All That's Interesting tells us that this trucker was Rhoades. Not even the FBI knew that he had already tortured, raped, and killed at least two people along his routes. 'Truck Stop Killer' Robert Ben Rhoades is thought to have tortured, raped and killed more than 50 women during a reign of terror lasting from 1975 to 1990. He pled guilty to the first degree murder of 14-year-old Regina Walters in 1992 after investigators found haunting photos of the teenager in his apartment. He was wrong. Magazine porn often dominated the aislesglossies like Hustler and Barely Legal but also newsprint rags with cheap color covers. The woods were blue in the gray light, which was either dusk or a coming storm. Rhoades in Bond County IL Barn. I crouched on netted twigs and breathed into my shirt to muffle the sound. People don't leave home because things are going well; they leave because they feel they have to, and right or wrong, that's how I felt. His wife, Debra Davis, was from Texas. By now papers and photographs were spread out all over the table, and Young was waiting for me to tell my story. Rhoades later was extradited to Texas for the murder of Jones and another victim. He was convicted for three murders, and slated to be tried for two more before charges were dropped due to the wishes of victims' families. She'd escaped when Rhoades pulled into a Houston brewery. "No," she said, "I never heard of anything like that anywhere.". The natural light brought his hair closer to the color I remembered, and, again, the side view heightened the key similarities, his cheekbone shape, glasses, the expression; but as I had learned from the echo chamber of Martinsburgs, memory is strange territory. Behind him was a shoulder-high pink plastic castle. He shows it and asks what they think is going on. His clothes were gray or blue, but that may have been the light. Robert Ben Rhoades, un serial killer amricain, vient de trouver un accord avec le bureau du procureur. She walked out about a year and a half into their marriage, and months later, Robert was arrested for kidnapping a woman in Arizona. I finally spoke to a woman and asked if they had a homicide record for a girl who may have been found in the Martinsburg truck stop during the summer of 1985. He raped, tortured, and killed at least six men. He would only have been 39 at the time, and I remember the trucker as an older man with light brown or graying hair. Rhoades in Bond County IL Barn. But Rhoades was cunning and highly charismatic. I remember a fuel island in the blue morning light and a driver with a white shirt that stood out like a flag, and taking the turn back east, then south, and a gray day just before a storm so pressurized my ears hurt. Suspected of killing and raping 100+ women while on the road in the 1980s and early 1990s. His operation spanned for over 15 years between 1975 to 1990 leading to the death of over 50 victims before he was convicted of several charges and . Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). The 27-year-old woman, who had been restrained by both her hands and ankles, was freed by the officer, and once at the police station, she told the officers the horrifying story of how she'd ended up shackled inside the truck and covered in red welts and lacerations. She ran. Rhoades' attorneys did not respond to requests for comment from ABCNews.com. Wikipedia External References In her mouth was a bit similar to ones used for horses. "So was the trucker I met a true psychopath?" I kept my eyes closed, stayed still, then rolled away from him, pretending I was still asleep. I'd heard of at least one who got hung up on a meat hook in the back of a refrigerated trailer because a trucker thought she'd given him VD. Unlike those of other young women on the road, my story was now recognizable. Everywhere I looked, evidence of these girls was disappearing. Officers later discovered this was the name Rhoades, who had been involved in BDSM for years, went by when he used his CB radio to communicate with his fellow truckers. As I saw it, it didn't matter if I left, because in so many ways I was already gone. Robert remained a free man and continued to attack and kill more victims. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters and her boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones had run away from their homes and like Roberts first victims, they were hitchhiking when he picked them up. They chatter about it on the CB, and you are driving off in what amounts to a huge billboard advertising the name of the company. The only thing they neglected to take down is a website with the words Martinsburg TravelCenter of America flashing like a beacon online. Prosecutors believe Rhoades may have put many other women through the cycle of "kidnap, torture, and kill," but Smith said they do not know how many women he may have hurt, since he traveled so much. "Were there any murders that summer?" The FBI believes that Rhoades was more than just a criminal who was caught keeping a woman in bondage they maintain that he was a ruthless serial killer who had been preying on victims since 1975. Debra met Robert at a bar in Houston, Texas, in the 1980s. But Holts, 18 years old, had been on the street since she was 12. After Evil: Master Manipulator. October 20, 2022. Evil Lives Here: Deadly Fetish has serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades ex-wife, Debra Davis, talk about when she met Robert and how their relationship ended eventually. Robert is believed to have tortured, raped, and murdered over fifty women between 1975 and 1990 during truck stops, but because most of his victims were sex workers and hitchhikers it is difficult to confirm exactly who and how many people he has killed. I remember coming down through the Blue Ridge Mountains in a truck with its brakes on fire and dropping over Chester Gap in the middle of the night when it was still hot and the air was loud with the chirping of bugs. Robert Ben Rhoades known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. Once out on the road, though, he changed. So I went back to hitchhiking in circles and discovered a state of half-consciousness wherein I could be asleep and not asleep at the same time. He'd told Shana Holts to "sit there and be a good girl." As per the show, when Debra decided to leave the next day, he flew into a rage, physically assaulting her. Six weeks later, though, we parted ways. However, shortly after they accepted a ride from Rhoades, the middle-aged trucker shot Zyskowski and dumped the 28-year-old's corpse near a Texas highway. A few days later, Robert kidnapped another couple. Police photo. "Do you remember what his cab looked like? People Also Viewed . It was later determined that Rhoades kept Walters alive for weeks while he subjected the young woman to an immeasurable amount of cruelty. He may be right, but certainly not because he's innocent. A few minutes later, I got up like nothing had happened. Debra Davis and Rhoades met in the early '80s at a Houston bar called Chipkikkers. I only ran about a hundred yards before I turned and hid, because I didn't know if I was being chased and needed to see. Berdella was conscious of his homosexuality. There were seven within rangeIndiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, West Virginia, and New Yorkall less than a day's drive apart. While he was in the Marine Corps, he committed a robbery and was dishonorably discharged in 1968. Douglas remains were identified in 1992. You told me I owed you sex for the ride and chicken-fried steak and threatened to drop me off somewhere dangerous. 97.107.136.113 "But a real serial killer wouldn't have let me go, right?" At night I listened to the voices of prostitutes on the CB, barely intelligible between streams of name-calling: "Hello, honey. It was getting dark. When I got to the part about the sudden switch in his behavior, she got excited. Like Regina, I also had a little journal and probably wrote something in it that night, because it was far too cold to sleep. Now, years later, she returns to the scenes of her fugitive youth looking for clues to that terrorand the girls who lost their lives to it, All the Under-$20 Style, Tech, and Home Goods We're Feeling This March, 35 Alarmingly Good Watch Deals to Upgrade Your Wrist, Fellas, You're About to Blow Your Rent Money at the SSENSE Sale, Jeff Staple Breaks Down Pigeon Dunk, Building a Brand & Top 5 Sneakers | My Life In Sneakers, Symbas Slow But Steady Path to Rap Stardom, The Best Sandals for Men Make Every Season Even Hotter. On April 1, 1990, a state trooper made a shocking discovery when he stopped to investigate a semi-truck that was parked off Interstate 10 in the city of Casa Grande, Arizona. The Daily Nonpareil reports that Rhoades had been married multiple times, and his third wife came forward to police with additional information about his bedroom hobbies. He also wanted $500. Clearly the answer is: Make a throw pillow. By her own account, she had been raped at least twenty times and had already had a baby. The sheer amount of victims he had coupled with the contrast of how little we know about his crimes makes this case haunting. Investigation Discoverys Evil Lives Here: Deadly Fetish has serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades ex-wife, Debra Davis, talk about when she met Robert and how their relationship ended eventually. ", I had a vision of Lisa Pennal as a truck-stop Kali roaming the back lots in her denim skirt and fuzzy slippers with an ozone hole for a halo. As the details unfolded, it was discovered that Walters and Ricky Lee Jones had been picked up while hitchhiking by a truck driver outside of Houston. In Roberts truck, the authorities found his murder kit which contained cords, chains, whips, leashes, and fishhooks. You didn't do it.". A trucker picked us up at daybreak, and I rode in a semi for the first time. I said it was his choice. Word filtered back that the dead girl was a teenage hitchhiker. The sentence of death had been a possibility because on May 6, 1992, the State had filed a notice that it intended to seek the death penalty. The more I learned about Rhoades, the more I saw parallels between us. The interior of the truck's cab contained a hidden compartment that could only be seen if you were between the seats. After she was rescued from Robert Ben Rhoades's vehicle, the woman told law enforcement that she had met the middle-aged husband and father at a truck stop, and he had agreed to give her a ride to her destination. With all her freckles, she looked very Irish. Getting sleep was pretty easy with a boyfriend, because one of us could always stay awake. I'd always read that she got away because Rhoades forgot to chain her in, but I found out from Young that she'd not been shackled when she escaped. Police looked at the photos, noting that the growth of Regina Walters' hair and the changing color of her bruises meant that she had been in Robert Ben Rhoades' clutches for several weeks (per All That's Interesting). The dungeon-like compartment was described in "Roadside Prey" by Alva Busch, a book written about Rhoades. "Of course," Lee says, "Lisa was talking all sorts of crazy stuff. Even so, it still wasn't safe to sleep. So, if youre curious about where Debra might be today, heres what we know. You were not under his control. They get more nuanced and elaborate, but the basic topography remains the same. It was a woman, probably in her midfifties. Rhoades must have just picked her up, because he hasn't cut her hair yet. He attempted college but he soon decided it wasnt for him and dropped out, becoming a long-haul truck driver instead. According to her, in the summer of 1985, Rhoades was driving for a trucking company based in Georgia that has an office right on I-95. VI, 11, subd. "Wait a minute. Walsh's remains were found in October 1990 in central Utah, but not identified until 2003, with the help of dental records. The prisms of Regina Walters, Shana Holts, and Lisa Pennal refracted into a set of iconsone in the backseat of a car laughing as she leans on the headrest, one with the shorn red-gold hair and an expression of resilience, one slightly crazy and ready to fighteach casting her own light, each a hologram of girlhood. It was a made-up destination, a Grapes of Wrath narrative of brighter futures. While she slept, he handcuffed her hands and feet. Like Young and Lee, she had never heard of the Laughing Death Society, and since it had featured so strongly in my experience, I thought it salient. Regina Walters and Ricky Jones were from Texas. A chipper recorded voice told me to press 1 for tas, press 2 for guns"all other callers stay on the line!" Robert Ben Rhoades, truck driver, is a serial killer, and rapist. They found her near a Dumpster behind the restaurant at the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood. He pulled the truck into a wooded area, took out a hunting knife, and told the girl to get into the bed of his truck. We were back on the road before dawn, walking down a highway covered in black ice, shivering in our hoodies. On the table in front of Young was a snapshot of Regina Walters that I hadn't seen, taken not very long before she was abducted. I could easily imagine my own teenage voice whispering those same words. A report from 2012 stated that Debra lived in College Station, Texas. So I told him the truth, which I had not told othersthat I didn't say anything because I didn't think anyone would believe me. He struck a deal with prosecutors in Texas, pleading guilty to avoid the state's death penalty for the murder of both Patricia Walsh and Douglas Zyskowski. That it turned him on, just like Rhoades.". Even the guys who were trying to help had used it. I ran my story past her. Condamn la prison vie pour une srie de meurtres, il en a confess un nouveau . Robert Ben Rhoades. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. Candace however was not so lucky. But to ex-wife Debra Davis, when they. He welcomed me into his spacious living room. Why didn't I go to anyone? One of serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades's last victims, Regina Walters, was found in a barn in Illinois. I didn't recognize him from the initial photos, but as I found pictures of him as a younger man, his face came to seem more familiar. "She was on the end of the roll with Regina," he said. He was married. They were stringing crime tape around the Dumpster just as another state trooper rolled into the lot. It was just a matter of looking harder. Robert Ben Rhoades, who already is serving a life sentence for killing a 14-year-old girl in Illinois, pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder when he appeared before a West Texas judge . That's exactly like him!" Women couldn't really get on the "zoo channel," as they called it then, because the sound of their voice would trigger twenty minutes of crass chatter. Performance & security by Cloudflare. But in the picture, with her inch-long hair and dog collar, she looked like a gutter punk, like any girl you might see in any university district. He's there with his neatly pressed shirt and colossal arrogance. ", "Oh no, not at all!" Robert Ben Rhoades. Robert Ben Rhoades, 59, was linked by DNA in 2003 to the murder of 24-year-old Patricia Candice Walsh. His bearing shifted. Friend, 43, says she wants "California voters to know what kind of offenders are on death row," men like Robert Boyd Rhoades, who sodomized, tortured and killed 8-year-old Michael Lyons two . "The defendant essentially agreed to stack the life sentences in Illinois, which means he'll never get out," Smith said. "Her body was found months later so she was probably kept alive for a while," Smith said. If there was any evidence, I would file. I called as soon as I landed. The trucker bought us chicken-fried steak, chatted amiably, and let us nap in the cab while he drove. Piercings around the breasts, bruising, and other signs of torture were also frequently found. This former trucker is believed to have killed over 20 people spanning from 1975 to 1990. She'd been picked up in a truck stop, shackled into the back of the cab, tortured and raped for weeks. It was off the side of the freeway and probably very much like the one Regina Walters was found in. There was no safe way for me to get it. Debra stated that he seemed like a nice guy, and they eventually started dating. Rhoades, for instance, used guns and ligature strangulation and probably knives, too. , Barely intelligible between streams of name-calling: `` Hello, honey robbery and was dishonorably discharged in 1968 with! So many ways I was already gone at 1-800-656-HOPE ( 4673 ) more. 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