Loading summary
Transcript265 lines
- [00:02]
A
This is exactly right. Hey, this is U.S. olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull.
- [00:10]
B
And I'm U.S. paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
- [00:12]
C
As athletes, our lives are about having.
- [00:14]
B
A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.
- [00:18]
A
So when it came to getting the.
- [00:19]
B
Best mortgage, we chose PennyMac.
- [00:21]
C
PennyMac is proud to be the official.
- [00:22]
A
Mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
- [00:25]
C
Learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services, llc/housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed financial.
- [00:32]
B
Protection and innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [00:38]
A
Ready to change your Life for just $2 a day, Orangetheory Fitness delivers one hour workouts that combine strength and cardio to help you burn fat, build muscle and feel unstoppable. Right now, get a full month of unlimited classes for just $62. Don't wait. This offer ends soon. Visit orangetheory.com or your local studio and start your transformation today. Offer ends January 31, 2026. New members only Premier membership performance monitor and monthly billing required. Discount applies to first month appliese studio.
- [01:05]
B
For details so you want to start a business? You might think you need a team of people and fancy tech skills, but you don't. You just need GoDaddy arrow. I'm Walton Goggins, and as an actor, I'm an expert in looking like I know what I'm doing even when I don't. And I like the sound of starting my own business. Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses But I'm an actor. I don't know what I'm doing. I needed help. GoDaddy Arrow uses AI to create everything you need to grow a business. It'll make you a unique logo, it'll create a custom website, it'll write social posts for you, and even set you up with a social media calendar. I don't even realize I needed a social media calendar. GoDaddy Arrow will take your idea that sounds good and make a business that looks like you know what you're doing. GoDaddy Arrow can get your business up and running in minutes. You know what that sounds like? It sounds like a plan. Get started@godaddy.com Aero that's godaddy.com A I.
- [02:00]
C
R O this story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
- [02:07]
A
The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the knife or exactly right.
- [02:13]
C
Media.
- [02:15]
B
These killers, serial killers by definition and by studying all of them, are typically socially inept people. There are exceptions to that. Ted Bundy for example. But generally, these are not your charmers.
- [02:44]
C
Welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
- [02:46]
A
I'm Patia Eaton.
- [02:47]
C
And today we have a little bit of a hybrid episode. I'm going to start with telling you a story, and then at the end, we will play an interview that relates to the story that I'm going to talk about.
- [02:58]
A
This is my favorite kind of episode, so buckle up.
- [03:06]
C
Sound effects. Okay, so kind of just to start it off and introduce to people, we did an interview with this retired FBI agent, Frank Figliuzi. And he wrote this book called Long Haul, which is about an FBI initiative called the Highway Serial Killings Initiative, or hsk. And I loved the book. I thought it was really interesting. I'd never heard of this initiative. It's an initiative that just investigates killings that happen along our nation's highways. So that's, like, very specific. And, you know, if you're a true crime lover, you're probably familiar with the trope of the truck driver being a killer, right?
- [03:48]
A
Mm. Like, I can just picture in different, like, movies or TV shows, a dimly lit truck stop. You've got, like, a lady smoking a cigarette outside the gas station, and something bad is about to happen.
- [04:03]
C
But it turns out it's not just a trope. It's like, actually a real thing. Obviously, not every trucker, not even the majority of truckers, are killers. They're very important people, essential workers. Our nation would crumble without trucking. But this HSK initiative collects a bunch of data, and essentially, like, what Frank told us was that, yeah, there are a lot of serial killers who are attracted to the profession of long haul trucking for a specific reason.
- [04:36]
A
I mean, I imagine it's like if you're a serial killer, you have the outliers who are like the Ted Bundys of the world. Charming, charismatic. But mostly, I would assume you're sort of like a lone wolf, because the moment that people know who you really are, your secret's going to get out. That's not like a secret someone's gonna keep for you.
- [04:58]
C
Right? So this transient lifestyle of always being on the road, and we do talk to Frank about that. He talks about profiling long haul truckers who are also serial killers, which I think is a really interesting part of the episode that you will hear later in the interview. He talks about, you know, the loner and what kind of trucker position is most attractive to someone who might be looking for the opportunity to kill people. I mean, it's crazy to talk, but it's Real. And it's something the FBI is tracking.
- [05:29]
A
Like, there was enough serial killer truck drivers that the FBI said, we need a team on this.
- [05:35]
C
Yeah. We need a special initiative for this. Wow. So very fascinating. We did the interview. We didn't talk about any specific case in detail with Frank, but this interview led me down this rabbit hole of research, and I started looking into some of the cases that sort of led to the creation of this initiative. And specifically, I want to talk to you about a. Of murders that all happened along Interstate 40 in and near Oklahoma.
- [06:03]
A
Oklahoma, where I'm from. Hannah's home state.
- [06:06]
C
That's right. So I'm calling them the Oklahoma I40 murders.
- [06:11]
A
I40. Okay. I'm hearing that Ella Langley song.
- [06:14]
C
What's the song?
- [06:15]
A
Choosing Texas. I'm not gonna try to sing it. That's horrific.
- [06:20]
C
But do they talk about i40?
- [06:22]
A
Yeah. I don't know if it's called the Bridge or what. It's that after the last chorus, she comes in with i40, gets lone with every mile.
- [06:31]
C
Oh, wow, that's a great line. Maybe we'll play something from the song.
- [06:35]
A
Yeah, I'm sure it's gonna be really inexpensive to license.
- [06:39]
C
Yeah, that's right. Okay, so I'm starting this story in Oklahoma. And In September of 2003, Terri Turner was working for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, osbi, as a crime analyst. And she got a call from a local police department in rural Oklahoma asking her to help identify a body that was found along I40 in Oklahoma near Lake Eufaula, which is this, like, forested, rural part of Oklahoma. So Terri looked into the case. What she found was, okay, it was a white female. She was nude, and she was found with duct tape on her body. These are important details because of what will come later. So as Terri started to look into this case, she started to pursue two different routes. First, she wanted to know who. Who is this victim? We need to identify her. So she started working on that. Secondly, as analysts do, when she looked at everything with this case, she analyzed the location, the manner of death, the victimology. And I don't know why. I don't know if it was unusual enough or what, but she started to wonder, is this the only victim, or are there other cases that are similar to this? The fact that she wondered this, the fact that she took this next step, is, like, breaks everything wide open and changes. Kind of like how we even investigate crimes next to highways in America.
- [08:08]
A
Yeah. And, you know, I've never been a crime analyst, but, you know, having worked in the true crime genre. It's like, to me, and, you know, I'm looking at it from this bird's eye view with all of this information. I'm not, like, on the ground zero of trying to figure out a crime. But, you know, you have a woman who is nude, who is. Has been duct taped. It's like, this is extreme.
- [08:30]
C
Yeah.
- [08:30]
A
So clearly.
- [08:30]
C
Clearly a homicide.
- [08:31]
A
Clearly a homicide. And, you know, to me, that's someone who's pretty confident by this point.
- [08:38]
C
Interesting, for sure. And so she puts out, like, they actually said it was a teletype.
- [08:45]
A
A teletype. I gotta be honest with you, I have no idea what that is.
- [08:48]
C
I think it's kind of like a fax. I mean, but to, like, surrounding jurisdictions and states with the information about this case. Just asking, hey, if anyone has another case that seems similar, like, let me know. And fairly immediately, she gets responses about two cases that are eerily similar. So there were two other bodies, both found along I40, that were also nude, also found with duct tape, also women.
- [09:18]
A
And can you remind me, when is this happening?
- [09:20]
C
2003.
- [09:21]
A
2003.
- [09:22]
C
Okay, so it's September of 2003, when this first body is found. And then Terri sends out this teletype.
- [09:28]
A
I'm in 10th grade.
- [09:30]
B
Yeah.
- [09:31]
C
And, you know, two more cases come back. And what's really noticeable, or I guess of note about these is that one of them was from August of 2003. One of these bodies was found in August of 2003, one month prior. And the other one was found in July of 2003. So it's almost like, is this happening once a month? What's going on?
- [09:53]
A
Oh, and they're all along this highway, all along I40.
- [09:58]
C
So I40 runs east, west. It runs almost the full length from coast to coast. It doesn't run all the way to the coast in California, but from Barstow, California, all the way to Wilmington, North Carolina. And this section is like New Mexico, runs through the Texas panhandle, through Oklahoma, into Arkansas and Tennessee. And obviously, it's a major thoroughfare. So there's enough similarities in this case that Terri's like, are these connected? Is it the same person who's killed them? She starts to look into it. Eventually all three bodies are identified. And I want to talk about them. I want to talk about the women. You know, a lot of the articles I found that are from 2003, 2004, don't name them and just call them prostitutes.
- [10:47]
A
That's. Yeah. Terrible.
- [10:49]
C
Yeah. And while it's true that they were all involved in sex work in some capacity. You know, that doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be remembered by name. And so I had to do some digging, actually, to, like, find information about these women. So the first person is Sandra Beard. She was found in September of 2003 in Oklahoma. And Sandra Janelle Beard was last seen alive at a truck stop. And this is from oklahomacoldcases.org Sandra had been struggling with addiction to cocaine at the time of her murder, and she was involved in survival sex work, mostly at truck stops. She was also a devoted mother to her daughter. Sandra, who was sometimes known as Sandy, was born in enid, Oklahoma, on July 26, 1960. She was 43 years old at the time of her murder. It says she was married and divorced and had three siblings. Her body was found in September of 2003, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation. The discovery of her body was the first thing that, like, launched this investigation for Terri, and it's because she was found in Oklahoma. And so Terri was notified because she worked in Oklahoma. The other two cases, they were not found in Oklahoma. They were found along I40, but in different states.
- [12:07]
A
And as we know, it's much harder to connect crimes that. That aren't committed in the same jurisdiction because those departments don't always communicate.
- [12:16]
C
Right. And murder is not a federal crime. And so it's local police departments and investigators who are working those cases. So, yeah, a murder in Arkansas and a murder in Oklahoma. It would be very difficult for those to be connected.
- [12:30]
A
Yeah. Wow.
- [12:31]
C
So then one month prior to that, in August 2003, Jennifer Hyman's body was found in Tennessee. But she was from Oklahoma City, and she was in school at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. She studied photography before switching her major to public relations, and she was 24 years old. She reportedly did really well in school, but her fellow students didn't know that she had started to work as an escort and then as a sex worker in the evenings to raise money. And she had previously been arrested in Oklahoma on prostitution charges, which I think is how they initially connected this. And so she was found in Tennessee, and then one month prior to that. So these, you know, are all one month apart. Margaret Holmes Gardner was. Her body was found in Tennessee.
- [13:17]
A
So we have Tennessee, Oklahoma, and.
- [13:21]
C
Sorry. Her body was found in Arkansas.
- [13:22]
A
Okay, so we have Arkansas, Tennessee, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
- [13:27]
C
Yeah.
- [13:28]
A
Three women bodies found one month apart from the other. All nude, all duct taped.
- [13:35]
C
Yeah.
- [13:36]
A
Wow.
- [13:37]
C
And Margaret was 47, but she was also a sex worker, and she apparently advertised her services over the CB radio. So I don't know if that's how this person found her, but she was a West Memphis local, so she was likely picked up in Tennessee because she was last seen at a truck stop in Tennessee, but her body was found in Arkansas. So once Terri has this information, she's thinking that these deaths are incredibly similar and likely connected. And the fact that they were all last seen at truck stops gave her a clue that this might be the work of a truck driver.
- [14:13]
A
Right. And all of them found along I40.
- [14:16]
C
Yeah. And not like 100 yards away from I40, right off of I40, like, right on the side of the road, on the on ramp, basically, which is important. It was an important clue because it tells you that this is someone who doesn't want to leave I40 for whatever reason. And if you imagine it's a truck driver, they have a route that they have to stick to, and then they have to give a reason for why they left or a delay in their delivery. And so that would be a compelling reason why they would literally dump a body right on the side of the road. Yeah.
- [14:55]
A
I mean, it's also, I think, to me, demonstrates tremendous confidence in the idea of doing something like that. Unfathomable to most of us, but you have no fear of getting caught if you're doing it that frequently, or at least less fear than a rational person might have. But, like, if you're tossing a body out of a truck, you're hidden by your truck. You know, the average person speeding by on their car on a busy highway, they're not stopping to look at what you're doing.
- [15:26]
C
No.
- [15:26]
A
How many times have we all seen semis on the side of the road and never thought anything about it?
- [15:30]
C
Yeah. Not a big deal.
- [15:31]
A
Right?
- [15:32]
C
Yeah. And it definitely makes you think, how long had this been going on? You know, the brazenness of it all. And what Terry Turner would go on to say later in the investigation is that, you know, a semi truck could be looked at as a crime scene on wheels. It's in some way this perfect crime because the driver has an alibi. Of course, it's not suspicious that they're driving across country. This is what they're supposed to be doing. So there's nothing suspicious about that. They also are able to pick up a victim in one state, potentially murder them in another state, and then dispose of their body in a third state. And so it's very difficult to connect the dots. And what comes to light is that this has been going on for a very long time, yet no one has has connected the dots.
- [16:23]
A
Yeah. And in addition to that, I mean, just in the language you're describing about the way they spoke of the victims called prostitutes, nameless prostitutes. You know, how hard are these departments looking for these missing women and or girls? I don't know how many resources are going into finding these women who have gone missing. And, you know, are there families even knowing to look if they're people who are maybe gone for extended periods of time?
- [16:53]
C
Yeah. Definitely complicates it. Yeah. And again, Terri Turner, I just love her. She's on it. She's on top of it. She's not going to let this go.
- [17:01]
A
I love that.
- [17:02]
C
Yeah. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty. Which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a reason to exist. It's efficacious. You're gonna get results. And then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful beauty. Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com.
- [17:38]
A
Hey. This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull.
- [17:41]
B
And I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
- [17:43]
C
As athletes, our lives are about having.
- [17:45]
B
A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.
- [17:48]
C
So when it came to getting the.
- [17:49]
B
Best mortgage, we chose PennyMac.
- [17:51]
C
PennyMac is proud to be the official.
- [17:53]
A
Mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
- [17:56]
C
Learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender nmls id35953 licensed by the.
- [18:02]
B
Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [18:08]
A
Ready to change your Life. For just $2 a day, Orangetheory Fitness delivers one hour workouts that combine strength and cardio to help you burn fat, build muscle, fit and and feel unstoppable. Right now, get a full month of unlimited classes for just $62. Don't wait. This offer ends soon. Visit orangetheory.com or your local studio and start your transformation today. Offer ends January 31, 2026. New members only. Premier membership, performance monitor and monthly billing required. Discount applies to first month only. Other terms apply. See Studio for details.
- [18:43]
C
So she begins her investigation and because of the i40 connection, she comes into contact with police departments along i40 this corridor and says, this is what I'm working on, and let's work together. If any other cases similar to this come up, please let me know. And one thing to note is that she created those relationships. Sometimes there can be jurisdictional difficulties. People don't touch my case. I don't touch your case. But she's able to bring people together and work with people and create that line of communication, which ended up being very. Right.
- [19:20]
A
It's like, let's help each other.
- [19:22]
C
Yeah.
- [19:23]
A
It's also, though, so alarming just to think about being in a position in your job where you're almost waiting for another murder to help you solve the next one.
- [19:33]
C
Yeah.
- [19:34]
A
I mean, that is gut wrenching.
- [19:37]
C
Totally. And that's the position she was in, and it turns out to come true. So It's September of 2003 when she discovers, you know, this is happening. And there's three bodies that they know of. From September of 2003 to January of 2004, there were four more similar murders along i40.
- [19:58]
A
Four. Wow. So in, like, four months. Yeah. One a month. Okay.
- [20:02]
C
So if it's the same person, it's like a killing spree that they're going on along I40.
- [20:07]
A
Yeah. And then it becomes this race against the clock, because one more month, one more body.
- [20:12]
C
Mm. Yeah. So the four additional victims are Vicki Anderson, Sanda Richardson, Patsy Leonard, and Casey Jo Pipestem. So I want to spend a little time talking about Casey Jo Pipestem, because her case will end up helping to solve this, even though a lot of them are unsolved, but to bring some resolution to this in the end. And we know more about her than some of the other victims because of that. I think the last time anyone saw Casey Jo pipestem alive was January 28, 2004, at an Oklahoma City truck stop. She was just 19 years old, and, you know, three days passed with no sign of her. And then on January 31, her remains were found. Her body had been dumped from a bridge in Grapevine, Texas, almost 300 miles south of Oklahoma City.
- [21:03]
A
Was her body found just by chance, do you remember?
- [21:07]
C
Yeah, someone stumbled upon it. I can't remember who, but it was found by chance. It was again right along the freeway. She was nude. Her body, her remains pointed to a violent death is what I'll say. She was originally from Oklahoma City. She was a member of the Seminole Nation, and she lived with her grandmother until she was seven years old. But then her grandmother passed away, which sort of seemed like the beginning of sort of some trauma in her life. She started moving around a lot Lived in various rural communities, and then her stepfather was murdered. So she had, like, a series of traumatic events happening in her life, and so she began using drugs and dropped out of school, and then turned to sex work as a way to survive and make money. Her boyfriend, kelvin Scott, was 25 at the time she died, and he worked as a pimp, and he would actually later be convicted of sex trafficking over a dozen women, including Casey. So that is one aspect of this case that did get resolution is that he was brought to justice. At first, he was a person of interest in her murder. He was questioned after her remains were discovered, but ultimately, it was determined that he wasn't involved.
- [22:24]
A
Right. Because if she's discovered in Grapevine, Texas, he's presumably nowhere near there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this notion of, like, a prostitute, so why bother naming her, you know? And then you hear about the backstory of a lot of the women who are doing sex work. For some of them, maybe in a way, it's partially a decision they're making, but it's so often that they're struggling either with, you know, addiction or a traumatic upbringing. A lot of times both.
- [22:56]
C
Yeah.
- [22:57]
A
And to hear that Casey's boyfriend was a pimp who played a part in her coming into contact with whoever is responsible for her death, I mean, and it's terrible.
- [23:08]
C
Yeah, terrible. You know, another aspect of the story is that Casey, along with some of the other victims, had, at some time previous to being murdered, been arrested and, like, charged with prostitution charges. And that fact alone, it just goes to show you how backwards it is that traditionally we've viewed people in sex work from a law enforcement perspective, that there are these criminals, and it's so clear that they're victims, and that every time that law enforcement came into contact with them should have been a potential chance of offering help or offering a way out. Instead, slap you with a criminal charge, how is that gonna help you? Right.
- [23:52]
A
It's not gonna help you at all.
- [23:53]
C
No.
- [23:54]
A
Yeah. That's terrible. And she was 19.
- [23:56]
C
19.
- [23:56]
A
I mean, it's so young.
- [23:58]
C
So young. So investigators believed that whoever killed Casey Jo Pipestem, was also responsible for killing, you know, the. These other women that I've talked about. All in all, there would be 10 murders that they believed were all connected and probably done by the same person.
- [24:17]
A
And that's the 10 that they're finding.
- [24:20]
C
That's the 10 they're finding exactly how many more?
- [24:22]
A
Right.
- [24:23]
C
Yeah. And so In February of 2004, Terry Turner basically organizes this massive meeting for law enforcement personnel to come to Oklahoma City and meet about this.
- [24:38]
A
Imagine coordinating that. One as a woman in a predominantly male field. And two before zoom. I know you're like, I know what I'm talking about. You guys need to get on a plane.
- [24:50]
C
Yeah. The logistics alone.
- [24:51]
A
Yeah.
- [24:52]
C
But a lot of people showed up, including the FBI. They said there was about 60 people. And it also caused significant interest from the press. So there was a lot of press coverage there. And then all these stories started to be written. Is it a serial killer? Are they a trucker? What's going on in Oklahoma? And one of the things that actually Frank mentions in his book was that after this event and after all the press coverage came out, these specific murders stopped.
- [25:23]
A
So. So someone's paying attention.
- [25:25]
C
You have to wonder, was this guy reading the news? Did he see, oh, wow, they're actually onto me. And I don't know if he stopped killing, but he changed it up. They stopped finding bodies along I40 in this very same pattern.
- [25:39]
A
Okay. Yeah. And I mean, I imagine if the press becomes aware of the meeting, they're becoming aware of where they're zeroing in, which is on one highway. And this idea of a long haul trucker being responsible, I mean, if I'm a long haul trucker in that day and age, I imagine people are talking about it at the truck stop.
- [26:00]
C
Yeah.
- [26:00]
A
So he stops, which, you know, we think he stops. But I wonder, I mean, it's like, okay, that is 100% a good thing to not find another body. But I wonder if, as just purely from an investigation standpoint, you're like, okay, we know that now this search is gonna be more challenging because he's gonna be covering his tracks.
- [26:20]
C
Yeah. And it sort of ends up going that way. I mean, Terri continues on the investigation. She starts getting so many tips from the public, and it's sort of overwhelmin, overwhelming, that she actually reaches out to the FBI and asks them for assistance on this. And they agree, especially because it crosses state lines. So they send an investigator to work with her and they work this case. And from this whole thing, the FBI's initiative, the highway serial killings initiative, basically is born out of this. Like, they end up saying it's not just these 10 women. It's actually endemic. Like, this is happening, we think, all over the highways in America, which is like, horrible.
- [27:05]
A
And this is one example, one example.
- [27:08]
C
And so they start this initiative to try to track down, you know, these killers. And it's still going today. They have a computer database that is maintained by the FBI that local investigators can, you know, submit information to. When they find something they think this could be, you know, or it's a killing alongside of a highway, you can submit it to their database. And the numbers are pretty wild. I mean, obviously some of these cases are older that have been submitted and are still trying to be solved, and a lot have been solved since. But there are more than 800 murders in their database, most of whom were killed along truck stops or motels.
- [27:49]
A
These are unsolved or solved.
- [27:51]
C
I don't know how many of these are solved. I think this is current unsolved, But I'm not 100% on that.
- [27:58]
A
But when you think about decades all over our country.
- [28:02]
C
Yeah.
- [28:03]
A
You know, not to mention, I don't know a lot about long haul trucking, but, like, people who are going across the border to Canada or to and from Mexico, it's like, yeah. Wow.
- [28:15]
C
And they have a list of nearly 450 current suspects who are long haul truckers.
- [28:22]
A
Current suspects today?
- [28:24]
C
Yeah.
- [28:25]
A
Who's doing the background checks at these trucking companies?
- [28:28]
C
Well, I mean, that's a whole other conversation that we talked to Frank about. Yeah. Okay. So that sort of, like, leads to the FBI having this initiative, which is great. It's nice to know that the FBI is like, aware of this, looking into this, that there are resources going to try to stop this and solve these cases. As far as the victims of the I40 murders, most of those cases are technically still unsolved, although there is a suspect who law enforcement believes probably did it. So it takes us back to Casey Jo Pipestem's case. So investigators are fairly sure that her killer was a long haul trucker who was also a serial killer. So in Grapevine, Texas, where her remains were found, there was a police lieutenant named Larry Hallmark who really took on the case and worked tirelessly to try to solve it. He also worked with Terry Turner. Like, they connected, shared information, and they actually went on the road and, like, did multiple interviews together. They went to truck stops, like trucking organizations. And they also spoke with a lot of sex workers. And I think that this is a really interesting part because they had to create this trust because they're law enforcement officers technically approaching sex workers at truck stops. And of course the reaction is like, fear and don't arrest me. And so. So they had a totally different approach and built this trust and said, we're not arresting you. We don't think you're criminals. We actually want to warn you that there are serial killers in the area and you need to be very careful. And also, if you see anything weird, if you meet a trucker and you just feel like there's something wrong with him or get that feeling, it doesn't matter what it is, just tip us off, let us know. And they had a lot of success with this, actually. And at one point they thought that they found the killer. So Larry Hallmark ends up getting a call from a woman at a truck stop who, you know, a sex worker. I don't know that she was a sex worker, actually. I think that she cleaned big rigs. Like she would do different cleaning services, but she was often at truck stops and so knew about these. Investigators knew about this tip line that's.
- [30:51]
A
An incredible, like, fly on the wall person on your side if your job is literally cleaning these trucks.
- [30:59]
C
Yeah. And so she called in in 2004 and had a raspy voice because she had been attacked and choked. And essentially what she said was that. So she was a 51 year old woman and she'd approached a man in a truck to try to talk to him about payment for cleaning his wheels. He told her to get in the truck and she did. And then he locked the door and attacked her and beat her and raped her. And she passed out. And when she woke up, she was along the side of the freeway near Kansas, like, way far away.
- [31:32]
A
Like, he maybe thought she was dead.
- [31:34]
C
He thought that he had killed her.
- [31:35]
A
Oh, my God.
- [31:36]
C
And she survived. And she told investigators that she, you know, he had talked to her and he told her that there had been others and basically admitted to her that he had killed other women. And they ended up searching a trash can near where she woke up, where she, you know, she was found. And they found some trash from this truck driver and like some trucking logs.
- [32:05]
A
So she was able to give them a name.
- [32:07]
C
She wasn't able to give them a name, but she told them like, like where she woke up. And they searched the area and found trash that this trucker. Oh, I see some of his trash that he had disposed of. They followed that lead and it ended up leading them to Carl Wayne Lawson, who was a trucker. And he was arrested in 2004, nine days after the attack. And he ended up getting sentenced to 11 years in prison. But, you know, she was able to identify.
- [32:36]
A
Eleven years?
- [32:38]
C
Yeah. Not enough time.
- [32:40]
A
No, truly.
- [32:41]
C
She was able to identify him in Alina, and I don't know if he ended up confessing or how that went down, but he immediately became a person of interest in the i40 murders. And so they took his DNA and they were really hoping that this would be the guy, but ultimately it never checked out. And there was no evidence to connect him to the I40 murders. So they had just found a different murderer who was a trucker.
- [33:07]
A
Cause he's telling her there were others before you.
- [33:10]
C
Yeah.
- [33:11]
A
Unbelievable.
- [33:12]
C
I know. So then the i40 murders continued to go unsolved. Finally, kind of by luck, In June of 2005, America's Most Wanted told the story of Casey Jo Pipestem's murder. And a ton of tips came in. And one tipster pointed to this guy, John Robert Williams. He was already a convicted killer. He was already in prison. But our guy, the investigator Larry Hallmark, went to go visit him in prison and he brought pictures of Casey. So John Robert Williams, you know, he didn't remember her, or at first he said he didn't, but then eventually he looked at her and he said, oh, yeah, I remember her. That's Little Bit. Which might have been her, you know, the name she used. But her family confirmed that she did go by Little Bit, and she had a tattoo that said Little Bit. So it did seem like John Robert Williams knew who she was and probably killed her, which would indicate that he killed the rest of the women who were found on I40. Right. So he was already in prison at the time for murdering another woman, Nikki Hill. And he is known as the Big Rig Killer. He was traveling with his girlfriend, Rachel Cumberland, who was an accomplice in the murders, and she was also in prison.
- [34:39]
A
Oh, my gosh. It's like, it's hard enough to imagine one person doing that, but two, it's like between the two of you, not one of you is like, not gonna do that.
- [34:47]
C
I know. So in 2005, both Williams and Cumberland were actually charged with kidnapping and murdering Jennifer Hyman, who was the 24 year old college student from Oklahoma. But ultimately the charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence. I think that he was a suspect in like most of those murders, but ultimately, you know, there just wasn't enough evidence to tie him to them. He confessed to killing something like 30 women. But, you know, jailhouse confessions, you don't know. Yeah, at this point is he just knows he's gonna spend the rest of his life in prison. So he's like, oh, yeah, I murdered all these women. And I don't know, because in those.
- [35:31]
A
Conversations, at least the way I've seen it play out sometimes, not with this one in particular, but maybe is, okay, come in and talk to us. So it's a break from their routine in jail. Every single day, it's like, maybe they get coffee. Maybe there's something there for them to do. And so it's hard to take it seriously.
- [35:48]
C
Yeah.
- [35:49]
A
Also, if somebody has nothing to lose.
- [35:51]
C
Totally. So the only murder that he ended up being charged with was Casey Jo pipestems in 2013, almost 10 years after her murder. John Robert Williams was charged with her murder.
- [36:04]
A
Okay.
- [36:05]
C
Now, I don't believe that anything happened with those charges. I looked, and it's not like there was a trial or anything. So he hasn't been convicted. So her case is not technically considered unsolved, although legally it's unresolved in court. Right.
- [36:25]
A
Because if he's already serving a life sentence, and it would be hard to prove based on the physical evidence that they have. I mean, things are so different now. But how do you justify the resources? I think is probably what they were asking. There's no silver lining in a murder, but it sounds like the pattern of these murders led to this initiative that's going to help solve hundreds more and hopefully prevent others in the future, because now they know what to look for.
- [36:54]
C
Yeah. And one of the things that we'll talk with Frank about is that with modern trucking as well, there's a lot of automation and tracking of movement.
- [37:04]
A
Right.
- [37:05]
C
And so the hope is that that also makes it harder for someone to commit murder.
- [37:12]
A
Yeah. And this, you know, we talked a little bit about this earlier on, but the perception of sex work and how we view the people who are sex workers and seeing people as victims regardless of their life circumstances.
- [37:29]
C
Yeah. There's definitely more understanding of that now, which is good.
- [37:33]
A
There's also cameras now. I mean, so many cameras. Like, every store you go into, you're seeing cameras outside of it. And I'm sure these truck stops.
- [37:42]
C
I know. I feel like we talk with Frank about that. I don't want to give it away, but I was like, surely this isn't happening anymore because of all the technology and all the cameras. And he was kind of like, it's happening. It's still happening, but, you know, there's a lot being done to try to prevent it. And. Yeah. So we should get into the conversation with Frank. He talks about his time on the road with a trucker, all of his research. It's really interesting.
- [38:08]
A
Yeah. Thanks for shining some light on that for me going into the conversation.
- [38:13]
C
Yeah. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but, like, I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, every age. That's what meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin skin at the age you are now. Meaningful beauty, beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com.
- [38:54]
A
Hey, this is U.S. olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull.
- [38:57]
B
And I'm U.S. paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
- [39:00]
C
As athletes, our lives are about having.
- [39:02]
B
A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortal, we chose PennyMac.
- [39:08]
C
PennyMac is proud to be the official.
- [39:10]
A
Mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
- [39:13]
C
Learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services.
- [39:16]
B
Llc/Housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act.
- [39:22]
C
Conditions and restrictions may apply.
- [39:25]
A
Ready to change your Life? For just $2 a day, Orangetheory Fitness delivers one hour workouts that combine strength and cardio to help you burn fat, build muscle and feel unstoppable. Right now, get a full month of unlimited classes for just $62. Don't wait. This offer ends soon. Visit orangetheory.com or your local studio and start your transformation today. Offer ends January 31, 2026. New members only Premier membership, performance monitor and monthly billing required. Discount applies to first month only. Other terms apply. C Studio for details.
- [40:00]
C
Today we're talking with Frank Figlozzi who's a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI and an author of multiple books. We're going to be talking about his book Long Haul today. Mostly Frank, welcome to the Knife.
- [40:14]
B
Thanks. I'm really happy to be here.
- [40:16]
A
Yeah, we're so excited to talk to you today.
- [40:19]
C
So in your book Long Haul, you talk quite a lot about the highway serial killings initiative. It's also known as HSK. In the book you say something like there's over 800 murders that they're looking into. What kind of cases do they specifically work on?
- [40:37]
B
It's limited to highway killings where or highway proximity killings of largely women. And you suspect there's a trucker connection there. At least 850 murders of women over the last several decades alongside our nation's highways. About 30, 35 long haul truckers already in prison for multiple murders. When I asked the FBI now post retirement. As I'm writing, as I write this book, how many suspects do you have in these unsolved murders? Because they're still going on right. Yes, they are. There's 35 long haul truckers in prison. They're still happening. And we haven't. More importantly, we haven't solved the cases we already know about. And I said, how many people are you looking at in the long haul community? 450. 450 suspects. I got to know more about this. The initiative has two parts to it. The highway serial killings initiative database, which sits within the VICAP database, the violent criminal apprehension program. It's a database most detectives are aware of. But here's the thing, thing. Most detectives are not aware that within VICAP there is a separate database for the highway serial killings initiative. So that's part one. What's the second part? The incredible analysts, the crime analysts, no guns, no badges, Brain power, Knowledge, experience, based in Quantico, Virginia, who then lay hands on what's in that database. Scour and scrub all the nation's newspapers, all the killings on the nation's highways that are probably not in the database because very few detectives are aware that it exists. And then the magic happens. And it's not magic, it's hard work and brain power where they try to solve and connect the dots to stop the next killing.
- [42:38]
C
In the book, you interview an FBI analyst, one of these analysts who work on the HSK initiative. And one of the things that emerged is this very clear pattern of long haul truckers being the perpetrators and suspects. Obviously we want to say that that does not mean every long haul trucker is the killer. Not at all. But there is a real prevalence of this happening. And another person that you interviewed used this term crime scene on wheels. And so I wanted to ask you about that term. What does that mean and why are these specific crimes so difficult to solve?
- [43:17]
B
First, thank God we're only talking about a tiny fraction of long haul truckers who kill. Part of my research over a year to write this book, I decided I was going to ride over 2,000 miles in a big rig. I learned a lot of great things about the trucking industry, its impact on our economy. They are essential workers. Many of them are just trying to put food on their family's table by putting food on our table. Right. Grocery stores would run out of food in three days if truckers stopped trucking. So the impact on the economy is enormous. Like over $800 billion in gross freight revenue every year with trucking. So I'm glad you mentioned that. A lot of these cases develop in very remote areas. Right. It's where you dump a body. And you mentioned this mobile Crime scene on wheels. It's almost the perfect way to do this. The truckers in these cases are grabbing their victim in one police jurisdiction. They're killing her, almost always her in a second jurisdiction, and they're dumping the remains in a third jurisdiction, often very rural. So imagine that county sheriff, they find a body near the highway, and there's often no ID on these bodies. And they're either partially nude, or they're strangled, or they're shot or they're stabbed. And now this sheriff's department likely may not have any detectives. They do road patrol, let alone, hey, where's your crime analyst who can help load the data into the FBI's database? And they go, we don't have an analyst. You know, we patrol the highway and we have a dead body. And so the victimology is part of those 200 questions that the FBI wants. You know, it's help us help you. Who the victim is may tell you who the killer is.
- [45:02]
C
Yeah. And that brings me to you. Went on the road with a long haul trucker named Mike, which I imagine was such an interesting experience. You know, I want to get into the long haul trucker subculture. I also want to kind of get into why this attracts killers. But first, you know, I'm just so curious, like, what was that experience like for you, being on the road, living as a long haul trucker for a short period of time?
- [45:28]
B
Time, yeah. I always wondered, you know, I didn't have a fascination with it, but yeah, you know, when you're on the highway and you, you wonder, well, who's in that truck? What's their life like? And what I discovered was an entirely new world for me, anyway. I discovered a hierarchy, a caste system within the trucking industry. Why was this important? Because when you tell me you have the FBI says they have 450 suspects, that's too much. That can't happen. The investigator in me has to narrow that number down. So one of the questions I asked was, which kind of trucker in which kind of truck is more likely to kill? And I discovered a cast system. There's different levels of respect within the trucking community based on what kind of truck you drive. The truck I rode in was a flatbed. Why is that important? Because it's very physical and mentally engaging. Because that's a different trucker than the trucker who's what they call a dry vanner. On the other end of the spectrum, who literally hauls dry goods across the country, whether it's a load of salsa today or a load of paper towels tomorrow and does nothing more than open and close the back door for someone else to unload it and look it. That's it. There's no physical interaction, human social interaction, necessary, really, and, and everything in between. But why does it matter? Because I theorized in my attempt to get the numbers down for the suspects, I theorize that the trucker who's more physically and mentally engaged, if you're mentally and physically engaged with the load, you're less likely to be that isolated, hermit type killer. If you're driving for a big corporation like the big names we all know, we see on the side of the trucks, they're heavily monitored today. Trucking is high tech. That company knows where you are. They have cameras looking in at you, looking out at the traffic. They've got the geolocation, they know your speed. The truck even brakes for you if you're going too fast. All that is known, electronic logs are kept. And then on the other end of the spectrum, maybe you're an owner, operator, maybe you're not tracked at all. So I start theorizing about that. I do ask the question in the book, who is attracted to these jobs? And do people actually apply to be a long haul trucker because they want to kill? I think the answer is like this. These killers, serial killers by definition and by studying all of them, are typically socially inept people. There are exceptions to that. Ted Bundy, for example. But generally, these are not your charmers. Generally they've had traumatic childhoods, dysfunctional, severely, sometimes dysfunctional childhoods. Maybe abusive moms, maybe they're acting out against a female or mother figure. But when they're attracted to that kind of isolated job, I can do this all by myself. I just need to get from point A to point B. I can live life like I want to do. They suddenly realize they could get away with almost anything. And they can. They can. And so I talk about all of that and I ask all of those questions some people have asked me. Is a serial killer trucker than a non trucker serial killer? No, pretty much serial killers are the same. But I will tell you this. By far the number one occupation of a serial killer is truck.
- [49:06]
A
Wow, that is wild. I had no idea. I mean, I had of course, heard. I think most people who follow true crime, or maybe most people watching just like the news have heard of like a trucker also being a serial killer in one case or another. But I didn't know that that was such a common theme. And I'm curious about truck Stop. Because this idea of like the truck is the crime scene. I mean, when I think of long haul trucking, I picture rest stops. I picture late at night. I picture all the trucks parked in one area and all the people coming in for gas, coming in and leaving in another area. And I'm wondering what you can tell us about sort of the scene that happens at truck stops where people are gathering or maybe they're not gathering, whether or not stopping with their truck. Like what happens there? What are they observing?
- [50:05]
B
Yeah, sure, it's a subculture. And yes, I spent many a night at truck stops. Did you know that your truck idles 24 7. That engine is on all the time. Why? Heat and air conditioning and power. So that that rumble to kind of set that scene, right? That rumble that kind of almost becomes white noise for you as you're going off to sleep. How about food? Well, I don't like this rest stop for food. Let's order grubhub or let's order doordash. To the truck? Yes, to the truck. All of that is going on. You mentioned kind of do they interact with each other or not? Mostly not. I thought maybe that would happen at one great big restaurant, amazing restaurant outside of the Milwaukee. We go upstairs to a bar area. I mean this is big. This is like they have a supermarket in this place. So we go upstairs, there's a bar. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be interacting with truckers. We'll see them talking to each other. No, you know, mostly they're on headsets talking to family and friends. They're not talking to each other very much. And also they're drinking. And I'm thinking this is a weeknight. These guys are gonna be up in the morning on the road. Road. Interesting.
- [51:21]
C
You talked a lot about drugs in the book substances. Can you talk about some of that? Those statistics as far as like drug and alcohol use? Among long haul truckers, there's a staggering.
- [51:31]
B
Amount of drivers who fail their random drug tests. I was shocked at that. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I think it's as much as 30% will fail their drug test at some time. And look, look, having to get up at the crack of dawn and drive alert all day. And you better be alert. I can't tell you how many near misses we had. I talk about this in the book on the highway. Oblivious drivers, car drivers who are on the phone texting, talking to their kids. I don't know what they're doing. But we almost got killed several times. Yes, truckers have to be alert and it was a real lesson for me as to break time. So in other words, how long it takes for this, this, you know, 80,000 pound vehicle to stop. And if you think as I did, I can cut this guy, I got to get in front of this guy, this is slowing me down, I'm going to go around and then I'm going to slam on my brakes. When I get in front of him, you're taking your life in your hands. It's because they can't stop. And so all of that goes into play. The health of the drivers. There's a Canadian study of the health of drivers, long haul drivers, that I reference in the book. Look. And that's eye opening too. Basically, if you don't suffer from clinical depression at the start of your career, you may well suffer from it by the end of your career. The isolation, the sedentariness of it. I had the luxury of standing up and getting behind the passenger seat and just standing or my legs were going to go numb. You know, the driver doesn't have that luxury. So sedentary, unhealthy. You walk into a truck stop shop and good luck finding something healthy that's not processed, fried, you know, horrible. And so they get overweight, they get heart conditions, they get depressed and we've got to do something more, we got to do something better. There's a better way to do this, I think.
- [53:28]
C
Yeah. And there's a lot of use of like methamphetamine and speed, like drugs to keep them awake.
- [53:34]
B
You got to get up in the morning and stay alert all day. And then you gotta go down, you gotta go down and get your sleep and you turn off all of that alertness and yes, they start abusing substances.
- [53:47]
C
And so another subculture that you dive into and do a lot of research about and are very thoughtful when talking about is the victims, many of whom are very vulnerable women and girls who, you know, are either victims of sex trafficking or sex workers and were most of the perpetrators finding their victims at truck stops.
- [54:12]
B
I spoke to, I believe, the two top experts on street level sex trafficking in the country. Dr. Celia Williamson at University of Toledo and Dr. Dominique Rosepowicz at Arizona State University. And they're not just academics, they are, are on the street themselves doing clinical work, making a difference, helping to run recovery and resource centers as well and doing incredible research. They helped me immensely. And they said, frank, when you interview these sex trafficked women, you're going to See some things that you should check off in your head because you're going to see early childhood trauma. You're going to see what I coined a phrase saying, a tower of trauma. I saw. It's not just one thing, it's. It's a lot of things. And so sure enough, I start interviewing these victims and any stereotype you have. Oh, that only happens in certain kinds of families or certain pl. No, no, it does not. It does not. But the trauma is often the commonality and strangely often the commonality among the trucker killers as well, whether or not these victims are being chosen on site at truck stops. So the answer to that question actually is different depending on what period of time you're asking about. In many cases, the plying of the trade, the trafficking is moving and has moved away from the physical truck stop. And that's story in itself of communities saying we've had enough of this. And even, you know, legal action against the big rest stop companies, which, by the way, that's an industry, multi billion dollar industry. You pass those every day on the highway or at least on vacation trips. Right where you're, you're on the highway and you pass the ta, the loves. And they're all combining. They're combining their powerful industry, but they're cleaning up their act. In years past, they would look the other way to trafficking happening there. They wanted the truckers to come, and if the truckers wanted girls, we're okay with that. We'll look the other way. Same for police and sheriffs. They've got other things to do. Answer 911 calls. We're not driving through the truck stop every hour. That's not happening. So today it's largely moved online. So like our whole lives have moved online. So has the grooming and recruitment.
- [56:39]
A
Yeah, I mean, so much of it is happening online. And you know, you had also mentioned the technology has changed so much and the tracking of these trucks and the cameras and, you know, knowing how fast they're going, all of that, that didn't exist in the 80s. Right. But the online grooming, you know, is very scary. And Hannah and I have heard a lot about this, but the culmination of it is that in the worst of circumstances is that something comes to fruition where the person seeking to like, harm or exploit someone gets to see them in person. I mean, I'm from King County, Washington, the Green River Killer. And this was like his. I don't even know what to call it, but seeking out sex workers and kind of banking on the Fact that no one would come looking for them.
- [57:27]
B
Very true.
- [57:28]
A
In that, you know, Gary Ridgeway ultimately caught in. Many of these victims are found in a similar location. But he wasn't a trucker driving all the way across the country where they could be anywhere.
- [57:39]
B
Right.
- [57:40]
A
I have a question about, you know, if you were driving even one of the smaller trucks that we're picturing. That's a very big rig. Let's say you are one of these killers and you have committed a murder. Now you need to dispose of the body. You know, you can't, like, pull into a narrow driveway and sneak out. I mean, you have a big freaking truck. Like, how is that happening so often?
- [58:07]
B
The theory is that the bodies are discarded at night under cover of darkness, very isolated highways, very few people on the road. The odds are with you on not being discovered. And it's also a reason why you see the bodies discovered very close to the highway. So, you know, initially I was like, wait, how does the FBI accept the case? You know, for the program, for the HSK initiative? And I said, because you don't know. I mean, a body could be found a mile from the highway. Well, they're not. They're not a mile from the highway because the trucker's not going to stop and expose his truck for very long and then drag a body somewhere. It's rare. It happens. It's rare. So, yeah, it's done. And they get emboldened. They get emboldened. I've done this before. They get addicted to the adrenaline flow, and they get brazen about it. Yeah, I'm going to drag a body. Maybe it's in Atari, maybe it's not. But it's dark. No one's on this highway. I'm going to drag it out and toss it out, literally. I've got cases where the passenger door opens, bodies tossed out the passenger door.
- [59:17]
C
Was there any case that either a victim that you spoke with or one of the serial killers that you read about that you know stood out to you, that you want to kind of walk us through that case? Case?
- [59:31]
B
Well, I. Let's go with a victim, I think, because she typifies so many of these. I want to be careful to say that you should never have a formulaic approach to how someone falls into the trap of trafficking, because each case is different. Everyone's mind is different. Everyone responds to trauma differently. You may know people who say, well, wait a minute. This friend of mine, mine was traumatized and even molested and. Or raped repeatedly and had horrible things happening. In the house. And, you know, she's not been trafficked. She survived and thrived. And so I don't have an answer to why, but I. I can tell you that a case that typifies this would be the case I mentioned in. In the book Alias happens to be Hannah. And, yeah, suicide in the family, divorce, domestic violence, geographic moves. This is someone who has uncle who's sheriff. You know, this is an upstanding family. Literally. Grandpa helped build the local church with his bare hands. She herself was an outstanding athlete, good student, very bright Midwest girl. But the trauma stacks up, and there's some mental illness, there's some drug use in the family, and there's some bullying that goes on in school, elementary. And later, the fact the community that she was in doesn't accept back then that your parents were divorced, that's a bad thing. You know, in that community back then, there's a trouble with the law in the family. So anyway, she goes to college. But the boyfriend, that siren call of the boyfriend. The boyfriend is my stability. With all the chaos at home, all the physical moves, the boyfriend is my rock. Well, the boyfriend is not a rock, I can assure you. The boyfriend is a mess and a crook. And she's introduced to drug use. This is very common, by the way. There's older siblings that introduce. She hangs out. So she's kind of old for her age. Meaning because of the older siblings, she's hanging out with older people, and those older people are smoking dope. And that's where she seems. That's where I fit in. And it's a very young exposure to marijuana. Now, we could get. You know, it's funny. I will tell you, we could do another hour on what it's like to publish with a major publisher and the editing process. But one of the things the editor had some heartburn with was, hey, Frank, are you speaking ill of marijuana? Because it's legal in, like, 30 states? And what's wrong with that? And I go, look, no, no, actually, no, I get it. I'm cool with that. But I am here to tell you what the victims are telling me. Now, you want me to be an honest broker or not? Because I've had multiple victims tell me that in their life. In their case, their gateway drug was marijuana. And if you're smoking a lot of marijuana at 11 years old, you know, while your brain is developing, probably not a good thing.
- [62:56]
C
Yeah.
- [62:56]
B
And then the harder drugs and the boyfriend and living for the boyfriend and the story. What compelled me, I interview this woman. Women who now, thank God, is not only a survivor, but a thriver. She helps run a resource center for women who want to come out of trafficking. Right. And I don't cry easily, but we're sitting in a room, I'm interviewing her in a conference room for days, and she starts telling me things that she never even told her therapist. We had to call time out. And she called her therapist and said, I'm telling Frank things I haven't even told you. And the therapist said, keep going. You're having a breakthrough through Keep going. And she's crying and I'm tearing up. And I like. It really touched me because the story. If you were to write a script for this, for a movie, for her life, Hollywood would probably say, there's too much trauma here. You're making this stuff up. It's dark stuff. And the journey of finally hitting rock bottom. You hear that phrase over and over, right? Rock bottom. I had to hit rock bottom on you. Do the experts tell me that getting out of that. Because the drugs play a huge role, A huge role in this. Heroin, oxy, Oxy. Aedes breaking up, crushing your oxy so they act faster. A huge role in trafficking. And then what happens? You have to steal to get the money for the drugs. You have to sell yourself to get the money. Money for the drugs. You inevitably get arrested for shoplifting or something like that, or even, you know, because this young lady was really smart. She got into, like, credit card fraud, you know, some white collar embezzlement.
- [64:43]
C
Yeah. Because I remember, you know, you had flown out and met her and, you know, it was a touching part of the story, especially that she's doing well now. But was she the one that when she was in jail for some of this fraud, she met someone and was recruited who she didn't realize. But can you tell us, like, what happened with that?
- [65:00]
B
I'm glad you brought this up because you earlier asked about recruitment and grooming. Right. And the level of recruitment that goes on in jails, county jails, is staggering. What does that look like? So obviously, because of theft, prostitution charges, whatever you're doing, you get caught. And now you're in. In the county jail or the lockup, you're doing six months to a year year and the bottoms. And that's a phrase that I describe in the book, which is kind of think of that as a woman who's trusted by the pimp within the stable of women he controls. Call her a deputy pimp if you want to, but she keeps the women in line. And now she's locked up for whatever reason. Well, she keeps working. She's a saleswoman. So she's going to recruit you. Now you're in for theft or shoplifting or something. Something. And she says you got a place to go when you get out of here. No, I don't. And I'm embarrassed to tell my parents and you know, I haven't talked to my mom and blah, blah, blah. And I'm not going to tell them what I, you know, I'm in big trouble with the law. I tell you what she says. This is very common. Here's my number when you get out. Look, I'll put some money on your, on your jail food account, your phone account. You come stay with us for a while till you get back on your feet. Call me when you get out. That's recruitment. In this young lady's case, she ended up absolutely in what the law calls indentured servitude. She was absolutely a slave. And they treated her right initially, you know, she was naive. These people have a great house. This guy's giving me, you know, my friend's boyfriend is giving me money for hair and nails. And we're eating well and we're dining out. This is amazing. And then within hours, absolutely. Beaten and raped and basically enslaved.
- [66:50]
C
And her documents were taken, like her ID and everything you talked about.
- [66:53]
B
Yeah. Your phone is taken, your id, your driver's license, your Social Security card. Go ahead. Good luck. You try to get out of here and if you try to escape, we beat you again.
- [67:02]
C
Yeah, horrible. Yeah, it's really like unimaginable. And, and I'm trying to remember how she escaped this.
- [67:09]
B
Well, I may be saying things that aren't in the book, but how she escaped was one day the pimps, plural. Say you girls are going out to the shopping mall and you're going to steal some shoes for us. They were into high end sneakers. And here's how you're going to do it. Where are you going to do it? Here's the shoes we, you know, we want. You're stealing for us. By the way, this is a big thing. It's called trafficking adjacent crimes. So these women often commit crimes outside of just prostitution charges. They do it for the pimp or they do it for the drugs. But there's a lot of crime that goes on around trafficking. This is her example. So she and another girl get into a store, they're ripping off the. They're going to rob. It's pretty apparent they're not very good at it. So Security shows up, the police show up, the pimp is in the area directing all of this theft. The police grab him, he's arrested, and they find out there's a warrant for him out of Texas. They're going to send him back, he's done. And that finally is the opportunity for Hannah to get out of this. And then now she is forever bitter because she completely confesses to what's going on. The whole operation she gives to the police officer and seemingly he does nothing with that information. Nothing at this point. Now she's out. Is she free? Free from her drug habit? Absolutely not.
- [68:37]
A
Yeah, I mean, the consequences of this are lifelong for the victims and, you know, probably in ways for their families who now have to watch them struggle like this. I'm curious if you've seen a shift in either the FBI's sort of perspective on sex workers or law enforcement where in many cases they have been viewed as like a problem or like looked down upon. But I guess what I'm trying to ask is, are they now being seen more so as the victims that they they are.
- [69:12]
B
I'm so happy we're getting to this because I did not want to be the guy who writes this very dark book. Look, here's this horrible societal problem. Have a nice day. Please buy my book. I wanted to offer solutions and insights. And so with regard to law enforcement insights and answers, the good news is, yes, law enforcement, often at the urging of nonprofit groups and social work groups, has changed their methodology in many places. And it works. What works? Number one, we have to stop treating trafficking victims as criminals and look at them as the victims that they are. If you handcuff that young lady and there's any indication of trafficking, and by the way, there's almost always indication of trafficking. You say, well, wait a minute, aren't there independent operators and, you know, high end escorts, blah, blah, blah, five star hotels? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are, but they're few and far between. I'm telling you, I learned even from the experts, even when you go to those counties in Nevada where prostitution is legal and it's controlled and it's within these brothels, legal brothels, guess what? Very few of those women are independent operators. There's a pimp somewhere in that picture and they're sending that money back home to the pimp. So anyway, anyway, what works? Stop arresting. Start inserting. The local activist group, the social group, the resource center, almost always women. You can imagine the distrust of male officers that these victims have. Because what happens when you handcuff and you Throw in jail for the night. Guess who the savior is. The pimp who shows up as the savior and bails her out. And she's on the street in the morning, if not that same night. So what do you do? I've seen it work in my own FBI career in Ohio, in Toledo, partnership with those local groups and organizations. And you ask the question, what do you need to get out right now? What do you need to get out of this trap you're in right now? Tonight? Well, I, I, maybe tomorrow. No, no, no, tonight. Well, I need a roof over my head. My pimp's going to kill me. Okay, we have that for you tonight. We have it. All of these, all the grant money, all of the volunteers, the business owners, people say, I've got money for you. What do you want to do with your life? I've always wanted to be a paralegal. I want to learn how to cut hair. We can get you those certificates in that training. Come with us tonight. I have a baby. I need diaper money. Come with us. We'll help you. Tonight. We've got an apartment for you. Or in the case of Arizona State University and Dr. Sepowit, we have a place for you to live on campus with us with your child. So that works. So people are changing their tune toward this. And guess what? If you really want to make an impact because it's kind of lazy and easy for the officer to say, yeah, another prostitution arrest. I put that on my record, I got another arrest. You want to take down the whole ring of trafficking? How about the intelligence you develop when you develop a rapport and trust with that young victim and she eventually gives up the whole operation? I've seen that happen. We took down a national trafficking ring out of Toledo, Ohio, that way.
- [72:43]
C
Wow.
- [72:43]
B
Yeah.
- [72:44]
C
Yeah. I'm so glad to hear that. Is definitely a bright spot in the book of this evolution of thinking when it comes to victims in that way. You know, I know we're wrapping up here, but I had a question I wanted to ask you, and I'm curious what you have to say about it. Just because I feel like this has sort of come up in conversation at get togethers or whatever, especially when people hear that I work in true crime. The question I get a lot that I've never really been able to answer but been curious about is people want to know. And there's the sense that serial killers are somewhat a thing of the past, that the positive part of technology, the fact that everyone has a phone on them at all times, a tracking device at all times. The fact that even as you wrote about in your book, the newer the Big Corporation, trucks are monitored all the time. You have a button that says I'm driving. You have a button that says I'm off duty and where I am. And that it's so much harder to just grab someone whose car is broken down off the side of the road and no one knows where they are, or at a truck stop, someone being trafficked, and then no one knows where that person was. Is that true? Has this activity become more difficult and thus less prevalent?
- [74:01]
B
It's a valid question. It really is. And I don't think enough data is being captured to help us with conclusions here. It's my gut feeling and anecdotally that some of the numbers are coming down. We know this. We know societally from FBI crime reports that are captured from police departments that homicide rates are going down in major cities and have been for the last several years. We know that that's really good news. How much of that is serial killers not killing? Here's my problem with rushing to a conclusion there. I don't believe that serial killers are going to go away. I don't think that personality and mindset and trauma is going to dissipate to the point where serial killers become diminished or obsolete. I would actually counter argue that our highly technical society and being online constantly creates further isolation and antisocialism that often is the characteristic of a serial killer. You could also argue that the move onto online grooming, streaming and recruitment, the move to advertise. As I drove through the country with this trucker, I made a point of checking out the ads on various platforms for sex for money to see. Hey, in this little community where we're bedding down for the night at this little mom and pop truck stop, could we actually get sex for money here? The answer is yes. And so if it's online, you are now moving from that physical truck stop transaction to the nearby shady motel or massage parlor where it's going to happen. And now I think it's less likely to be discovered and solvable in many ways because the universe of people who could have killed this woman is actually greater outside of the truck stop. So that mindset is not going away. So what are we going to see? Well, since everything is moving online on in our lives, I think the killing moves online. Meaning what are we seeing? People answering ads for weird, weird sex stuff and you show up and it's a killer. They never see these people again. I think the killers will Move online. Just like the victims, the trafficked, the prostitutes move online for their advertising. They are now saying, I'm here, come get me if you're the killer.
- [76:38]
C
Yeah. And then that also means the investigators need to move online as well.
- [76:42]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [76:43]
A
It's reminding me of that. I mean, it's not so related to this, but just the online piece of it all and how hard it is to track those things is the. I don't know if you have any familiarity with this, but there was a case in Arizona, I wish I remembered how many years ago, but like a long time ago, I think maybe like four to five years ago now, this 14 year old girl, Alicia Navarro went missing. She left a note, said, I'm sorry mom, I'll be back, I promise. She left a note left in the middle of the night and they couldn't find her. Like nothing. And then on her 18th birthday, she walks into a small town police station in Montana and says, hey, this is my name, I want to be taken off the missing persons list. And of course they're like, well, hey, wait a minute, like where have you been? What's going on? Fast forward now we know. And they always suspected that she met someone online and now they know that she did meet someone online. None of the details have been released. But this person, they eventually raided the apartment that he had been living in with Alicia. And I think he was just sentenced to like 200 years or he got some wildly long and just and fair sentence for child sex abuse material. And this is the person that she had been living with. Now she's back with her family and thankfully she's alive. But it was, you know, we have a lot of technology now and no one knew where she was.
- [78:10]
B
No. I think this is a great example because the nightmare of being a parent these days of young people is this online scenario. I can't tell you even in my FBI days how many cases we have had where a young lady was reported missing or a runaway. And the first thing, what, what's the first thing the FBI is going to do? They're going to check her devices, they're going to grab her computer, laptop and what do we find? Absolutely has fallen in love with some guy, usually an adult.
- [78:43]
A
Yeah.
- [78:44]
B
Many states away. And the problem with that is the FBI and law enforcement generally shuts off at that point. Point number one, the parents are shocked, shocked. They had no idea. And then law enforcement goes, hey, look, we got a hundred other things to do. And your, your daughter has fallen for this person. Well, who is he, well, we don't know, quite honestly, because he's faking, he's using an alias. We know he could be a 50 year old guy, I don't know. And so it's a hole that we're falling into. And I truly, you know, I have grandchildren now, so I've stopped worrying about my kids and now I'm worrying about my grandchildren.
- [79:23]
A
Yeah, it is a very strange time. Certainly so different. I mean, like, I feel like I'm in the last age group that grew up without full access to Internet, cell phones, computers. Like we had one computer and it faced out so you could, everyone could see the screen. You had to dial in.
- [79:40]
B
Yes. Well, what I mean, the equivalent right now is I tell parents, look, I know you think it's an invasion of privacy, but go ahead and do it. Buy the software and know what your child is doing online. And by the way, delay, delay, delay the purchase of that first device.
- [79:57]
A
Yeah, that's my game plan.
- [80:00]
C
Well, thank you so much for listening. That is our episode for this week.
- [80:03]
A
We'll be back next week. If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is the knifexactlyrightmedia.com or you can follow us on Instagram heknifepodcast or blueskyenifepodcast.
- [80:16]
C
This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
- [80:21]
A
And me, Pasha Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breyfogle and Alexis Amorosi.
- [80:25]
C
This episode was mixed by Tom Breyfogle.
- [80:28]
A
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
- [80:30]
C
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
- [80:33]
A
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
- [80:34]
C
Executive producer produced by Karen Kilgarith, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
- [80:46]
B
Have you heard of this new Netflix series, His and Hers? This new mystery series stars Tessa Thompson.
- [80:52]
C
As Anna, a journalist in Atlanta, and.
- [80:55]
B
John Bernthal as Detective Jack Harper. When Anna catches wind of a murder in Dahlonega, the sleepy town where she grew up, she pounces on the case and searches for answers.
- [81:05]
C
Detective Jack Harper is strangely suspicious of.
- [81:08]
B
Her involvement, chasing her into the crosshairs.
- [81:10]
C
Of his own investigation.
- [81:12]
B
It's a show that reminds you that small towns are often filled with the most secrets and no one is who they seem. Seriously, with every twist, you're left wondering.
- [81:21]
C
Can you trust anyone in this town? Can Anna and Jack trust each other?
- [81:25]
B
Or is one of them hiding something? The closer they get to each other, the closer they get to the truth. And we cannot wait to see how it unfolds. Don't miss the suspense and the drama. Watch his and hers now only on Netflix. Janice Torres here, and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Business.
- [81:45]
C
Small Business Success Stories, produced by Ruby.
- [81:47]
B
Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.
- [81:49]
C
We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business business owners.
- [81:53]
B
The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a rookie.
- [81:57]
A
That's how fast the industry is changing.
- [81:59]
B
So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [82:08]
C
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.
- [82:11]
B
But if you've forgotten to get that.
- [82:12]
C
Special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea.
- [82:20]
B
You get it now, you call it an early present for next year.
- [82:23]
C
What do you have to lose?
- [82:25]
B
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time.
- [82:28]
C
50 off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for 3 months.
- [82:32]
A
$90 for 6 month or 180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes.
- [82:36]
C
Per month when network is busy. See terms.