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Florida Killers ////// 945
01:03:52
Some of the most haunting serial killer cases in Florida have never been solved. Since the 1970s, investigators have documented clusters of murders across the state with troubling similarities: the same victim profiles, the same methods, and the same remote roadsides and canals. In several cases, detectives suspected a serial offender. The Florida Sheriffs Association is highlighting unresolved serial killer cold cases by utilizing modern forensic tools like DNA analysis and genetic genealogy. The Cold Case Advisory Commission meets quarterly to review stubborn homicide files with multi-agency experts. This week we take a look at some Florida serial killer cases that have remained open for decades.
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- [00:03]
A
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B
Subject to change Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately though, Mint's story is better. Every plan $15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tears. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Save upfront payment of $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes me slow
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A
when network is busy.
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C
See terms.
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B
Welcome to True Crime Garage wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me, as always, is a man who prefers to work without a net. Here is the Captain and I prefer
- [01:52]
C
to do a podcast without my pants. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend
- [02:01]
B
this week we are delighted to be featuring a great new beer from our friends at Tactical Brewing Company in beautiful Orlando, Florida. This is a Medusa inspired Hazy IPA loaded with hops and smoothed out with tropical flavors that you would expect with a Hazy this one has sweet berry and grape. This is Cursed Gays Hazy India Pale Ale by the good folks at Tactical Brewing Company and longtime listeners of the Garage know that we love what Tactical is brewing and Tactical has some of the very best can art in the business. ABV 6.5% garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five. And today ladies and germs, we're going to do something a little different because we will be talking about several still unsolved homicides from the Sunshine State of Florida. So we wanted to give a shout out to the Florida Themis Project, a HOPE advocacy and justice nonprofit that assist families and law enforcement with open and unsolved cases. Florida Themis T H E m I s project.org is the website. Go there especially if you are a resident of Florida. Go to FloridaThemisProject.org and learn about what they do, how you can get involved and if the mood should strike you and throw a little support their way. They have a couple of cases that they are currently working and I am interested right now in this John Doe case that they have. It's an unidentified male who on April 3rd of 1980 was struck and killed by a tractor trailer heading southbound on State Road 9 in Pinnell, Florida. This pedestrian was standing on the right outside lane of the road when he was struck and killed and the victim had no identification that was found on his person. He was a white male estimated to be 20 to 25 years old, 5 foot 8 inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a white button up shirt, tan pants, black socks and brown shoes. He is on Namus number up 928. We want to help them out with this case and with their other cases so true crime garage will get things started here. We have donated $200 to the Florida themis project efforts on this case and we were able to do so. Thank you to all of you who have donated to the beer fund. So for everyone who has helped us with this case and everyone who has helped us with the beer fund, we say thank you.
- [04:49]
C
Yeah, BWW and beer run for everything. True crime. Check out true crime garage.com while you're there. Sign up on the mailing list so you're in the know about merch promos and colonel, that's enough of the business.
- [05:03]
B
All right, everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. In April of 2026, the Florida Sheriff's association was calling attention to unsolved serial killer cases in the state of Florida. Some of the most haunting serial killer cases in Florida have never been solved. Since the 1970s, investigators have documented clusters of murders across the state with troubling similarities. The same victim profiles, the same methods, and the same remote roadsides and canals. In several cases, detectives suspected a serial offender. In none of these cases was anyone ever charged. Limited forensic technology, fragmented communications between agencies and Florida's transient population all made these investigations extraordinarily difficult. Today, cold case units across the state are revisiting much of the evidence with modern tools. DNA analysis, genetic genealogy, and digital databases in hopes of finally finding answers and providing families with the closure they deserve. Today we will be discussing notable unsolved serial killer cases in the sunshine state in the great state of Florida, With a heavy focus on the flat tire murders. This is true crime Garage. The flat tire murders. Between February 1975 and January of 1976, a troubling pattern began to take shape across south florida, One that investigators would later struggle to fully define but could not ignore. The cases surfaced the way many serial investigations do at first, as separate tragedies Scattered across jurisdictions and connected only by the quiet dread that something about them felt familiar. The victims were young women and teenage girls, and their lives, at least as they appeared to law enforcement. Looking from the outside often carried an element of motion. Some were traveling, some were working temporary jobs, and some were living transient lifestyles. Remember, in some cases, the transient lifestyle often means missing person reports could be delayed, Leads could cool before they are even recognized, and. And connections between cases could remain buried, Even if just temporarily. Over time, bodies were discovered in places that seemed chosen for how little they invited attention. Canals and remote areas across south Florida. The recoveries clustered primarily in Broward county and Miami Dade county, Where waterways, embankments and isolated stretches of land. Locations where a person could leave evidence behind and count on distance, darkness, and time to do the rest of the work for them. Remember, time is the killer of evidence. As these discoveries accumulated, Investigators began to talk to one another, compare notes and look for overlaps that might explain why so many victims were being found in similar settings. The working idea was not that every case had to match perfectly. Few real investigations offer that kind of certainty, but that a thread might be running through several of them. The more they looked, the more similarities seemed to emerge. And with those similarities came a possibility that was impossible to dismiss. There might be one offender or a set of offenders moving through the region and leaving the same kind of aftermath behind. Eventually, one cluster became known as the flat tire murders. The label came from an investigative belief about how and at least some of the attacks may have begun. Authorities suspected the offender used a simple but effective tactic, Deflating the tires of victims cars. And in that moment of vulnerability, when someone is focused on a problem they did not expect to have, the offender may have approached. Contact initiated, followed by abduction and assault. As said, it's difficult to link all of these cases together With a great degree of certainty.
- [10:09]
C
When you hear from some of the investigators, they say five, and some of the investigators say there could be up to 12 victims in these cases.
- [10:18]
B
Absolutely. The suspected victims ultimately included 12 women and girls, all discovered in or near south Florida canals. And when we say 12, the captain has Referenced a couple different numbers here, as we have seen that in our look and research at. In this case. But oftentimes, when you find a list of potential victims here, it includes 12 women and girls, and it seems like
- [10:46]
C
the age range is late teen to early twenties.
- [10:50]
B
And really what you see here, in my opinion, Captain, is when you. As that list of victims expands, I almost feel like the certainty diminishes a little bit on how many of these are connected. It's absolute. I will say this. I firmly believe that many of these are connected, but I think it's similar to some cases that we've covered in the past.
- [11:14]
A
Past.
- [11:14]
B
The Santa Rosa serial killer case that we've covered here comes to mind, where you may have multiple killers working in a certain area and persons that are capable of killing not just one person, but more than one.
- [11:29]
C
Well, I think a couple problems here for investigators is when you have these young women or teenage girls, like I said, between the age of mid teens to early 20s, they're probably all going to be similar in height and weight. Here's one of the things I don't like is you'll hear people say, well, they were all last seen shopping or driving. Well, if we feel like there was some ruse that was done to their vehicle, I think you. To me, the driving doesn't matter. When was she last seen driving? Okay, we know the vehicle is part of the ruse. So if they're all like, where. Where were they seen before the driving? Were they at home? Were they shopping? And then the other problem that I have with this investigation is the discovery of the bodies. You have multiple locations. If we're finding all 12 of these victims in canals, or a bigger percentage, like 80% of the victims are found in canals, but they're found, it's. It seems like in remote locations and wooded areas and canals. So this makes it difficult, I think, to determine whether it's one individual that's just changing multiple things or is it multiple killers that are. They're just doing what they do.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah. The difficulty here is not only the lack of an identified offender, it's the deeper challenge of linkage itself. These cases do share a lot of the similar traits, location types, victim profiles, time frame. But shared traits are not the same as proof. Investigators could see the resemblance in the outlines, yet could not confirm with complete confidence that every victim on this list had been killed by the same person or group.
- [13:21]
C
Right.
- [13:21]
B
When authorities looked at the span of time. And we're talking about a relatively short Spanish, a short time span here from February 1975 through January 1976. They suspected that as many as a dozen women could be connected, whether by a single offender, multiple offenders using similar methods, or a mix of crimes that overlapped simply in place and time. The flat tire murders remained what the name now signifies, one of Florida's most disturbing clusters of unsolved cases, a stretch of months when young women and girls disappeared and were later found dead. So let's examine a couple of the cases that have been thought to have been linked to this sequence. Now, as said, the murder started in February of 75. Let's start at June 18, 1975, in Broward County, Florida, when two teenage girls made a plan, an overnight visit with friends. Their names were Barbara Suzanne Schreiber, known to people close to her as Barbie and Belinda Darlene Zettenroer. Both girls were 14 years old. Both were expected to enter ninth grade in the fall. And both were last seen alive on June 18, 1975, as they left a home in Hollywood, Florida. The case would later be described in an article from the Pittsburgh Press titled two Florida Girls Slain on Their Way to Friends. The reporting captured a community shock in the blunt language of the early facts that were known about this case.
- [15:09]
C
Right.
- [15:09]
B
Sheriff's. Sheriff's deputies said in this article that they were questioning everyone who knew the girls. And they go on to say they knew a lot of people. What details we do know is this. That night, Belinda's mother, Joyce, said Belinda asked for permission to spend the night at Barbara's house. Joyce agreed. Mom says yes. Then, according to the report, Belinda called the home that night with an update. Instead of staying at Barbara's, the two girls, Belinda and Barbara, had planned to spend the night at a. At the home of a third friend.
- [15:48]
C
Right.
- [15:49]
B
Now in this report and all reports here, Captain, the friend's name, the third friend, was kept from the. The name was kept from the public, right at Barbara's home. Mr. And Mrs. Schreiber saw the girls before they left. So this is the last confirmed moment here, according to what detectives later pieced together, was the two of them walking away from the Schreiber residence that night, believing they were heading to a friend's house. But detectives quickly concluded that Barbara and Belinda never reached that destination. What happened between their departure and the next morning remains the black space at the center of this case, an unresolved stretch of time where the girl's route, who they may have encountered, and how they were diverted from their route has never been definitively answered. The next break in the story came from chance. On the morning after, a family out on a fishing trip in the Florida Everglades made a discovery that no one is prepared to make. Along a canal near brush and open wilderness, they found two bodies lying close together side by side. The location was. Was described as parallel to U.S. highway 27, roughly 20 miles west of Fort Lauderdale in the Everglades corridor, where the road cuts through wide, flat stretches of water, grass and canal banks. This is approximately four miles north of Andytown, Florida. Andytown, Florida. Place I've never heard of. I've been to the Everglades several times.
- [17:28]
C
It's okay.
- [17:29]
B
Deputies responded and began searching the area. But the initial reports emphasize how little physical evidence was recovered. I mean, this. Anybody that's been to the Everglades or has any general understanding of the Everglades does not need for me to tell you why. One would anticipate not finding much in the way of physical evidence here. It's the Everglades. It's expansive, it's exposed. It's a place where wind, water, and who knows what else, right? Skunk, ape comes to mind and all kinds of weird animals that may exist and may not exist.
- [18:04]
C
That's the problem with Florida is the skunking. But a couple things here. First of all, this is a family outing that nobody's ever going to forget. But am I following you correctly? They. They have. They're not fully truthful so they can spend the night at another friend's house?
- [18:21]
B
No, they. So we've all been there, right? You go to your friend's house, you, you told mom and dad, hey, I'm going to go stay at my friend's house. She calls mom and says, hey, me and my friend, the house that she was going to stay at, we're both going to go to this third friend's house. Now, is it okay if we. We go there and stay the night there? So the parents knew where the two girls were going.
- [18:45]
C
Okay.
- [18:45]
B
They just never made it there.
- [18:47]
C
And then my other question is, how does this get on the radar as far as these flat tire murders? Because they traveled by foot?
- [18:56]
B
Well, yes. So the big part of the flat tire murders is they received their name because this ruse was used more than once. But it wasn't used in all of the homicides. What, what really, truly happens here is any abduction and murder that fits this similar victimology in this short time frame of only 11 months has all been encapsulated into potentially being flat tire murders.
- [19:29]
A
Right.
- [19:29]
C
Okay.
- [19:30]
B
So the large connector here is not so Much. The flat tires, it's more age of the victims and the location more of where they're found. So what we have here, I mean, look, they're not all found, but if you look at this, I could. I. If I went through all 12 of these, I would be surprised if not all 12 of them match this. They, they were all found in canals, or as in this case, right next to the canals.
- [19:57]
C
Right. I've been revisiting the vanishing women of Chillicothe because it's the location of the bodies. And you go, well, if the location of the bodies and there's not many signatures, those signatures can change. And the, and the motivation or the, the way the, the person, the killer operates can change. But like, to me, I, I'd make an argument here, where you go, well, if they're in the vicinity of the canal, then they're found in the canal. Right. If we're trying to lump these together or not.
- [20:32]
B
And it appears that.
- [20:34]
C
Is that dumb to think. I, I just. I just think, like, it's like, oh, all the, all the murder victims were found in the river. Well, if you found one on the banks of the river, it's still the river. Right?
- [20:46]
B
Right. And that's what they're saying here. And with, with, with this case, it appears that the victims that were not found in a canal or next to one. I mean, these poor girls were right on the bank of this canal, and that's how they were spotted by this family who was out, I'm guessing on an airboat because it's the Everglades on a fishing trip. And the, the situation seems to be this. If they're not found in a canal or right next to one, then. Then there. The vehicle involved. The victim's vehicle that's involved in the case shares similarities to the cases where we have a vehicle involved and the victim is later found in the canal. Deputies responded to the call, of course, began searching the area, and as we said, this is going to be difficult. It's already going to be difficult anyway, because it's an outdoor crime scene. But then you have the added element of Mother Nature. She is fierce and wild in the Everglades.
- [21:48]
C
Yeah, she could be a real Aruna Dooney.
- [21:51]
B
Investigators believe that the girls had been brought to the site, forced to lie down, and then shot. The report stated that both were murdered on the spot in which they were found, and they were found fully clothed.
- [22:06]
C
So in these cases, we'll suspect sexual assault.
- [22:10]
B
Well, this is where science be damned, because, yeah, there's. There's a real human element here that throws a variable in there that I don't think science can fully explain away all the time. So the Broward County. You're right here, Captain. The Broward county medical examiner reported that neither girl had been sexually molested. Here's what I would argue. Why the hell else were they attacked and abducted and killed and why were
- [22:39]
C
they taken to a remote location?
- [22:41]
B
Right. It's. They're 14 years old. They don't have. They don't have a whole bunch of enemies.
- [22:46]
C
And yeah, I think as an investigator, you have to think, okay, did the killer bring them out here for other reasons, get scared? Did he bring them out to this location and see signs of individuals or hears boats or whatever? There could be many reasons why their plan wasn't fully actualized.
- [23:08]
B
They could have been redressed. They could have been forced to redress themselves. They could have. Just because they're clothed or, or even if they're found nude doesn't mean that they were sexually assaulted.
- [23:21]
C
But that could be the motivation.
- [23:22]
B
They could have been forced to do things, participate in things, regardless that are of a sexual nature. That does not end in the medical examiner being able to 100% conclusively decide that they were in fact raped or sexually assaulted. And the other part of this, not, and I don't think that this is, is a part of this here in this specific case, but for anybody shaking their head at me now go back and examine the David Berkowitz Son of Sam case where he didn't even get within touching distance of anybody in those cases very much. All were very sexual nature.
- [24:01]
C
Yeah, well, the sexual component is also the reason why they're choosing their victims. Maybe I'm stating the obvious thing.
- [24:08]
B
They were. Yes, but sometimes obvious needs to be stated. And they. What we can conclude by what little information was put out there is that they were abducted and killed. And it's either for sexual assault purposes or reasons unknown. So this case, unfortunately, two girls last seen leaving a home. And in this case, Hollywood, Florida, in June of 75, heading to a friend's house, never arriving, and then found the next morning along in Everglades Canal near US 27, shot to death lying side by side. And this was an outcome so abrupt, so violent, that it transformed an ordinary summer night into an unsolved homicide. This still raises the same unanswered questions about who intercepted them, why and how they were taken to that remote stretch of canal bank. And for decades those questions would remain. Summer always seems to sneak up on us but Grooms is the one wellness habit that actually keeps up with your schedule. 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- [31:41]
C
All right, we are back. Cheers mates. Tall cans in the air. Party to the people and power to the people. Cheers to you Colonel.
- [31:49]
B
Tall cans in the air. We do have today with this great beer from Tactical. And anybody familiar with tactical knows that I think all their cans are tall cans. They're all 16 ouncers.
- [32:02]
C
Yeah. I love to share their beer can artwork on our Instagram stories. Side note, though, you know, I was looking into this case and somebody asked me how my day at work was going, and I thought, it's gone. I think sometimes I don't stop to realize how dark these cases can become and how much of a dark cloud it can put on you day after day.
- [32:31]
B
The thing here with this case and what's fascinating about this case in the Sunshine State in this general time period that we're talking about is there's a lot of these serial type cases or suspected serial type cases. And I believe that they're spot on with a lot of these. I do think that these were serial offenders. But if you go to the opposite side of the country in that same decade, California is pretty much experiencing the exact same circumstances.
- [33:01]
C
Yeah.
- [33:01]
B
Next, let's move on to two cases that still sit in the category no investigator wants to see unsolved homicides. These are two more of the potential flat tire murders. So we go to July 22, 1975. Remember, we were just in the month of June. So roughly a month later, Ronnie Sue Gorland. She's 27 years old. She was supposed to go to Parkway Hospital to visit her mother, who was ill. She was expected to arrive about 2 2:30 in the afternoon. She never did.
- [33:39]
C
Yeah.
- [33:39]
B
Ronnie lived at 137 Golden Isle Drive in Hollandale. She was a respiratory therapist. Earlier that day, she was last seen at the Children's Asthmatic foundation in North Miami Beach. This is a place where she had once worked and where she still had a lot of friends. When Ronnie left the foundation, she told people she intended to stop at the 163rd Street Shopping Center. And this just sounded like a quick errand before heading to the hospital. The next day, Ronnie was found dead. Her nude body was discovered in the Graham Canal near Northwest 138th street and 105th Avenue in North Dade. The immediate appearance suggested drowning, but the medical examiner turned the case from tragedy into something far darker. The coroner reported that Ronnie had been sexually mutilated. She had been stabbed several times.
- [34:44]
C
Jesus.
- [34:45]
B
Then investigators found her car, Ronnie's burgundy and white Oldsmobile Cutlass located in a shopping center parking lot. The car had a slashed tire. It wasn't just abandonment. This looks staged, like someone had created a problem that would force the driver to become Vulnerable for a few minutes to assess the flat tire. And in that vulnerability, a predator could appear.
- [35:11]
C
Yeah, and on a side note, I mean, this seems like, oh, this is in the 70s. This is so long ago. I just saw a news report the other day where these individuals are hiding behind cars, and they either, you know, put something on your. Your window or. Or they'll take your windshield wiper blades and they'll pull them up, so you have to get out of your car to put them down, or they take a shopping cart and put it behind your vehicle. They're doing whatever ruse that they have to do to get you out of the vehicle so then they could take you over and then take you over, take over the vehicle as well. So it seems like, oh, well, this is the 70s. These are yester years. Problems. Nope. Problems happening today. Just different ruses.
- [35:57]
B
Eight days after Ronnie disappeared, another young woman vanished in a way that echoed the first case so closely that law enforcement and reporters immediately began drawing lines between them. Elise Rapp, age 21, left her Hollywood apartment at around 8pm to go shopping. Elise lived at 801 Northeast 7th Avenue in Hollandale. So these two victims, this is not only close in time, eight days apart, but close in proximity. They both live in the same area, same town. She was working. At least she was working a summer job with Kelly girl service in Broward County.
- [36:36]
C
Now that she.
- [36:38]
B
I have no clue. She was a transplant. So she intended to return to her home and Flushing, New York, in September of that same year. The trip that she set out on that night, though, was. Should have been an ordinary trip, shopping at the mall. Detectives surmised when she returned to her car, she found the same kind of obstacle in Ronnie's case.
- [37:04]
C
Flat tire.
- [37:05]
B
Right. So this already put. This already put on investigators radar a tire problem. Okay. Her car, this is a. A yellow Chevrolet Vega, was found with a deflated tire. So when Elise came back to the vehicle, she found a killer waiting at the car or was quickly approached by someone as if the flat wasn't a coincidence at all, but bait. When Elise didn't come home, her landlady noticed. By the next day, concern escalated into action. The landlady called police, and she also contacted Elise's parents, who were in the state of New York. The missing person's clock began ticking fast and urgent. Later that same day, a road worker saw something in the water. Elise's body was found in the same canal where Ronnie Gorlin had been discovered.
- [38:02]
C
So same flat tire, basically the same area, same victimology found in the same location.
- [38:10]
B
Yes. And note here, eight days later, the killer, either dumb or confident or somewhere in between.
- [38:19]
C
Yeah.
- [38:19]
B
Was fine enough to return and place another body in the exact same spot.
- [38:24]
C
What was the manner of death again?
- [38:26]
B
Well, we're going to get into that like Ronnie. Elise was pronounced dead by drowning, but the autopsy pointed to a sequence of violence. Elise had been struck in the head, a blow described as strong enough to knock her unconscious. The kind of incapacitation that prevents resistance and makes everything that follows easier for an attacker. She had been sexually abused, Two women, eight days apart. Shopping center, parking lots, tires rendered useless, bodies dumped in the same canal system.
- [38:56]
C
Yeah, I would agree with you, Colonel. The thing I wonder is, so we have the ruse of you have a flat tire, you got to get it out and check, and that gives you your opportunity. But I'm wondering, how is he controlling these victims to get them into a vehicle? Is it by. Is it just abduction or is it knife or possibly use of gun?
- [39:20]
B
Well, they were. We mentioned clock ticking already. But one thing that was impressive here now. Now, of course, it's a blessing and a curse, but the authorities have had decades to try to put together a profile on the likely offender or offenders. Now, we do have a good profile today. I don't know when that came about, but I did see newspaper articles where they were very quickly trying to put together pieces or aspects of that profile. So this may have come out quickly after this sequence of murders. I can't say when it did come out, but as details surfaced about the crimes, the press and officials began using language designed to convey not just murder, but a specific kind of killer, one whose violence escalates. Pay attention to this part, everyone. One whose violence escalates and whose acts carry a signature. A Miami News article ran under the headline, jack ripper hunted in two canal murders. A Dade county medical examiner, Dr. Ronald. Dr. Ronald Wright, was quoted describing the savagery as consistent with a Jack the Ripper type of psychopathic killer. The comparison was inflammatory and deliberate. A Metro Police spokesman, his name Ralph Page, agreed with Wright that the two cases, victims Gorlin and Rap, showed a progression of violence, a pattern suggesting the next victim could be attacked even more brutally than the last. Authorities said both women had been raped. Dr. Wright stated that both victims were apparently beaten unconscious before the sexual assault and then dumped into the canal near the intersection of U.S. highway 27 and the Palmetto Expressway in North Dade. The bodies, according to the reporting, were found nude, with small exceptions. A necklace on one victim and a pair of sandals on the other, Dr. Wright also noted something investigators rarely get in water disposal cases, timing that favors evidence preservation. Police were, quote, fortunate, he said, that the bodies were found relatively soon because in badly decomposed remains, the degree of mutilation can be difficult or impossible to determine. Early discovery meant clearer injuries, clearer sequences, and a better chance of reconstructing what happened. But clear injuries does not mean a clear suspect. Right, and that's going to be the trouble with these cases.
- [42:09]
C
Like, we know water damages evidence, but it's fascinating to go. There's a. There's a brazenness to all this. You know, same location, same ruse, but the violent escalates. Same location where the bodies are found. I mean, like you said, it's a ticking time bomb. When is this individual going to strike again?
- [42:33]
B
In the same discussion, in that Same discussion here, Captain, Dr. Reich said he had examined five bodies of young women killed in the previous months in Dade county and believed there were enough similarities that, quote, the coincidences could not be discounted. He did say in those other cases or some of those other cases, the bodies were reportedly too decomposed for a full autopsy, limiting how confidently they could be tied together.
- [43:05]
C
Is that just because they weren't found in time, because of the location?
- [43:10]
B
Absolutely. Importantly, spokesman Ralph Page drew a boundary. He said law enforcement had established a firm connection only between the Gorland and Rap cases. The rest were possibilities as they, as far as they were concerned, based off of suspicions and similar patterns.
- [43:29]
C
Yeah, this is some kind of monster.
- [43:31]
B
We had talked about a profile, and I think that's what their suspicions are here, that this is a man who is a monster, but only to be identified under the surface. So the profile here is of a man who could approach without raising alarm. Now, as the public panic grew, police brought in psychiatrists to help develop a psychological profile of the killer. The description that emerged was almost unsettlingly ordinary on the surface. The suspected perpetrator was described as a white male, 20 to 25, well dressed, physically athletic and attractive, possibly married, likely very intelligent, with an above average iq. In all reality was a sexual sadist. The profile emphasized not just violence, but approach. The killer, it was believed, used charm to win trust and lure potential victims toward his vehicle. The crucial idea was that he wouldn't look threatening in the environment where he hunted.
- [44:44]
C
This is what I thought was fascinating about that is because it's in the 70s, and this is actually the beginning stages really, of in depth profiling. A lot of times you'd see people think, well, this killer has to Be a loner. And so I thought it was interesting that they're pointing out, okay, he's a, he's probably attractive and he's probably actually married. I, I thought that was a fascinating aspect of the profile.
- [45:12]
B
Yeah. And, you know, we took some lashing on this with some cases where we've pointed out that authorities think that the offender might be attractive or at least clean looking.
- [45:26]
C
Yeah.
- [45:26]
B
And I guess the pushback on that is like, oh, so I let my guard down just because the guy was looking was not bad looking. Unfortunately, yes, that, that's not just our opinion here in the garage. That's the opinion of the persons investigating these cases. And you can point to a very specific case like Ted Bundy. He, unfortunately, those women got in his car. There was nothing in that moment when he, when he first approached them. You know, some of them, of course, he attacked and forced into his vehicle, but some of his victims unfortunately got into his vehicle, Will. And we know that 100,000% because some of them got away. And thank God they lived to tell about it. Every one of them said the same thing was when I, when I needed a ride or was approached for a ride, I got in the vehicle because he looked like, he looked like somebody who was just out of college. He was, he was a clean, polite looking individual. And I trusted the scenario. I trusted that moment. And I got into his vehicle and he would go. Just because the guy was ugly or disturbing looking, you wouldn't get it. No, you wouldn't get in his car. You would simply wait for somebody else to come and help you.
- [46:43]
C
Well, again, it might not even be attractiveness as much as it is guys wearing a blazer or guys wearing a collared shirt or. I think one of the things that helped Bundy so well was the type of vehicle. A VW Bug is not that threatening.
- [46:59]
B
Well, and so I also say clean. I think clean is a big part of it, too. It doesn't have to be an overly attractive individual. Clean, I think, is part of it.
- [47:07]
C
Yeah, like Steve Martin would say, Mr. Clean Pants. But, yeah, I think all those things matter. But I also think the age matters because you see the same type of individual, but they're in their 60s. What, what does that, what kind of reaction do you have? But also, we have to remember what time period it was. It was a time period where you probably knew individuals that hitchhiked multiple times so well.
- [47:35]
B
And that would be believed to be the outcome in one of these cases. Now circling back here, though, I, I will say I will get into the vehicle of a cute old man before I will get into the vehicle of a strapping young lady.
- [47:50]
C
Well, that's because they have softer hands,
- [47:52]
B
less likely to take me down, I'll tell you that. The profile emphasized not just violence, but approach. The killer, it was believed, used charm to win trust and lure potential victims toward his car. This. The crucial idea here was that he wouldn't look threatening in the environment where he hunted. He would look like someone who belonged, someone who you would not be afraid of in a shopping center parking lot. And so this detail and these details here align with that tire tactic. A slashed or flattened tire creates a moment of confusion and inconvenience, and it creates an opening for a stranger to offer help. If the offender looked safe, sounded polite and calm, the first contact could happen in plain view, in plain view of everyone out in the parking lot. In fact, Dr. Wright suggested that the way that the killer operated increased the chances that someone witnessed the initial approach. So they don't. They wouldn't recognize this as an abduction because it wasn't an abduction. The way that we see it play out in our minds, it was simply somebody talking to somebody else in a parking lot.
- [49:05]
C
But I also wonder if where they parked mattered to the killer, because also, like, let's say they're coming out of the shopping center.
- [49:15]
B
It.
- [49:16]
C
I don't think we have any actual, like, reports about this. Maybe you do, but I'm assuming that they have a flat tire or a slash tire, but they're in a parking spot. And so if this individual pulls up right beside them in a parking spot, that wouldn't look odd at all. And you might not have any evidence that there's anything wrong with their car, if that makes any sense. And then I just wondered if. I just wonder if it mattered to the killer or not where these individuals were parking. If they parked really close to the store, did he not try this ruse, or was he waiting for a victim to. To pull in and to park a little further away?
- [49:57]
B
Yeah, it's. It's interesting. I mean, we're in both cases here, we're talking about shopping malls. That implies a large parking lot. So that could be part of it, but we're also talking about times of day that I don't think that they would be extremely busy. The. There's a couple things here when you look at this from the. The hunters side of things.
- [50:20]
C
Yeah.
- [50:21]
B
I mean, this is so simple. You. You. You are either you see a car or with a woman in it that you desire, and you Follow them to the shopping mall parking lot, or you're already positioned somewhere in that parking lot where you can wait to see a victim type that you desire. And you have the entirety of the time that she is away from that vehicle to do something to the vehicle in which she is going to require some form of assistance. Now, whether she takes that assistance from you or not is tbd. But in the killer's mind, it may be as simple as. Well, as long as she doesn't scream when she gets into my vehicle willingly, no problems, nobody's going to report anything. Yeah, but if she puts up, if she gets. If she gets offended or for whatever reason gets standoffish, I just. Well, I offered her help, and I just was a good Samaritan. I get in my vehicle and say, good luck and wish you the best of luck, and I drive on, on my way. Now, the worry there would be when you compare it to, like, a Ted Bundy case. What do we know about Ted Bundy's case? Well, we know that he approached several young women at the beach on the day of the double event. And later, he was. He was. There was a composite sketch that was floating about because there were several young women that said, I was approached by a man. Nobody knew if it could be connected or not, but it seemed likely that it was. So it's really difficult to say how much they put into the thought of this other than, well, if she doesn't scream and she gets into my vehicle willingly and I don't have to force her in, then no harm, no foul.
- [52:05]
C
Well, I also think there's such a level of sophistication here, because if he is married, if that profile is correct, then he has a window of time before his. His wife or family is going, hey, where are you at? What are you doing? But if, hey, I'm running an errand. I got to go to this shop. And it's not hard to come up with some little white lies to put yourself into that location. Like you said, he doesn't necessarily have to follow the victim from their house. That's almost weird and doesn't make any sense because you don't know where they are heading. And so I think really, the hunting ground is these parking lots. And it wouldn't. You could sit in a parking lot for a long period of time because people are coming and going, and they're just not going to notice a guy sitting in his car because they don't know if he just got back in your car or maybe he's running Errands as he's doing this, it's. It's a very simple ruse, but it would limit his time period.
- [53:06]
B
Yeah, he's. The one thing we do know is he's hunting.
- [53:09]
C
Yeah.
- [53:09]
B
The Dr. Wright suggested that the way the killer operated increases the chances that someone witnessed the initial approach as the initial approach. As we said and as we know, the problem here, as with many stranger on stranger crimes, is that the relationship between victim and offender may only be nothing but the crime itself. No shared circle, no known connection, no trail that begins before the moment of the attack. After the years, over the years, I should say the material notes a perceived pattern within a 11 month period in which victims were similar and were disposed of in water or near it, particularly in canals. In the two confirmed link cases, the offender used the same general dumping ground. A Reward was announced, $1,000 for information leading to the killer's capture. And as the story circulated, something else happened. The public began to learn the pattern. People became weary of flat tires in shopping centers precisely because the two best known cases began with that detail. Dr. Wright suggested that such public awareness might frighten the killer off quote for a while. Now let's fast forward to August of 2023. The Broward County Sheriff's office provided the kind of update people waited decades to hear. Investigators said they had finally identified a suspect in the murders of two of the younger air quotes flat tire victims, Barbara Schreiber and Darlene Zettenroher, by using DNA recovered from the girl's clothing. After years of uncertainty and speculation, the name they released was not a stranger to law enforcement. Robert Clark Keebler was a known felon.
- [55:09]
C
Also made cookies in a tree.
- [55:11]
B
There was an immediate complication. Though. Keebler could not be arrested, questioned or put on trial, he had died in2019. And they didn't stop there.
- [55:21]
C
I think they should dig up their bones, arrest them, interrogate him, put him on trial.
- [55:27]
B
Well, they didn't stop there, because along with Keebler's name, investigators shared a second conclusion. They stated in this press conference they believed he had an accomplice, someone who at that point remained unidentified. As detectives laid out what they knew, they also laid out what Keebler had been doing during his lifetime. They described a lengthy criminal history, one that included armed robbery, sexual assault and aggravated assault. His crimes, they said, stretch from California to south Florida. Then the timeline moved forward yet again with another press event that turned a story of maybe into this is what we believed happened in May of 2025. The Broward County Sheriff's office returned with a second announcement. Detectives said they believed they had solved the horrific cold case crime nearly 50 years after the two teenage girls were brutally murdered in Broward county, again with the help of DNA technology. So we're talking about the same two victims here, Captain. The 14 year old girls, Barbara Schreiber and Darlene Zettenrohr. Detectives described what they believed was the beginning of the final day the girls were seen alive. The sheriff's office said the two teenagers had been sitting on a bench in Hollywood, Florida when a white van pulled up with two men inside. The girls were on spring break and investigators said they had been frequent hitchhikers. And of course that detail matters because it suggests the crucial moment may not have looked alarming to any onlookers. Authorities said the girls may have willingly gotten into the van.
- [57:17]
C
Inside that fan would be Keebler and Stein. Right. And so it's possible that they sexually assaulted them in the van and then disposed of the bodies or took them out to the the murder scene and then disposed of them.
- [57:32]
B
Discovered by a family on a fishing outing near Interstate 75 on in the Florida Everglades. The May 2025 update did more than retell the last known movements of the victims. It also filled in the identity of the accomplice. Stole my thunder there here, Captain. His name is Lawrence Stein Keebler and
- [57:55]
C
Stein sounds like a, either a detective group or a lawyer that you'd, a law group that you'd want to hire. But these guys were.
- [58:03]
B
Tell you what, if you take a look at Keebler, take a look at Keebler. I'd be surprised if he held down a job at any point in his adult life. According.
- [58:13]
C
It goes back to my theory that these, these creeps find each other.
- [58:17]
B
Well, according to the sheriff's office, Stein was involved in the murders along with Keebler. Like Keebler, Stein was no longer alive. He had died in 2005. And like Keebler, detectives said he carried a lengthy criminal history. The sheriff's office stated that the pair were suspected or charged in other sexual assaults spanning multiple states, Florida, California and Arizona, with activity dating back to 1972. So today, maybe these creeps find each other in a multitude of ways. One could point easily to the Internet and say that that's where they may find one another. But keep in mind this has been going on for as long as crime has been going on. There's a place where criminals can congregate together. That's jail and prisons. So it's not hard to find one another when you have to live next to another felon.
- [59:11]
C
Ah, this is my. He was my roommate. What kind of roommate was that? Cell block. Yeah, but this one's difficult too, because. So they have this evidence, this definitive evidence, but they don't have definitive evidence against Keebler or Stein to convict them of the other canal murders.
- [59:30]
B
Right. So that's going to be a. A big part of this. So detectives stated that DNA testing identified Keebler and Stein again from samples taken from the girl's clothing. And this is interesting. Alongside the DNA, detectives said they were able to strengthen the narrative with a memory that had been missing from the file for decades. They. They were able to locate a witness who had never been interviewed. Someone who said they saw the two girls get into a van on that
- [59:59]
C
day, banned the van.
- [60:00]
B
Detectives said that when Keebler came to South Florida from California, they could prove through paperwork he was driving a white van, the same kind of van described in their account of the abduction or the girls getting in willingly. They added that it also was the vehicle Keebler was driving when he was arrested in a road rage incident seven days after the teens were murdered. Okay, so this is interesting. This is, this is where you can start to take these two paragraphs. And what we have to do as armchair detectives is we can use what little information we have that is definitive fact and fill in some of the blanks. Right. So what does this tell us? Detectives are going, look, we. We can prove to you with the DNA that these guys were involved. We can prove to you that when Keebler and Stein came from California, we know Keebler was driving a white van. Well, we now have a witness who says, I think I saw two girls that look like those girls get into a white van. And this would have been on that day. And there's. Detectives are saying, look, we can prove that Keebler had the white van prior to the girl's murders. And we can prove that he was driving that seven days later, that same vehicle, seven days after the teens were murdered. And as you were talking about here, of course, many people had long questioned whether the murders of these two victims were tied to the so called flat tire murders. In fact, for many, many years, their names were included on this list. But the Broward County Sheriff's Office drew a firm line. Detectives said they do not believe Keebler and Stein were responsible for. For the other killings. They explain the reasoning in terms investigators often return to when comparing cases. Behavior and pattern. The Sheriff's office said the pair had an entirely different MO One that did not fit the remaining cases. Okay, so what do they mean by that? We have evidence that the two girls got willingly into their van. So in these other sexual assault cases that we know that they were either suspected in or guilty of, remember we said they had been charged with other crimes, some somewhat similar in nature in other states. We have a couple things here. Not only is the MO different, we don't know when they arrive, but we know that they're not from Florida. So it's reasonable to believe maybe they arrived in Florida. And police can place them as arriving in Florida after this sequence started. Right. Which was February of 75.
- [62:43]
C
Yeah.
- [62:44]
B
These girls were abducted and killed in June. And so if they didn't arrive until March, April, May, or even June itself, then they couldn't have killed the previous victims. The other thing that is stated here, but we don't get a full description of how it went down and the consequence of what went down. Keebler is arrested in a road rage incident seven days after the teens were murdered. So it's plausible that he was pulled off the streets. And remember, this sequence of murders took place in a very short time span of just 11 months. He could have been locked up for weeks or months after this road rage incident. The vehicle could have been tied up and impounded somewhere for multiple months. We don't have those details. What we do have is the information coming from law enforcement saying, look, these two guys killed these two girls. They didn't do the other cases. So while they believe that the murders of Schreiber and Zenton Roher had been solved, they believed these crimes were unrelated to the other open and unsolved cases that were often grouped under the Flat Tire Murders label. We started this episode here, Captain, talking about the Florida Sheriff's association and, and their call to action with the public and bringing up these unresolved unsolved serial cases, a lot of them from the seventies in the great state of Florida. If you go to fl sheriffs.org you can find in their blog, Cold Case Files Unsolved serial killer killer cases in Florida. And they have listed several notable unsolved serial killer cases. One, the Flat Tire Murders, the Gold Sock Killer, the Redhead Murders, the Daytona beach area killings, the I95 corridor murders. And also listed here is what they are calling the Fort Myers Hitchhiker Killings. And that is a very different case from the one that we discuss here today, but a case that is not entirely unfamiliar to our beautiful Listeners, because this is a case that we have covered. So the Florida, sorry, the Fort Myers hitchhiker killings. This is a case that goes by several names. I'll give you a quick profile of this case. Many of the victims were transient men, drifters or hitchhikers who were traveling through Florida in search of work or temporary housing. Because many of them had limited family connections in the area or were passing through, their disappearances were sometimes not immediately reported or investigated. I've, we've reviewed this case at length and I'll tell you this statement that they have here. Their disappearance, disappearances were sometimes not immediately reported or investigated. We can tell you in several of these cases, their disappearances were not reported
- [65:52]
C
at all, which makes things difficult when
- [65:55]
B
you don't report cases well, and they weren't. Many of these victims weren't from the area, so nobody knew that they were missing. Investigators believed the victims were often approached along roadways or offered rides by someone posing as a helpful driver. Some victims were later found in wooded areas or remote locations, suggesting the offender transported them away from the public view before killing them. Now this is where it's going to start sounding familiar for our listeners. Authorities have long suspected that the killings may be connected to a serial offender operating in southwest Florida during the 1990s. Investigators have examined potential links between the victims and offenders known to target transient populations. One individual frequently discussed in connection with these crimes is Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. A convicted murderer associated with a series of killings known as the Hog Trail Murders in nearby counties. While he was convicted of one murder and suspected in several others, he has never been formally charged in the Fort Myers cases. So as said here, the Fort Myers cases, the Hitchhiker Murders, as the Sheriff's association is calling it, is also referred to oftentimes as the Fort Myers Eight. It's one of Florida's darkest, most baffling unsolved mysteries. It was heavily covered here in the garage by yours truly and the Captain by true Crime Garage in our podcast episodes 601 and 602, titled the Hog Trail Murders. Again, this is a call to action by the Florida Sheriff's Association. We recommend that you go to Fleriffs.org and they have a list of all of these cases as well as the victims that they believe are tied to these different serial murders. And there is, there are many ways that you can offer some assistance to law enforcement and everything is there for you. On FL Sheriffs.org you can submit a tip via phone, via text, via website, and you can also download the Florida Crime Stoppers mobile app to offer assistance to the Sheriff's Association.
- [68:48]
C
I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast cast. Make sure you tell a friend. More the merrier, right? Come have a seat in the garage. Want to thank you for joining us, Colonel. We have a recommended reading this week.
- [69:05]
B
Don't just sit there in the garage and be a spectator. We now have a mechanical bull in here. You can, you can get involved and hop on the bull and get your ass thrown off of the bull. That's right.
- [69:16]
C
Yeah.
- [69:16]
B
The recommendation for this week here, everybody, of course, the Florida Themis Project. They're doing, I mean, they're doing great stuff. They're a little bit younger and they're really. It's the same as the porch light project, just the Florida version of this. So I want everybody, if you have a little extra time this week, go to Florida Themis. That's T H E M I S project dot org. That's their website. Again, especially if you're a resident of Florida, you can get involved and help in these cases. We get emails all the time of. I want to do more than just listen to true crime. I want to help. This is one way that you can help. We wanted to kick things off on this John Doe case for our listeners by taking some of that beer fund money and throwing it to the efforts that they are doing with this John Doe case. So go to Florida themis project.org and see what it is that you can do.
- [70:11]
C
Yeah. And they're great people. Follow them also on social media if you want to see what they're up to. Until next week, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
- [70:38]
A
Sa.