at a
truck stop near Youngstown this victim Sharon she died from blunt force trauma she was found on April 9 1992 near the
edge of the universal truck mall parking lot in Austintown Ohio she had been deceased for approximately 24 hours and
died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries to the head face and upper chest what CODIS tells us here Captain
is the same man had killed three women right in 2019 the DNA from the unknown suspect in the three truck stop murders
was also matched to a rape in Medina County a familial DNA search resulted in the name of a man who was the brother of
a man who had been an original suspect in the rape case his name was Samuel Legg in 1997 long-haul trucker Samuel
Legg had been suspected of raping a 17 year old female hitchhiker in the Medina area
he gets picked up after giving this teenage girl a ride to Cleveland and he had drugged her and raped her in the cab
of his truck and what happens is the case somehow against leg falls apart I like to stand
on but they have the DNA on file good so now in 2019 they had a familial DNA match to Samuel Legg showing that he was
the probable suspect in multiple unsolved cases so charges are filed and Ohio investigators tracked Samuel Legg down
at a group home in Arizona arrested him and took a DNA sample it showed that Samuel Legg was the contributor of the
DNA in all four cases right the three murders unsolved murders and that 1997 rape
soon more murders would be attributed to him after he confessed the leg is going
to be picked up in February of 2019 and he's going to eventually confess to the crimes and
even showing them demonstrating to law enforcement how he choked and strangled the victims he admits that he picked
them up he admits that he choked all 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 back to Ohio so he can stand trial but first he has to undergo a competency
hearing or competency exam he fails this exam the courts were given a year to rehabilitate him to the point
that he could face his charges in court but again psychiatric evaluation showed that he was not competent to stand trial
right a big diagnosed schizophrenic in the past and he was not a well Man based off of these reports in order to
institutionalize him they had to show that he was responsible for these crimes authorities in several jurisdictions
filed charges to make sure that he stayed locked up this brings us to 2020 when a Wood County grand jury did indict
Samuel Legg on two counts of aggravated murder and single counts of murder rape and kidnapping in connection with the
murder of one of the victims her name Victoria Collins he was also indicted for the murder of Sharon kozersky piece
of [ __ ] in Illinois he was charged with two counts a first degree murder for the
death of 39 nine-year-old Julie conkle remember she was pregnant at the time Samuel Legg was also the prime suspect
in the 1990 murder of his stepdaughter which is 14 year old Angela Hicks I guess he would have been about 21 at the
time now Angela Hicks her skeletal body her skeletal remains were found in a wooded area off of West River Road near
Midway Mall in Lorraine County well law enforcement believes they know who did this but they don't know how to prove it
yes that is the case with the Angela Hicks case but we saw some reports that say that
there's DNA evidence linking leg to Angela's murder but her case was reopened after Samuel Legg was arrested
and he was interviewed as part of the initial investigation way back in 1990 as well right we do know that Samuel
Legg was one of the last people to see Angela Hicks alive prior to her death again back in 1990 they thought they
knew who did it they couldn't prove it and then after this after the death of his stepdaughter Samuel Lake became an
independent truck driver a position that he held for nearly a decade Samuel Legg
had various arrests for failure to pay child support theft trespassing and receiving stolen property he was
divorced from at least four wives that we could find then in 2016 to 2019 he was required to live at a group home for
the mentally ill and Chandler Arizona after his mental state deteriorated and he became delusional right he often
heard voices that told him to escape and he would climb out windows ironically try to Hitch rides with truck drivers at
one point he succeeded in getting 100 miles away yeah Mr leg or doctor no whatever the hell you want to call him
he's a real piece of [ __ ] this takes us to News 5. News 5 says quote Ohio attorney general Dave Yost
that's our current attorney general said it is fair to consider leg a former truck driver a serial killer how many
cases a leg may be connected to remains unclear it's an open question at the moment there may be more than three in
Ohio Yost said because they had a living witness in the rape case they 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 traditional trial and he wasn't found technically guilty right Medina County Common Pleas judge Joyce krembler ruled
that Samuel Lake had committed the crime and ordered that he remain in Columbus's Twin Valley
Behavioral Health Care Facility so you're right Captain he's technically not found guilty and it's not a
traditional trial so rather the judge held it there was clear and convincing evidence
that Samuel Legg was responsible for the rape this was a sufficient finding justify and voluntary commitment to a
psychiatric facility so Samuel Legg or possibly AKA doctor no is currently housed at Twin Valley
Behavioral Health Center in Columbus Ohio which is a maximum security facility where he has been involuntarily
committed he will stay there for at least 10 years at which point they will find a way to keep him
from the Medina Gazette says ensuing rulings across listed jurisdictions have spelled an effective lifetime placement
in the Columbus mental health facility for Samuel Legg who's been diagnosed with schizophrenia it's also been
determined that his mental capacity cannot be restored to 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 Matthews Shirley Dean Taylor April Barnett Anne-Marie
Patterson and many others remain unsolved foreign [Music] you could be anywhere but you are here
with us and we appreciate it we love you and because we love you we have some recommended reading for you Colonel
that's right Captain this week we are recommending I the creation of a serial killer by the late great Jack Olson this
is based on access to interviews Diaries court records and the actual killer himself I the creation of a serial
killer is jesperson's Keith jesperson's chilling story it Chronicles his Evolution from angry child to
Psychopathic murderer from Tormentor of animals to torture of women check out I the creation of a serial killer you'll
find that recommendation and many others on our website truecrimegarage.com and like always
don't forget to tell a friend and until next week be good be kind and don't live
[Music] foreign [Music]

America’s Highway Serial Killers /// Part 2 /// 591

Part 2 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

This episode discusses Kristen Schmidt's unsolved murder and the FBI's initiative to track serial killers targeting vulnerable victims along highways.

Key points

The Highway Serial Killer Initiative. This initiative aims to connect unsolved cases involving truckers to help solve murders.
Terry Turner's Discovery. Investigator Terry Turner uncovered a series of connected murders, leading to the initiative's creation.
The Highway Serial Killer Initiative. A task force was formed to investigate a series of murders linked to truckers.
Dr. No: The Mysterious Trucker. A trucker known as 'Dr. No' is suspected in multiple murders of sex workers.
Samuel Legg Arrested. In 2019, Samuel Legg was arrested and linked to multiple unsolved murders and a rape case.
Legg's Confession. Samuel Legg confessed to the murders, demonstrating how he choked and strangled his victims.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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1:19WatchOct 21, 2022

Tension

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