The I-70 KIller /// Part 2 /// 442 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that's moving out to LA the land of the Champions here
is the captain heading out to California it's good to be seen and good to see you
thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are sipping on a fantastic
logger I-70 Colorado logger from Odyssey Beer Works this baby is clean crisp bright and I saw someone describe I-70
Colorado lager as Zippy so we'll back that up and let's start off by giving some praise to those that got our backs
first up a cheers to slats mccracker in Campbelltown Sydney with a big shout out
to Jenny G in Wisconsin next up we have Mindy and Vancouver Washington and a big
shout out to Kimberly and Friday Harbor Washington next up we have Aaron in LA and last but certainly not least we have
Sydney and Pangborn England everyone we just mentioned went to truecrime garage.com and contributed to this
week's beer fun and for that we give you five out of five bottle caps yeah we're
a little bit behind on the beer shout out so make sure you're patient but thanks for helping out with the bwrun
beer run make sure you go to our website and sign up on the mailing list so you're in the know when we send out a
promo code to the website store and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair
grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] thank you [Music] 24 year old Nancy Kitzmiller played
soccer throughout high school and at Oklahoma State University where she graduated with a degree in geography she
returned home after graduation and organized her old high school soccer buddies to play in an indoor soccer
league she loved her country and western music and was a line dancing fanatic she
had a big smile blue eyes and long curly brown hair now Nancy wanted to be a cartographer she applied for a job with
the defense mapping agency headquartered in St Louis for this job she needed top secret
security clearance this is going to take some time to get and she had been waiting for about a year where we pick
up our story in May of 1992. so Nancy's finished with school and she's going to work at a store called boot Village in
Saint Charles Missouri this is while she's waiting on that security clearance Nancy's parents say that Nancy was
expecting that clearance to come within two weeks of the time of her death the bogey Hills Plaza boot Village store in
Saint Charles Missouri opened on Sunday May third 1992 at noon that day Nancy was
one of several managers that worked at the store well this location is going to be similar to some of the other
locations in this story where yes it's a business but it's surrounded by other businesses but since it's a Sunday the
other businesses aren't going to be open yeah it's a busy area in some of these other stores in this media area will be
closed due to the Sunday this Western Footwear store is located at 2079 zumbel or zombiel road and I'll spell that
because I'm a [ __ ] in the garage who can't say things it's z-u-m-b-e-h-l Road Nancy will be working
the early shift by herself because business is typically slow on a Sunday now sometime between unlocking the doors
for business that day again at noon and 2 30 p.m that afternoon someone shot Nance see in the head and did take some
money from the cash register though there were reportedly plenty of people visiting other retail outlets in the
area no one comes forward saying that they heard a gunshot a passerby did say that they saw the
killer though the last customer that Nancy Kitzmiller waited on according to this
eyewitness this person was a male of medium height with dull red hair not terribly unlike the description we
received from the man retrieving the cumberbund right at the bridal shop today the address of 2079 zombiel Road
houses a St Louis Bread Company the boot Village Store is no longer there this is
very much in every way a similar attack to the others a employee working in a smaller business by themselves is
attacked shot in the back of the head there is some money that is stolen from the scene
again the location though 2079 zombiel Road Saint Charles Missouri it's an eight-minute drive to Interstate
70. 3.9 miles away wow and you had asked Captain off Mike if we knew exactly how
much money was taken or how much money was left the general description with all five of these events that we are
going to go through in the I-70 killer timeline the description is all basically the
same that it is agreed upon by investigators that some money was taken from each location but also some money
was left at each location this is where you have to wonder what is the hold back
information here there has to be something even if it's these quick attacks that are very succinct I mean we
have what appears to be a guy walking in to a store and killing an individual leaving very few Clues behind and also
probably spending very little time at the actual crime scene inside the store itself there does have to be some
information that we don't know that the public does not know that the police in these areas and these jurisdictions know
how much money was left how much money was believed to be taken the other thing that I'm curious about we know in one of
these attacks that Mick his wallet was taken curious to me if there were personal
items belonging to the victims taken at all of the scenes or more than just that
one scene yeah it's very difficult too because I think like you were saying it's pretty easy to go well I think
murder was the main motive because they're not taking much money that might just be not much money to
your eye or for us to go a couple hundred bucks I'm not going to kill somebody over a couple hundred bucks but
I wonder if that lowers the age of the suspect we're looking for because obviously a couple hundred bucks to
a 17 or 18 year old kid would be huge well again here we have a potential other witness and age has been a [ __ ]
for the suspect in this case I've seen them put the age range as low as 20 to 30 years of age and as late as 30 to 45
years of age yeah I heard as early as a three-year-old well the thing here is if
we are to go off of May Rose's witness statement he was the manager at the paint store right
keep in mind he says some interesting things that immediately upon seeing this man if in fact that was the killer I
believed him to be a hitchhiker slash homeless person well typically people that are disheveled unclean they can
look older than they actually are and then to to take that a step further you and I keep honing in on the fact that
money was taken from the scene but money was also left at the scene we may be trying to rationalize
something that there is no rationalization for meaning if May Rose was correct in his assessment that this
individual was either on drugs or had mental problems or both there may be no Rhyme or Reason for why
this individual's leaving money at the scene this takes us to our next attack here
Captain this is May 7th we're four days out from the last attack May 7 1992 we have Sarah Lynn blessing working
by herself her maiden name is heart and she's recently married she's a newlywed as well uh 37 years old Sarah was a
healthy conscious person very knowledgeable about natural foods and such she went to Emporia State College
halfway between Topeka and Wichita earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in interpersonal Communications with a
minor in Psychology she was known to be a pet lover now Sarah was born six weeks
prematurely and had a younger sister and a younger brother but her mother Wilma Hart recalled quote she was always a
little thing but she was the big sister and she goes on to say that she read constantly and got straight A's in
school now Sarah and five of her friends rented a storefront in Raytown Missouri
each would set up in an area where they would display their items to sell these could be things like crystals vitamins
natural foods and such they called it the store of Many Colors they would take turns working at the
store the grand opening was 1992 in April late April the grand opening week of April 18th to April 26th
so another bizarre situation here Captain because we are now on our second store where it has just recently opened
on May 7th this was a Thursday it was Sarah's turn to work she's working alone that is the day that she was killed
Sarah was in the store alone when a man wearing a gray sports coat slacks and dress shoes strolled across the large
parking lot toward the shop of Many Colors the store that we're talking about now this guy is going to stand out
to Witnesses because most people drove to the popular strip mall and of course they're going to park right in front of
the store that they are intending to go into so this guy he's not seen getting out of
a vehicle he's seen walking the distance of the parking lot and then selecting this store the store of many colors
Tim Hickman owned a video store that was next door to the gift shop where we have
our young woman working where he said that he heard loud bangs after hearing this he said that he saw a man walking
up the hill behind the shop and he believed heading in the direction of Interstate 70.
he goes next door enters the shop and discovers Sarah's body lying on the floor then we have a clerk at a nearby grocery
store who was outside collecting carts if you look at this location on a map what we have here Captain is we have
let's picture uh a square with three sides and one of the sides not fully complete but what what
we have by that pointing that out is we have shops that are facing one another with a large parking lot in the center
of all of these shops the location of this grocery store which is the largest shop in this strip mall location
is across the street or across the parking lot I should say from the gift shop what he is going to see is a man
exit the gift shop and then walk in the Direction behind the store behind the store there's a hill a street and then
if you go beyond that there's a neighborhood but this person this second eyewitness
says that he saw this man walking away walking North at 63rd and Woodson which is just about three miles south of
i-70. the suspect was also reported to be walking East down 59th Street approximately 10 minutes later at that
time the stranger was about three miles south of I-70 so about the same location
speaking of location the store is located at 11573 East 63rd Street in Raytown Missouri
this driving by car would be nine minutes travel time to Interstate 70. it's 4.6 miles away which is another
similarity in this case as the other cases now obviously we're connecting them but this is after law enforcement
already did so years ago yeah and I actually heard um it was just one podcast I think there
were several podcasts on this case I listened to a portion of one of them and I don't recall the name and I don't want
to throw anybody under the bus anyway but they had said you know it these all these crimes and they're the distance
apart of course you're not going to connect them and it's the early 90s so the jurisdictions weren't talking to one
another so they didn't connect them for years which in fact that's absolutely false that's not correct information
what we have here is within days of the final attack we have four of the investigating four of the five
investigating departments are meeting to collaborate and to discuss potential similarities and see if the crimes are
in fact linked and what we have is an immediate warning that comes from these four investigating departments in May
that says this is issued a warning issue to stores near interstate highways throughout the entire country saying be
careful try not to leave a clerk alone on duty saying we are moving ahead but just because we had a meeting doesn't
mean that we're going to catch the guy tomorrow these things are going to take some time now we said four of the five
investigating departments that is because there was a bit of a squabble over whether or not the Wichita
homicides were connected to the others or not we have Indiana state police detective crook who said without
elaborating on the details that there were certain factors about the Wichita slangs that were different from the
others yeah but you're going to have that I mean not every serial killer or expert in crime commits the crime 100
the same way every time right and what's so funny about this portion of the story to me anyway is
that he goes on to say on the record this is one of those moments where it's like it's like toothpaste once it's out
of the tube you can't put it back in and I I bet you he wishes that he had not said some of these words so he says the
Wichita shootings appear to be too far off of I-70 Wichita meaning their Police Department is really hot on the idea
that they are involved but we are not that seems pretty clear-cut but the problem is then just two days later the
Wichita killings were in fact linked to the others and Rick Pilgrim spokesman for the Metro case Squad investigating
said we've been able to come up with common denominators in all of the cases we have physical evidence linking the
crimes so maybe hair sample fingerprint DNA something palm print I wish that that
were the case I don't think that they have that stuff okay what we do know that is left at all of the crime scenes
is bullets unfortunately what I'm saying is that they're going to be able to physically
connect these through evidence to each other because of primarily the bullets right so the bullets because of
ballistics is basically like a fingerprint for the gun and we mentioned that we have the warning that was issued
by police to basically the entire nation of this guy could hit any store seemingly at random
please do not have your employees working alone especially if you're a store that's located near an interstate
or a freeway they did offer up some theories immediately early in the get-go of this investigation once they've
connected all of these crimes saying that he may be posing as a traveling salesman or the killer May Force his way
into a store with his gun he may case the area and strike at a time when a single clerk is vulnerable
but I think one of the most powerful things that is stated early on in this investigation comes from the assistant
police chief in Terre Haute Indiana this is Joseph Newport who says we were dealing with a serial killer he's not
really getting much money out of the shops we don't know why he's killing people I just think he wants to kill
people he's going into places that don't have money if he had gotten every dollar
in there it wouldn't have amounted to much but I think that's important in this and the profile of this individual
is is maybe even though the amount of money was so little it was still they still needed the money right it's
something it's almost like a signature if in fact it's a side thought it's also somewhat
necessary to the crime itself if he is in fact going in there just for the purpose of killing well he's taking an
extra step that has heightened risk involved with it of taking money from the scene
a lot of what you are discussing is information that came out pretty a lot of what we're discussing is
information that came out pretty quickly after the crimes but this next bit is something that came out I believe 20
years afterwards yeah in 2012 the Saint Charles Police Department released what they believed
to be the exact model of the gun used in all of the slangs and we say all the slangs
we I think we really need to hone in on something before we get into the details
of this weapon here what the hell is going on we have six victims and five events
that all take place in a month a period of just one month right that is forgive me for saying so a speedy and
efficient killer we have the first attack that takes place on April 8 1992 and then the last
known attack is May 7 1992. in a one month period six people killed it was the uh Indiana State Police or or maybe
it was the Indianapolis City police pardon me that came up with the moniker of the
I-70 killer but we know from what they were saying in late May of 92 that all of these events all of these homicides
are connected and then we fast forward 20 years later to learn in 20 2012 that they believe that they may know the
exact gun to have been used so lab tests confirmed that all five had been killed
by the same gun this would be a semi-automatic 22 caliber pistol and based off of witness testimony police
strongly believe that the murder weapon may have been and Irma work and I'm going to spell
that in case I'm saying it incorrectly w-e-r-k-e and it was model a model ET 22 pistol now this is a unique
looking Weapon It's a handgun with a very long barrel and it also looks like um me being a lay person uh referred to
as like a Nazi looking gun you know those little the little handguns that you see in the Indiana Jones movies
um the cartridges of the bullets were polished with Jewelers Rouge this is a very specific thing to these
crimes okay this is somebody we're talking about expert level of experience with Firearms why would
anyone polish bullets with Jewelers Rouge I would have no idea about that I have no clue why anybody would do that
until looking into this case what I've been told is that if you were to do this that it's it would prevent the bullets
from jamming that it would it would prevent the gun from misfiring so you don't run into any issues when you're
trying to operate your killing machine that you're bringing to the scene of these crimes now we say that this weapon
is unique well it was in fact unique only 6 000 were imported to the United States from Germany so detectives are
hoping that someone would recognize this gun and remember if they knew someone who had this rare gun back in the early
90s the ammunition was CCI brand 22 caliber long rifle with copper clad lead bullets police asked all gun enthusiasts
and gun dealers to notify them if they see an Irma work model ET 22 or had one stolen from them in the
early 90s the owner or presumably the killer may have used corundum or red Rouge for fire lapping of the weapon or
may have used corundum and Rouge and grinding polishing or machine shop work there there are many complaints that
this gun would not cycle reliably or eject and load a new round again that's why somebody with an expert level of
experience would know to use this Jeweler's Rouge to prevent that from happening well we have multiple crimes
multiple crime scenes multiple law enforcement departments working together what kind of profile if any do we have
of this individual that's what's unique I think to this this we have a known serial killer
operating the problem is he's operating in multiple States across many many miles of land but what's unique to this
case amongst the others is I couldn't really find a profile what I could find is several statements by several
different departments that said at the time you know early 1992 saying we are working with the FBI to provide
them information and details of the crime so that they can put together a psychological profile of the I-70 killer
well you look you wait you look again nothing what you find is a month or two later a different department saying the
same thing we are working with the FBI to provide them details of the crime so that they can put together a
psychological profile what we have years later Captain is we have the uh Indianapolis Police who say that they
were working with the FBI but it was it was yet to be determined years later yet to be determined if the
case is even profile I'm having a trouble with this word filable there you go thank you God bless you Captain if
the case is even profilable because again it's like this guy walks into the store boom commits the homicide
and then walks out it's almost like a mix between a serial killer and a spree killer
yes exactly and when it comes down to it as far as the investigation goes we have
the Indianapolis Police on record saying we literally went through and got Hotel
registrations from every single hotel across Interstate 70 up and down the interstates all over
and looked into those they looked into toll booths they checked license plates they checked traffic stops during the
times of the attacks and they've come out and they've been pretty clear and up front with this is not a DNA case
this killer did not do anything to the victims or uh the the attacks were not such that they had DNA evidence Left
Behind of the killer you had referenced um fingerprints palm prints hair fibers anything of that nature earlier
I can't say with certainty that they have that or did not have that we have multiple crime scenes and again every
one of the crime scenes is a for lack of better term is a public place you have many people that could be in and out of
these stores in these shops so they may have that stuff they also may have that stuff in not able to link it to anybody
or aware that they actually have it because you have a crime scene that contains so many fingerprints so many
palm prints possible hair and fiber what we do have the very little bit that we do have as far as a profile would go we
have the physical profile that we've already talked about we'll talk about again but we do have law enforcement on
record saying that they believe that the suspect could be a military man a hitchhiker a traveling salesman or a
truck driver because the thought being that there's a possibility that the Killer is someone who has a reason to
travel Beyond just killing so again such as a Salesman or truck driver and then along those lines
detectives said that the killer might have dealings with military bases because several of the slangs occurred
near Military and installations such as Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis [Music]
oh [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] what is up chicken butt cheers mates and welcome back
we got a lot more to dive into in the I-70 killer case for all of you die hard garage listeners out there we just put
out another off the Record episode on Stitcher premium yesterday so make sure you check that out so in this case it's
not clear but it seems like there's no one source of profile but we do have a composite for this individual
yes we do and the general consensus seems to be that police describe the suspect as a white male in his mid-20s
to mid 30s um with the remark of but more likely in his mid-30s eyewitnesses have described
this man as uh five feet seven inches to five feet all the way up to five feet nine inches tall about 150 pounds with
reddish colored or light colored hair and a stubble beard or faint beard and I might be wrong but it seems like from
the furthest distance from Indianapolis to I believe it's Wichita it's a 10 hour radius that we have so
multiple places that this killer could be residing do we have any evidence or any clues to pinpoint that
down yeah so I want to talk a little bit about some gangbusters work that is done
being done by a guy going by questor um I didn't write down his full name here but it's at questersite.com
he has worked on just as a armchair detective has worked on several of these older cases particularly high profile
cases and he did several posts about the I-70 killer one thing that the that he points out as far as a pattern goes
because I'm looking at this thing and I'm like what what's the pattern here because we don't have attacks that are
taking place in order of you know on down the road one two three four five we have five
events six victims but what quester points out and this is I think this is pretty brilliant here that he refers to
this as um polling which is so such a great word for uh everything going on right now in our country but it
has nothing to do with that what he's saying is if you take if you take the crimes and put them on a a straight line
what you have is the first crime takes place at the very furthest part of the one line which would be roughly
Indianapolis Indiana the next crime the second one goes all the way to the other side of that line
the furthest point on that other line and then the third crime is back again to the east
back in Indiana the fourth crime is in the middle and then the fifth is in Raytown
so it's almost like he went to the the furthest away that he could be which if you go by that rationale if you're going
to use that as maybe your your area it would it would seem that the Killer is probably more in the middle
of these crimes rather than all the way in Indianapolis or all the way out in Wichita that if he started and wanted to
kill and felt that he could kill comfortably furthest from where he resides to further the crimes from him
as much as possible that he went to the trouble of going as far as he could East
and then the next crime he went as far as he wanted West and then he felt a little bit more comfortable because he
had gotten away with some uh and then went a little closer to home so maybe he's in the Raytown area maybe he's in
the Missouri area or like you said he's a big traveler and he's not even anywhere close to where he lives he can
live all the way on the East Coast or the West Coast what we have here too Captain is the
biggest question that seems to be Past who was the I-70 killer yeah that's the biggest one seems to be
where did he go because we have five events in just a one month time period and we
have six homicides inside those five five events and then he seemingly disappears isn't it uh kind of weird to
you that there's not even a hint of what he was driving I think that is something
that's very smart that you point out because what I think he was doing is I don't think this guy was hitching a ride
I don't think that he's got a lot of sense no it doesn't make any sense at all somebody would have came forward and
said you know what I I picked up this individual or this individual would been if again if the the motive was just
murder why wouldn't they just murder the person that drove them you know at some point
um right so there there seems to be some reason for him carrying out a mission it's almost like in a video game where
you're given a list of of objectives that you have to achieve on some kind of mission and it's like all right get to
this location one thing that I find interesting is all the stores are very similar when you think about it other
than the Payless none of these seem to be much of a in the way of a chain of stores right and so he's picking small
businesses that with the exception of the one case are not terribly far from I-70 itself but all of these locations
are similar in the sense that you could park behind the store or behind another store or maybe even in the neighborhood
or the streets we said that most of if not all of these businesses are backing up to streets and neighborhoods
so if you have a general idea of where you're going to attack and you do not want your car to be seen because we've
talked about this time and time again here in the garage right vehicles are 100 times easier to locate than a
description of a person give me a description of a vehicle we can find it easier than a description of a person
especially when you tell me it's a white guy in his mid to late you know mid 20s
to mid 30s always five foot seven to five foot nine so I think he's parking his vehicle near
the crime scene and then going on foot to and from the actual crime scene and then fleeing in his vehicle once the
crime is committed we have eyewitness statements where they're saying I saw a guy who I believe was leaving the store
at or around the time of the believed homicide right he's heading in the Direction behind the building one person
saying I thought I saw him go behind the building and then up the hill where he would have just went down the hill and
he could have parked right on the other side of the Hill what a great obstacle for hiding and concealing your vehicle
well like you were saying I mean we or again we have evidence that he was staking out these locations
but almost like in a very genius sort of way like if you're in these plazas where
there's multiple stores and maybe the store you know yes the store he's going into isn't that busy
but the other stores they're probably not that busy either but there's people going in and out of those parking lots
all day long you know if I was driving up to a strip mall chances are I'm going to see a couple
cars coming in and a couple cars leaving so if somebody said oh did you see that
man driving away no I I didn't I saw multiple cars driving away so I think that would be a great way to
the Clutter becomes your cover well and one bizarre thing that is that I find fascinating that might just be
pure happenstance beyond the idea of targeting stores that may contain younger ladies working alone
we mentioned several of the stores had only been opened they were under you know they're a new store and only open
for a month or two right and again that could just be happenstance maybe it's because a newer store has less customers
it's had less time to build up its clientele so he spots it and it's obviously not busy and goes in and it's
just he wouldn't have known that they were newer stores but again the question becomes that many attacks that many
homicides in such a short period of time and then he's gone why where did he go I
think the why to me is pretty obvious we had the police at the time that very quickly linked all of these crimes
together and he knows I used the same gun at all of these crime scenes he knows what's
linking them he knows how police have linked them together so maybe he doesn't disappear maybe he
doesn't go away forever he's not this Phantom killer that just disappeared all he's got to do is change guns and he
can continue doing what he's doing especially if he's willing to go to the distance of 10 hours away
right so I think what happened here is I think that this guy probably continued on I think what's interesting to me too
is not just where did he go but also where did he come from one thought that jumped out to me was
we mentioned military man is this a guy that saw action that went off the war we had the Gulf
War ended in February of 1991. Desert Shield followed by Desert Storm did this guy was he sent over there to
serve his country and he got a taste for killing and then he brought it back here and he
couldn't turn it off you know so who knows where he came from who knows where where he went but what
was the trigger there was something that triggered this guy this guy well maybe not the most normal guy in
the world something happened to get this guy to start killing in April of 1992 and then he stops in May of 1992.
there are some theories about where this guy went or if he went on to other crimes there Captain all right hit me
with them well some investigators believe that the I-70 killer may be responsible for two murders in 1993 and
an attempted murder in 1994 all of these crimes took place in the state of Texas
and it started in September of 1993 on September 25th when 51 year old Mary Ann glasscock was killed in a Fort Worth uh
in the city of Fort Worth at an Emporium antiques store continues on from there November 1st 1993 22 year old Amy vest
was shot to death in a dance apparel store in Arlington Texas and then we have the January 15 1994
attack on 35 year old Vicki Webb she luckily survived this attack she was shot in in a Houston store at a
Alternatives gift shop she briefly spoke to the shooter so she has a description
of the person that shot her the man shot her and then she did not die and he attempted to shoot her again but his gun
misfired and then he left the scene there's great debate whether these crimes are connected and a big part of
that comes from the fact that the gun that was used in the I-70 killer case and the six homicides that we've already
discussed was not the same gun used in these three Texas cases however these start up shortly after right the
next year after the I-70 Killer goes vanishes and like I said he could have just got a
new gun and then picked up where he left off at some point the interesting thing
is that what connects these is Interstate 35 and we mentioned Interstate 35 before Interstate 35 does
connect to I-70 and it connects in the general area of where our I-70 killer left off with attacks number four and
five which would be in the Raytown Saint Charles area that we discussed earlier you can pick up I-35 in and around the
Kansas City area with i-70. so maybe he just heads a little further south continues doing what he's doing
now with a new murder weapon yeah and I'm sure some people listening are going well maybe it's just a different guy but
the description of this individual is very similar and that's why people believe he just got a new gun we have a
surviving witness in the I-35 attack who describes the killer to look similar to
that of the description given about the I-70 killer and in the I-35 killer in the final attack the vague description
that we get here is a white guy about five foot eight maybe five foot nine inches tall reddish hair 150 to 160
pounds faint beard brown jacket and dark pants so not unlike the other cases the
I-70 cases let's get into some suspects here Captain before we wrap up some of these will be suspects that have been
named by law enforcement and some of them named by uh garage armchair detectives such as ourselves the first
suspect that we have to talk about is a man that died in July of 1996 and it is Herb Beau Meister okay who is Beau
Meister he is an American with a bad name he's an American suspected serial killer this was a very successful man he
resided in Westfield Indiana bowmeister was under investigation for murdering over a dozen men in the early 1990s most
of whom were last seen at gay bars investigators found the remains of 11 persons eight which they identified
three remain unidentified to this day on beaumeister's property if in fact he was
the killer of these people uh he's dead so it's been tough to determine that it's believed he killed
these individuals he was killing and burying people on their very large property unbeknownst to his wife and
family that lived in a house along with herb on that property after arrest warrant was issued for him he fled to
Canada and then he killed himself before he could be arrested and brought to trial he never confessed to any of these
crimes his suicide note made no mention of the murder allegations against him he
was though later linked to a series of murders of at least nine men along interstate 70. which occurred in the
early to mid 1980s so this guy is suspected of possibly killing as many as two dozen men that number certainly
unconfirmed but I think it's his ties to the general area of Interstate 70 and the state of Indiana
together that put him on the list of suspects here as you very obviously know Captain this Mo if her bromister killed
all of these people is it could not be further from the mo of the I-70 killer yeah or the profile victims correct so
this seems like it's it's one of those situations where he is a known active serial killer he gets tossed on this
list just because of that fact he's also nickname I believe one of the nicknames
given to him was the I-70 Strangler so it doesn't help when your nickname is so much so close to the nickname of the
killer that they're seeking I don't think beaumeister had anything to do with these killings the next suspect
that we come to is an individual that was listed and stated in the papers at the time as a possible suspect his name
is Donald Waterhouse and he's a suspect because on the night of February 29 1992
this is just more than a month before the I-70 killings started happening Waterhouse reportedly shot and killed
his mother and stepfather inside their home in Dyersburg Tennessee now like the I-70 victims these two were
shot in the head with a 22 caliber weapon Waterhouse he vanished eventually his truck was found abandoned in East St
Louis right off of I-70 he evaded police until October so the thought here he's eventually cotton
Oklahoma but the thought here being that he's killing while on the run for having
killed his parents he fit the physical description somewhat of the I-70 killer however I think what we have here is a
situation where you have because these killings are taking place on such far stretches across this
country and they seem to be motiveless murders right this is really to me reminds me of
like a zodiac type killer who's not communicating who would choose not to communicate with police or the media
someone who is trying to terrorize that's what it that's what a terrorist is someone who terrorizes the public
with with threats this being the threat of anyone working in any store within a series of States
could be killed at any time any random time of the day yeah but again the key victim is female
right under 30. and what I think we have here Captain with uh Waterhouse as far as he is concerned I think that the
police were under a lot of pressure at the time to throw out a name to make it seem like
hey we we got we got a trail on somebody what we would learn 20 years later is that they were bombarded with tips once
they started putting out the composite sketch of the suspect they said that they believed that over 60 000 tips were
followed up on and a lot of them obviously false you know some of them were blatant false
tips where somebody was angry at somebody else right and threw them under the bus and said oh they look like the
suspect or he should be your suspect for X Y and Z and it turns out they're baseless speculation there right but a
lot of these composite sketches they kind of look cartoonish this one this could this drawing has a little bit
of soul to it and it's very uh disturbing this guy would would freak A lot of people out yeah and this
Waterhouse guy while on the Run um I don't know what it is it I have not seen an exact statement
but once they located Waterhouse and once they were going to take him to trial for the killings of his parents
authorities very quickly said that you know now that we've caught him he's not a very high priority suspect in the I-70
killings and then in fact we have just in June of uh 1992 where the Saint Charles Missouri police chief David King
announced that Waterhouse was no longer a top suspect in the I-70 killings that brings us to Donald Blom AKA Donald
Prince born 1949 he is an American who was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Kathleen Katie Pryor in 1999.
he's a registered sex offender involved in five cases of kidnapping and sexual assault prior to Katie's murder he is
suspected to be a serial killer by case investigators Blom is serving his prison
sentence at a medium security facility in Minnesota this assumption though doesn't make a
whole lot of sense to me I'm not really certain how he ends up on this list of potential suspects boy he
killed somebody there you go his killings and his attacks look this guy at the end of the day he's
a rapist and murderer none of the I-70 killings were sexual in nature the none of that took place
so the police seem again here possibly desperate to get names out in the press and this may be one that was just thrown
out there was at the start of something was this how I'm going to do it fantasize about it
that will turn into something else later where he was once a hands-off killer and
then became a Hands-On killer right next up on our list we have Ralph Leon Jackson also known as ralphman old Ralph
men he's a real prick Monger ralphman or Ralph Jackson he is convicted of shooting two people on the Blue Ridge
Parkway in 2010 and unfortunately he killed one of those victims and if it wasn't for
the the courageous efforts of the other victim he he thought he killed her as well so
what we have here Captain is a situation where this guy it seems that he killed these people at random and I think that
it's the random nature and given his age he was 57 years old when he was convicted of the 2010 crimes and that
would put him in the general age range for our I-70 killer and his we're going to go back and back to this
but we need to put a red flag and a marker on it right here where we say he his physical description is not unlike
that of the I-70 killer but you've seen the picture it's it's kind of a vague description of the I-70 killer right
yeah so he looks somewhat like the description he's about the same age but really I think it here is the randomness
of the crime this crime that he committed it almost looks like he went out to the Blue Ridge Parkway that night
hoping to see someone or someone's and was determined to gun them down from his vehicle so that puts him on the list of
potential suspects for the I-70 killer as well as he's his name comes up in the Colonial Parkway murders as well yeah I
just don't like that many of these these suspects well I think it's because there's no really good Clues here in any
of these cases that we have what I would consider great suspects well also think it's because the mo is
so strange it definitely seems like he was targeting a certain type of victim but it doesn't seem like it was sexual
nature like I said could have led to that later maybe it was just a fantasy and he wasn't willing to uh take the
risk to take the time to live out those fantasies but also the strange to steal a little bit of
money it's just it's a very strange ammo well here's the name that you'll recognize and some of our listeners will
recognize as well the long time listeners anyway the next suspect that we're going to discuss is Neil
Falls who is Neil Falls well that name may sound familiar to you because he was mentioned in our Vanishing women case
that is the case of six missing women and several that were killed in the southern Ohio area why did he come up on
that uh in those episodes well that was because he is a man that was killed during what was believed to be the
attempted killing of a woman maybe rape would be involved I don't know he at least threatened her with both where he
met a woman on the internet shows up at the door and things turned bad real quick and
according to our victim who survived and killed Neo Falls she says that Neo Falls
told him told her look I'm going to prison for a long time for this it could be for rape or for murder
you're the one that's going to decide it well she decided it and it was for neither he wasn't going to make it to
prison he did because of her luckily now when police start looking through this Neil Falls guy and looking through his
vehicle very disturbing stuff they find Firearms handcuffs shovels a pickaxe several bladed weapons including a
hatchet and several knives and he had a bulletproof vest on him now he was a good distance from where he lived yeah
and so the thought here is not just that this guy is willing to travel to kill but some people did some very
interesting work because remember we have our I-70 killer who would have been in his early 20s to maybe mid to late
30s that again being the big window for the age description of our potential killer here
this I found this on Reddit and web sluice where several people had found in an interesting little thing here in Neil
falls's background in early 1992 we don't have an exact date Neil falls moves to his father's house in Kansas
well the I-70 murders began in April on April 8th of 1992 and then three days later in April we have the murders in
Wichita Kansas so the home that he was living at Greensburg Kansas is about an hour and a
half west of Wichita so this guy and he does look you know at the time of his death this
is a guy that moved around he lived in many different states and when this woman killed him
the FBI and police immediately came out and said we want to know one where this guy was we want to put together a
complete timeline of him but we have him getting uh driving violations speeding tickets and such in multiple States over
the years so not only did he live and move around but when he was living at certain places he was traveling to other
states as well and this is a guy that they thought he might be driving or flying and going elsewhere and killing
people and then returning to his home the interesting thing here is we've put him within an hour and a half
of the killings in Wichita back in 1992. now the picture of him at the time of his death
is kind of a fat version of the description given of the I-70 killer and if you go onto web sluice or Reddit and
you look up this Neil Falls I-70 killer angle you'll see that what they did here
was they put a picture from his I believe this is his senior year high school yearbook
a picture of of his senior year in high school followed by the sketches of the I-70 killer along with the fat version
that I pointed out of the the chubby cheeks version of Neil falls from the time that he roughly around the time
that he was killed and that's Falls f-a-l-l-s not balls I know you're thinking it's Neo balls but it's no it's
false well and the other thing here too Captain that's interesting about Falls is Texas 1993 and the 1994 killings the
I-35 killer again some believe these could be related could be linked could be the
same killer as the I-70 killer false father who he's living with at the time passes away in 1995 and he moved back to
Oregon and of course there's no more I-70 kill killings or I-35 killings believed after
that 90 1994 attempted killing yeah but so possible reason for why it stopped in
that area would be that Neo Falls moved out of the area well again I think uh his age is something that I like because
I feel like these killings these I-70 killings are it's like a step towards a Direction
it's almost like a precursor to something else that is going to happen and again the money
taking not huge amounts of money but taking the time to take that money seems like something
somebody with not much of a future would do but also something that maybe you know a teenager early 20 year old would
do you're working under the theory that this guy might be earlier or toward the the younger end of the spectrum right
that what we're talking about as far as our eyewitnesses go now you're exactly right because with Neil Falls he would
have been 22 years old back in 92 when these homicides first started up right and a couple hundred
bucks to me when I was well heck now but I mean even back then it was a lot of money like 200 bucks or 300 bucks oh
that's a lot of money I actually think if in fact that this guy is a cold calculated killer that if
he's all there that if he's not on drugs not mental problems are both like one of
the witnesses stated that I think that the robbery or the The Taking of the money is really just to
throw the police off I guess I don't know what they're he's throwing them off of
um because everything the murder still took place but he's an interesting one because he would have
been 22 at the time when they started and then again that window of time he is there roughly in that General vicinity
of that area when the killings start and then when they stop after the I-35 killings stop
he's gone in 95 he moves to Oregon so I think that's one of the more interesting
ones one uh one more name here captain and this is one that I would be shocked if our listeners don't know because
we've covered a case that he is potentially linked to as well so many times is Thomas Bruce
and if you remember correctly he is a Delphi suspect he is a known killer and I think it's people have linked him
to the I-70 killer simply because Indiana's part of the the story for the I-70 killer two of the known events
linked to the I-70 killer took place in the state of Indiana and his crimes he was in St Louis
when he got picked up just a year or so ago because what did he do remember he went into that Catholic supply store
right and he took several he took a I believe it was a customer and a couple employees back to the back where there
were some sexual assaults that took place and homicide that took place and he was on the run for a very short
period of time before they've tracked him down and found him uh his age would put him at about the right age again I I
think that the age range for the I-70 killer is is vast yeah I mean it's just big
and so it gets difficult to to Really pinpoint down and say oh the age is right when we're talking about a span of
15 years maybe for our potential uh I-70 killer but Bruce is an interesting one simply
because he he does this attack he's locked up he's been quiet ever since some people are trying to link him to
Delphi some people are trying to link him to other cases and because of the nature of the known attack that he did
the known homicide that he did do that there's no question about it's similar in ways to that of the I-70
killer yeah one of my issues though is I I feel like some of these actions of this crime show again either maybe
somebody that's just not mentally stable then they're probably locked up for something else or this these actions are
a little immature which doesn't really go with the the sketch in my mind because to me the
sketch seems older so it's a very difficult case it's very difficult because again it goes to why
did this even start in the first place and then where did this killer go he he's not apprehended for these homicides
at least he may be as you said locked up for something else uh at this point if he was older he may
have even passed away this is an interesting case because it's one that that unlike many other cases
it would seem that there would be very few clues for law enforcement to work with to finding this guy and really to
be honest with you Captain the only hope that I have that the I-70 killer is ever identified
I mean you're talking 26 27 28 years later um very little Clues to go on back in
1992. well again the investigator said at the time on the one homicide this case was cold by the end of the week
right there's so little to go on we don't even have a profile of the suspect right and that's the homework for our
garage Army if somebody can find a psychological profile of the I-70 killer please send it to us and we'll review it
on off the Record because like I said it was stated multiple times in the paper that these different departments were
going to work with the FBI to see if they could put together a psychological profile of the I-70 killer what we do
have is months later where somebody says we don't even know if we have enough to
put together a profile of this guy and this guy's had five different events six different homicides in the course of
a month it also wouldn't shock me if we have a situation where if drugs or mental
health in both especially if both were involved that this individual once they linked the crimes may have discarded the
weapon or committed suicide or both at the time and it's not been linked for whatever reason again if he's willing to
go 10 hours travel time between two of the different homicides who knows how far he went for
for any of them to begin with I think the key here Captain I the only hope I really hold in
identifying this killer is that gun you know the police believe that they've narrowed it down to the make and model
of the gun used in all of the attacks and it's a it's a unique weapon and I think that if they could find someone
with that weapon if he's not discarded that weapon there's a chance that this is a prized possession of his yeah
you find the gun you find the one [Music] thank you so much for hanging out with
us in the garage again and again and again for all these great stories Colonel do
we have any recommended reading this week we are recommending killer on the road violence and the American
Interstate by Ginger strand killer on the road tells the entwined stories of America's highways and its Highway
Killers you can find that great title and many more at truecrime garage.com and make sure when you're at the website
you sign up on the mailing list and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
thank you [Music]

The I-70 KIller /// Part 2 /// 442

Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Interstate 70 is a major East - West Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Maryland to Utah. On April 8th, 1992 a serial killer made his first known attack. Killing a young woman working alone in a store near the highway. In the course of one month there were a total of five events resulting in six homicides. The murders are unsolved and many wonder what happened to the killer? Why did he stop and where did he go? Join us in the Garage as we discuss the crimes, the suspects and the possibilities.

Beer of the Week - I-70 Colorado Lager by Odyssey BeerwerksGarage Grade - 3 and a half bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode details the I-70 killer case, focusing on the murders of Nancy Kitzmiller and Sarah Lynn Blessing, and the investigation's challenges.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the show and thank listeners for their support.
Nancy Kitzmiller's Background. A look into Nancy's life, her love for soccer, and her aspirations.
The Tragic Day. Nancy was shot during her shift at Boot Village, a quiet Sunday.
The Second Victim: Sarah Lynn Blessing. Sarah, a newlywed, was killed on her first day working alone at a new store.
The I-70 Killer Profile. Law enforcement discusses the profile of the serial killer operating across states.
The I-70 Killer's Profile. Law enforcement struggles to create a psychological profile of the elusive I-70 killer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There has to be something we don't know.

Speculation about the killer's motives.

7:03WatchNov 11, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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