True Crime Society - Truck Driver Serial Killers

According to the FBI’s former assistant director Frank Figliuzzi, long-haul truckers may be responsible for over 850 murders in the United States

According to Frank, the FBI received a tip in 2004 regarding a pattern of unsolved murders that happened across the country.

Detectives came to believe that one or two serial killer truckers were picking off victims along I-80.

“I’ve seen some gruesome things in 25 years as an FBI agent,” Frank said. “Really gory crime scenes.”

They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims.

At one point, FBI even opened a special unit called the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims―often at-risk women―are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.

Frank has said that data indicates there could be 450 long-haul truckers who are serial killers. Some are sexual predators, some just like to kill.

“One indeed likes to control the outcome and loves the power and will prolong [the] torture, rape, and other horrors,” Frank said. “The other kind of serial killer simply wants to kill. He enjoys [the] power of life and death, and he kills quickly.”

The most vulnerable pool of targets of such criminals are so-called “lot lizards,” or sex workers found at many of the nation’s truck stops. Frank has said educating these women about the dangers is tough. Many of them have drug addictions, poor judgment, move around a lot, and don’t let their families know where they are so no one is able to report them missing.

In 2009, the FBI established a task force to look at serial killers working as truck drivers.

Frank has urged all law enforcement to enter any unsolved cases into the FBI database so that comparisons can occur.

“If I have one message to any law enforcement officer listening, it’s [to] get your unsolved cases, especially involving roadside killings, into the FBI database,” he said

As there are so many of these alleged cases, we might do a bit of a series/theme, as we like to do. In t his post we are going to discuss one confirmed trucker serial killer case, as well as two people who disappeared from the same area within a five year period and they remain missing. Could they be victims of a similar killer?

Robert Ben Rhoades is known as the ‘Truck Stop Killer.’ There are four people who are confirmed to have been victims of his. Some reports estimate that he may have actually tortured, raped and killed more than 50 women between 1975 and 1990.

Robert was born on November 22, 1945.

As some background into him, he was raised primarily by his mother as a toddler because his father was a soldier in the US Army and was stationed in West Germany.

When Robert was in elementary school, his father returned home and found work as a firefighter.

Robert was active in extracurricular activities such as football, wrestling, choir and French.

His criminal history started when he was 16 in 1961. He was arrested for tampering with a vehicle. When he was 17, he was arrested for public flighting.

Robert graduated from high school in 1964 and he joined the Marine Corps. That year, Robert’s father was arrested for molesting a 12 year old girl. While he was awaiting trial, he killed himself.

Robert ended up being dishonourably discharged from the Marine Corps following a robbery. He enrolled in college after that, but ended up dropping out. He also tried to join a law enforcement agency but was denied due to his criminal past.

Robert would get married three times. He had a son with his first wife. Over the years, he worked in random jobs such as in supermarkets and restaurants, before eventually becoming a long haul trucker.

In the 1980’s, Robert became involved in the BDSM scene. BDSM is an abbreviation that stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism. At this time, Robert was married to his third wife, Deborah. It is said that he abused her, verbally, physically and sexually.

Robert’s four confirmed murder victims are Patricia Walsh (24) and her husband Douglas Zyskowski (26), as well as Regina Walters (14) and her boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones (18) – creepy age gap.

We will discuss these cases first and then will go into the other possible crimes that Robert is linked to.

Patricia and Douglas were newlyweds when they left Seattle in November 1989. They planned to hitchhike to Georgia (around a 42 hour/ almost 3000 mile journey) to preach the Christian gospel.

They got as far as Texas when they encountered Robert. It is believed that Robert killed Douglas immediately and dumped his body in Sutton County, Texas. He kept Patricia alive for over a week. It is said that he tortured and raped her numerous times before murdering her. He dumped her body in Millard County, Utah.

Prosecutors have since said that Robert kept a mobile torture chamber in the cab of his long-haul rig.

“There’s this compartment that’s hidden completely from view other than between the seats,” Steve Smith, first assistant for the 112th District Attorney’s office in Texas, told ABCNews.com.

The dungeon-like compartment was described in “Roadside Prey” by Alva Busch, a book written about Robert and his crimes. The rig was equipped with handcuffs on the ceiling. This meant that Robert could chain his female victims so that he could torture them before killing them.

Douglas’ remains were found in January 1990 and he was identified in 1992.

Patricia’s remains were found in October 1990, but she was not identified until 2003 after authorities used dental records.

One week after Robert killed Patricia, he allegedly abducted Shana Holts (18) and kept her in his truck for two weeks. Shana survived the ordeal and told police what happened. Robert was detained in relation to this case but Shana decided to not press charges.

“I don’t see any good in filing charges. It’s just going to be my word against his. If there was any evidence, I would file. I would file charges and sue him.”

The next confirmed victims are Regina and Ricky.

As mentioned, Regina was 14 when she died. She ran away from her mother’s home in Pasadena, Texas on February 3, 1990.

Regina was reported missing by her mother after she failed to return home after a babysitting job on that night. She ended up going to the apartment of a friend of Ricky Jones. This is how she met him.

After police started putting up missing person fliers for Regina, Ricky became concerned. He was on probation for auto theft and realized that if he was caught with a teenager, he would probably go to jail.

The two decided to hitchhike to Mexico where they could be together. They didn’t appear to get far before they encountered Robert. Ricky was shot in the head and his body was dumped near Harleton, Texas, around 238 miles/383 kms from Pasadena where they started their journey.

Ricky’s body was found on May 26, 1990.

After Robert killed Ricky, it is believed that he held Regina hostage for weeks in his ‘torture’ cabin. He shaved her head and pubic hair and pierced her with fishing hooks. In March 1990, he stopped at a barn near I70 in Bond County, Illinois. He took multiple photos of Regina at this time. This is an infamous one that you may recognize:

He took photos of Regina both clothed and nude. He then made her climb up to a loft in the barn. He strangled her using a ligature that he had made from a wooden beam and wire that he had found at the site. He twisted the ligature around her neck 16 times, almost decapitating her. Robert left Regina’s nude body in the barn and fled the scene.

Robert took Regina’s notebook with him. It contained phone numbers of her friends and family. Robert allegedly called her father multiple times and taunted him. He also called Regina’s mother and said he wanted to update her about her daughter in person. They arranged to meet at a convenience store at 6.30am one morning, but Robert did not show up.

On April 1, 1990, an Arizona Highway Patrol trooper found a truck with its hazard lights on near Casa Grande, Arizona. The truck was parked on the side of I10. When the trooper looked in the cab of the truck, he found a nude woman, handcuffed and screaming. Robert was present and said that he was the truck driver. He gave the trooper a gun that he had. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, sexual assault, and unlawful imprisonment.

After this arrest, police made the connection between Robert’s victims. When they searched his home, they found the photos of Regina, as well as photos of Patricia.

In 1994, Robert was convicted of Regina’s murder. He was sentenced to life without parole.

He was extradited to Utah in 2005 to be tried for Patricia and Douglas’ murders. At the request of both of the victims’ families, the charges would end up being dropped as they did not want to testify multiple times.

He was then extradited to Texas for the murders of Regina and Ricky. In exchange for having the death penalty taken off the table, Robert pleaded guilty and received a second life sentence.

Prosecutors believe Robert may have put many other women through the cycle of “kidnap, torture, and kill,” but Steve Smith from the DA’s office has said they do not know how many women he may have hurt, since he traveled so much.

“That was the problem with him,” Steve Smith said. “He was on the interstate everywhere.”

“I’ve been a prosecutor since 1979 and it was one of the rare occasions when I was in the court where the defendant walked in and you felt the evil,” Steve Smith said. “The hairs on my arm stand up right now talking about it.”

This information about Robert’s possible other crimes is from a very comprehensive GQ article:

When he was caught, he said that he had been “doing this” for fifteen years, which would put the onset of his murders back into the 1970s. His trucking logs place him in the area of fifty unsolved murders in the three years prior to his arrest alone. While not all fifty cases have been tied to Rhoades yet and Rhoades himself has admitted to only three murders, the FBI has strong reason to believe that at his peak he was killing one to three women a month.

We will now discuss two cases of missing people – not tied to Robert. Both people disappeared years apart from the exact same location and remain missing to this day.

Judith ‘Judy’ Casida was 62 when she went missing from Nevada.

She was last seen leaving her Reno, Nevada home on Valentine’s Day in 2006. She was driving her white 1991 Mazda pickup truck with the Nevada license plate number 920 NRH at the time of her disappearance.

There isn’t too much information about Judith’s disappearance available.

We know that on March 5, 2006, her truck was found abandoned at the 205 Pumpernickel Valley exit ramp off Interstate 80 near Winnemucca, Nevada.

No sign of Judy was ever found and she has not been seen again. There has been no activity on her bank accounts since she vanished.

Judy did leave behind a note in her home, saying that she felt depressed over her life choices and about how her marriage was going.

Judy’s disappearance seems likely to have been a suicide or mental break, based on her state of mind at the time.

However, five years later, in April 2011, another person would vanish and their truck would be found at the exact same spot where Judy’s vehicle was found.

Patrick Carnes was 86 when he went missing on April 13, 2011. He was a WWII veteran who was said to be in good health. He had been driving back to his home in Reno, Nevada after visiting relatives in Toledo, Ohio.

This is basically a straight drive across the country, around 2,144 miles or 3,500 kms. It would take around 31 hours without stopping.

Pat had been making the trip with his dog, Lucky. Family have said that Patrick rarely went anywhere without the dog.

Patrick was driving a green Subaru Forester with the Nevada license plate number 719 SDN. There used to be a website for Patrick – patcarnesmissing.com – that is now defunct but we managed to get some of this information from the wayback machine.

According to the website, Patrick left Ohio on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. I do wonder if this is accurate as that would mean an 86 year old man drove almost 2000 miles/26 hours of driving in around a day and a half? But that is what the Sheriff’s press release said? One of Patrick’s sons also corroborated that story in a 2011 article to KTVB.

At 9pm on April 13, the Nevada Highway Patrol pulled him over for a traffic violation. The trooper had been on a traffic stop with a tractor trailer rig, and Patrick had failed to move to the lane farthest away from the trooper. That is the reason why the trooper left that stop and proceeded on to pull Patrick over.

When the trooper spoke to Patrick, he indicated that he had been following a tractor trailer rig. “I’m only following him because he is going to Elko.” Patrick said. He also said ‘I’ll never drive at night again.’

Lucky could be seen on the dash cam footage, sitting in the back seat and wagging his tail.

Dash cam video was later reviewed and did appear that Patrick was following directly behind the tractor trailer rig.

The following morning, Thursday April 14, 2011, just before 6am, someone on their way to work observed a car parked in an unusual spot off of Interstate 80 at the Pumpernickel Valley off-ramp (exit 205). This individual then contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office to report what she had seen.

When a deputy arrived, Patrick’s Subaru was found to be abandoned, slightly high centered and stuck in sage brush. The car was facing the wrong direction but was in working condition. Police ran the plate on the car and tried to call Patrick’s home phone. Nobody answered.

Two days later, on April 17, 2011, the car was still in the same spot. The Reno PD were contacted and asked to do a welfare check at Patrick’s home. At the same time, two of Patrick’s sons had arrived to check on their dad to make sure he had gotten back from his Ohio trip as they had not heard from him.

When it was determined that Patrick was not at his home, a missing person report was taken.

“What happened? Where is he? He just vanished,” said Patrick’s son, Jim.

When his Subaru was searched, all of Patrick’s belongings were in the vehicle, including his checkbook. There were reportedly a single set of footprints leading away from the car.

The area around the car was searched. Approximately 600 to 700 man hours were expended in this search. The search included canines, ATV’s, Jeeps, ground teams, and several aerial flights over the area.

Later searches were conducted during the summer that included the exploration (via camera equipment) of numerous mine shafts in the general area of where the car was found.

No trace of Patrick or Lucky have been found.

“We just think there was foul play involved, we don’t have any proof of that, but it’s leading to that because where else would he be?” said Patrick’s son Jim in 2011.

Humboldt County Undersheriff Curtiss Kull agreed.

“Our number one theory is in fact that something very bad happened to him at the hands of somebody,” said Kull.

In 2011, there were apparently a string of people who went missing while driving. This info is from KVTB:

On March 2 Grant Moedl vanished while driving from Rexburg to Boise.

Two weeks later Albert and Rita Chretien, a Canadian couple, vanished. Their last known location was in Baker City, Oregon. Rita Chretien was found in Nevada on March 6 by hunters on ATVs, but Albert Chretien is still missing.

Kull says it’s hard to say whether the three cases are linked, but the disappearances are eerily similar.

“You’re talking a month period of time for four people to just vanish, and if you also plot these out on a map, like I said, it really grabs your attention,” said Kull.

We did look up the people mentioned by the sheriff at the time, to see if there was any resolution in their cases.

Grant Moedl’s body was found inside his car in a reservoir in June 2011. “On June 27, 2011, an autopsy was conducted through the Ada County Coroner’s Office on Mr. Grant X. Moedl,” a news release from Detective Clint Andrus of the Elmore County Sheriff’s Office said. “Upon further investigation, there have been no indications of foul play. It appears Mr. Moedl drove off of (U.S.) Highway 20 to the Mountain Home Reservoir for unknown reasons. Elmore County Sheriff’s Office is checking into the possibility that Mr. Moedl’s vehicle broke through the ice and trapping Mr. Moedl in the vehicle. This incident is still under investigation.”

Albert Chretien’s body was found 7 miles from his vehicle, over a year after he disappeared. It seems that his and Rita’s vehicle had broken down and he tried to get help. Canadian businessman Albert Chretien was wearily slogging through 8-foot-deep snow in a thick forest near the Nevada-Idaho border in March 2011 when he collapsed and died of apparent exhaustion and hypothermia.

So none of those cases were probably murder.

(Back to the story)

One theory is that because Patrick had previously worked as a truck driver, he may have been trusting of another trucker.

“We got into the scenario with truckers. Pat, prior to getting into computers, was a trucker in southern California and had an admiration for truckers, trusted truckers,” said Kull.

It has now been over 14 years since Patrick disappeared, and 19 years since Judy disappeared.

SOURCE LIST

https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/truck-driving-serial-killers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ben_Rhoades

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-trucker-traveling-torture-chamber-admits-murders/story?id=16037743

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Regina_Walters

https://www.gq.com/story/truck-stop-killer-gq-november-2012