the nation's long web of interstates provided the perfect hunting line for a depraved predator he preyed on hitchhikers wandering the roads he held them captive then tortured and raped them when that didn't satisfy his warped cravings he killed instead [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] across the nation a serial rapist targeted unsuspecting women it was only a matter of time till his dark urges raged out of control and led him to murder he followed a path so random it was impossible to trace and all that tied him to his crimes were his access to the highways and a bizarre sexual fetish i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office when investigators believe the suspect had committed dozens of murders the fbi was determined to put the brakes on his nationwide rampage [Music] february 5th 1990 on a road in houston texas 18 year old nicole tuttle desperately tried to flag down passing motorists someone finally stopped for the bruised and bleeding the driver took her to the closest phone to call police at the houston police station nicole told officers that she had been kidnapped and assaulted but she'd managed to escape [Music] her ordeal began in california one week earlier on january 29th she hitched a ride from a trucker at a rest stop he said his name was dustin that he was headed east through arizona after a few hours on the road she fell asleep in the back compartment of his truck it seemed that was exactly what he was waiting for he climbed in back and overpowered her before she was fully awake he chained her to the walls and gagged him with a horse pit the trucker whipped her and pierced her with pins and fish hooks he also raped and sodomized her nicole told police that she was chained inside the cab for six days her ordeal didn't end there inside his houston apartment the trucker allowed her to bathe then change it to the bed and raped her again she watched helplessly as he approached her with a straight razor [Music] he pressed the blade close to her scalp and began to slice off her hair after three hours he forced her back into the truck this time he failed to bind her when they stopped at a brewery he left her alone as he walked inside to sign for his new freight nicole knew this might be her only chance she ran for it still wearing a dog leash around her neck houston police stopped a trucker in the area whose rig fit nicole's description she said he was not the man who attacked her a background check revealed no outstanding warrants or convictions so police released the trucker nicole told the officers to stop searching she was too frightened to testify against her attacker she just wanted to go home to california on february 5th the same day that nicole escaped another young woman was on the highway thumbing for rides just 15 miles away in pasadena texas fourteen-year-old regina k walters was running away with her new boyfriend her parents were divorced and regina usually stayed with her father in houston she'd been visiting her mother for a few days when she fled and began hitchhiking whether she was following the lead for a new teenage boyfriend or just testing her independence a trucker soon stopped for the pretty young girl regina's mother carolyn walters was a single mom who worked long hours as a department store clerk when she came home from work she was surprised to find her daughter was not home her daughter did not answer carolyn found no notes and saw no other signs that her daughter had been back to the house [Music] she checked the answering machine but regina had left no messages [Music] carolyn called her daughter's friends and regina's father in houston hello chris no one had heard from the girl [Music] the distraught mother reported her daughter as a missing person to pasadena texas police [Music] she spoke with a detective from the juvenile section providing the officer with regina's description her 14 fourteen-year-old daughter was about five feet tall weighed 95 pounds and had long curly brown hair the detective asked carolyn what steps she had taken so far to find her carolyn had posted missing persons flyers but no one had yet responded the worried mother hadn't heard from her daughter since they argued two nights before at 9 30 that night regina told her mother she was going to visit a friend [Music] i just think you ought to stay home when carolyn objected the girl insisted she would be right back regina what against her better judgment carolyn relented trusting that regina would call if she stayed out later [Music] though the young teen had a history of running away she always returned on her own [Music] her mother believed this time was different pasadena texas police detective suzanne jackson of the juvenile division was assigned the case she understood carolyn's concern several days passed and regina would normally call her mom when she would leave home and let her mother know that she was okay and that she was just out she would be back when she was ready to come home and she had not done that [Music] carolyn posted more flyers at the convenience store close to her house she held out hope that her daughter was unharmed maybe she was simply staying with a friend [Music] along with regina's photo and description carolyn offered a reward for information on her daughter's whereabouts [Music] five days after regina's disappearance carolyn received a phone call the caller had seen regina talking to two young men on the evening she left her mother's house okay the person only knew the man is billy and ricky but she remembered that billy had a girlfriend with a peculiar name of urana carolyn immediately called police detective jackson please the following day a second caller gave carolyn the address of an apartment where he had seen regina at a party two days before when police arrived no one answered the manager told them the apartment was rented to a man named billy wayne gibbs the next morning the detective told her colleagues about the case she mentioned she was looking for gibbs in connection with regina's disappearance she was also looking for two others a woman named urena and a man named ricky she didn't know their last names to her surprise the officers did billy wayne gibbs had a girlfriend named uranus sweet and a friend named ricky lee jones the three were wanted in connection with an auto theft units were dispatched to gibb's apartment to wait for his return officers patrolled the nearby road after several hours of surveillance they picked up 17 year old gibbs and his girlfriend urena near his apartment police handcuffed the young couple and brought them to the station for questioning the third suspect ricky lee jones was still at large [Music] the arresting officer asked gibbs if he had seen regina or ricky lee jones gibbs said he had spoken to them four days ago but not since he told police that ricky and regina were in love and planned to run away to mexico where ricky had relatives the detectives suspected that 18 year old jones had another reason for leaving town if he were caught with regina he could be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor regina was 14 and they obviously were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time when they saw the flyers that the mother had left out with reward on her location they decided they'd be best to leave the area so they wouldn't be caught and that's when they decided to leave the area hitchhiked to mexico the detective learned that ricky lee jones was already on probation for theft fleeing jurisdiction was a parole violation she issued a warrant for his arrest she also fed regina's description into the ncic the national crime information center a database listing both victims and criminals nationwide if regina were located by any police department in the country pasadena texas police would be notified until then with no known address or vehicle it would be difficult to find the pair 15 miles away houston police interviewed jerry walters regina's divorced father he told him he'd received a disturbing call on his unlisted home number on the evening of march 17th the conversation was brief and walters did not recognize the caller's voice [Music] the man asked are you regina's father when walters replied yes the man told him he knew where to find regina he said she was in a loft of a barn and that there had been some changes he had cut the girl's hair regina's father asked if she was dead or alive the caller hung up without answering detective jackson asked southwestern bell to trace the call the company told her it would take several days police would simply have to wait aside from the phone records the trail of the missing 14 year old and her boyfriend was stone cold in march of 1990 pasadena texas police detective suzanne jackson continued her search for fourteen-year-old regina k walters the girl hadn't been seen since early february when she left a friend's house with her 18 year old boyfriend ricky lee jones the detective's only lead was an anonymous phone call made to regina's father on march 17th the call had yet to be traced on the same night regina's father received his call in houston her mother in pasadena texas also got a call [Music] hello she recorded the conversations police had advised an unknown man told carolyn to meet him at 6 30 the next morning at the local convenience store he had something to tell her about regina and he wanted to say it in person without giving his name or description he hung up carolyn called detective jackson who told her it was risky to meet the man and carolyn insisted jackson said police would go with her for protection from a distance officers kept an eye on caroline as she waited at the convenience store for the unknown caller [Music] she had no way of knowing if the man knew who she was and no way to identify him her only hope was if he would approach her [Music] she studied everyone who came in and out and everyone who used the phone [Music] carolyn waited over two hours [Music] the caller never came forward two days later pasadena texas police received the phone records for both calls to regina's parents they learned that the call to regina's father in houston was made from a gas station in annas texas 200 miles northwest of where she was last seen the call to her mother's home in pasadena texas was made from a pay phone only a few blocks away at that particular time it was obvious that we were becoming very concerned about regina's whereabouts with the phone calls and and the information that we received we were pretty sure that there was going to be foul play involved two weeks later carolyn told detective jackson that the man who had called her before wanted to set up another meeting at the same convenience store police traced the call to a nearby pay phone the caller had already fled on april 23 police found a partial skeleton of a small female near a riverbank in pasadena texas they determined the young girl's age and weight was close to regina's detective suzanne jackson brought regina's dental records to the medical examiner i went to the emmy's office with my information we did a comparison on some dental x-rays and found that this particular person was not regina months went by with no leads regina's parents feared the worst on october 12th two boys were playing near a dirt road in manville texas 26 miles south of houston close to the road they came across a wood pile they found something they'd never forget human remains they ran home to tell their parents who called police officers arrived and secured the area they could not identify the body at the site it was too badly decomposed and there was no wallet or identification nearby all police could guess was that the victim was a child or a young adult they hoped an autopsy would tell them more the pasadena texas detective traveled to the harris county medical examiner's office bringing regina's dental records so you almost have a match right the m. e compared those records to x-rays taken of the corpse they did not match it was a little disappointing although we were very relieved that it was not regina her parents at this particular point were concerned that we were going to be recovering a body and we were not going to be locating regina alive and they were ready for some type of closure at this point as the search continued in texas through the fall of 1990 a farmer prepared to burn down his old barn in bonn county illinois he hadn't been inside in years the farmer climbed up into the hayloft to make one last check of the place he looked through the abandoned building but found only items long since discarded nothing seemed especially unusual or out of place then something caught his eye he looked closer at the strewn hay and saw a skeleton that appeared to be human the farmer immediately called police in october of 1990 as detective jackson hunted in texas for 14 year old regina k walters a decayed body was found in the hay loft of an abandoned barn in bond county illinois agent mike shealy of the illinois state police responded to the scene i received a call from the local sheriff's office in bonn county illinois and they had instructed me that they had found a body in a rural setting near the interstate interstate 70 which is a major interstate that travels through bond county crime scene technicians conducted a thorough search of the barn no clothes were found on or near the body there was no wallet or other id they did find a single white thread close to the bones that seemed too new to have been in the old barn for long police photographed the remains from various angles they found baling wire that matched the wire wrapped around the corpse's neck some hair remained on the head because the skull was so small police believed the victim was probably a child the people of nearby greenville had not seen a murder in 10 years the anonymity of this crime was especially disturbing police had no way of knowing if the victim was from the area or just dumped there by someone passing through on nearby interstate 70. at first they weren't even sure of the corpse's age or sex forensic anthropologist mark johnsy was called in to conduct an examination he made several discoveries that helped illinois state agent mike shealy begin to identify the victim mark was able to determine that it was a young female between the ages of 14 to 16 approximate weight which was 90 to 110 pounds there was indication that her hair had been cut the distal ends had begin to grow again but the forensics had told us that it was recent the cause of death was determined to be strangulation the killer had almost severed the victim's head by twisting baling wire around her neck 16 times that's what we found from the condition of the joints and vertebrae johnsy discerned that the girl was killed almost a year before a forensic scientist analyzed the white fiber found close to the body maybe it would yield a clue to what the young girl or her murderer had been wearing he determined the fiber was mostly cotton but it didn't come from clothing it likely came from a towel searching the national crime database state agent mike shealy listed the illinois jane doe as a white female 14 to 16 years of age probably killed as early as september of 1989.
we were alarmed to find that there was 950 matches with the with the age group in in the category and in the time frame which which made the task very difficult to begin the identification process he narrowed the field to about 100 by specifying the victim's time of death closer to the spring of 1990. the investigator then sent teletypes to law enforcement agencies working those cases the detective investigating the disappearance of regina walters in pasadena texas received the teletype on october 16th she believed the body's description fit regina's and phoned the bond county sheriff's office in illinois the receptionist told her they had gotten so many responses that the sheriff would have to call her back before she hung up the detective remembered the mysterious phone call regina's father had received the caller had said the girl was in a barn when i asked her if the body was found in a barn she immediately transferred me to the sheriff in which i started talking to him right away and it was immediately discovered that it was possibly regina and so we immediately jumped on that and started sending the teletypes back and forth the detective asked another question based on the march 17 phone call to regina's father did the girl in the barn have shorn hair the illinois authorities confirmed that she did the girl found in illinois matched the caller's description of regina we sent a copy of dental x-rays to greenville illinois to the sheriff's office and those dental x-rays were matched with the body that was discovered there and it was confirmed to be regina's body one question remained where was regina's boyfriend ricky lee jones detectives called on the fbi for help special agent mark young a behavioral expert in the houston field office was assigned as case agent and i tried to go in and contact every person that had any involvement with ricky or regina i wanted to see if there was anything that they mentioned that would have proven valuable to locating ricky at his former high school pasadena texas detectives also continued to pursue ricky lee jones a guidance counselor said that jones had not been enrolled in school for the past year she had little other information about him though she did provide his last known address it was the home of jones family his sister tammy was the only one there she said that no one in the family had seen ricky for over a year they had written him off as a bad kid believing he'd end up in prison the detective asked if they had relatives in mexico tammy said her mother had some in matamoros just south of the texas border jackson showed her a photo of regina but tammy didn't recognize her okay that's the last time ricky was already listed as wanted because he had violated his probation so we felt like maybe he was afraid to come home if he did know anything about regina's disappearance and her death we were in fear that he may not want to call and tell us what had happened or may be involved himself as special agent mark young poured over the details of the case he developed a profile of regina's killer the agent determined that 18 year old ricky lee jones probably did not commit the crime if ricky lee jones had murdered regina he would have done it in a fit of anger and that would have been reflected in the crime scene and you didn't see that it was a very controlled purposeful crime scene he got the impression that this is an older person a white male a traveler a truck driver traveling salesman somebody that had a reason to be across the country the fact that the barn was close to an interstate supported agent young's theory the crime scene told the agent more about the sadistic murderer he had stripped off regina's clothing killed her slowly by strangulation and most notably had cut regina's long hair whoever did this crime was doing things beyond what was necessary to perpetrate the crime maybe a sexual predator sexual sadist a person that had other offenses also investigators were alerted to another crime in the town of marshall texas 200 miles north of houston partial skeletal remains of a young man were found washed up on a creek bank the skull had been perforated on the left side by a small caliber firearm though there was little evidence to positively identify the body the victim's age and location led police to conclude it was probably ricky lee jones i came to the conclusion that there were no other leads to cover in this case for all intents and purposes the case was closed in our division we had nowhere else to go to investigators it looked like the man who had killed regina k walters and her boyfriend had gotten away with murder [Music] as the hunt for a sadistic killer ground to a halt in pasadena texas a thousand miles west in arizona authorities encountered a problem on their own highways an arizona highway patrolman was at the end of his shift when he came across a tractor-trailer parked on the side of an interstate on-ramp the rig had to be moved it was a hazard to passing motorists he noticed the lights were up and the engines he approached the driver's door officer michael miller recalled that a man suddenly burst out of the cab and immediately spread his arms against the truck and i asked him i said what's going on and he said nothing officer we're doing just fine they said just no problem uh i i've got a gun in my back pocket and he motioned to his back pocket and then put his hands up on the side of his truck this was kind of unusual situation i could still hear the woman screaming on the inside of the truck miller cuffed robert ben rhodes and escorted the trucker back to his car to question him further he said it was just fine they were there together in a uh i guess you would call it consenting situation and uh but i didn't know if the screams coming from the woman with the fact that she was startled she was surprised but i was going to find out what the situation was rhodes's hands cuffed behind his back miller seat belted him into the patrol car the officer returned to the truck to check on the frantic woman [Music] he found her handcuffed to the wall by her wrists and ankles the patron assured her she was no longer in danger i told her ma'am you're going to need to remain here until i can get some help out here because this is a criminal or a crime scene and some detectives are going to have to look at this i said just remain calm this man is not going to be back to bother you again just remain calm i left the truck and moved back to my patrol car miller returned just in time rhodes had maneuvered his cuffed hands in front of him and released his seat belt he was about to open the car door the officer quickly re-cuffed it there is no actual routine stop out there in the road that no matter what you come across out there you never know who you're dealing with and they kind of send a chill up my spine to know that this man as cool as he was could have probably killed me and the girl at the same time and still been on the road police from the town of casa grande arrived on the scene they freed the woman and transported her and rose to the police station for further questioning inside the truck they found a gruesome array of torture tools chains that attached to rings welded to the back of the sleeper compartment fish hooks bloody towels a horse pit and a briefcase filled with the implements of a sexual sadist they also found a camera in the briefcase along with several hairs that did not belong to the woman found in the truck casa grande police detective rick barnhart led the investigation robert rhodes had a what i refer to as a rape kit in his truck he had all kinds of paraphernalia he had long sticks with clips on the end where he would draw and quarter his victims he had whips and just based on that i i knew robert rhodes was a a predator the woman found chained in rhodes's truck was 27 year old kathleen fond i've never had any problems before she told the detective she had been picked up about an hour earlier from the rip griffins truck stop north of phoenix he was trying to rape when she dozed off in the sleeper compartment the trucker climbed back assaulted her and changed her to the walls the man told her his name was whips and chains that he'd been doing this for 15 years police photographed her injuries risked burns from the handcuffs and welts from the beatings she tried to fight off her attacker but her hands were changed all she could do to defend herself was to bite him she managed to injure his left shoulder enough to distract him from raping her kathleen agreed to press assault and kidnapping charges but detective barnhart believes she might be problematic for the prosecution my interview with kathleen was really sort of bizarre she would talk about this reality this terrible assault that she endured and then periodically she would revert back to a story about her traveling across the country to see the president she told me she wanted to give the president a microchip and she talked about the underground prison where no one escapes from and all this time my heart was sinking because i i needed kathleen to tell a very lucid story about this the horrible incident that happened to her the detective asked trucker robert ben rhodes for his version of events rhodes said kathleen was crazy and described her as a lot lizard the trucker's term for a woman who trades sex for rides he claimed that she solicited him and that she liked it rough though they never actually had sex he refused to provide any details about what happened in the truck's sleeper compartment he talked around the subject never admitting to any crime police photographed rhodes's wound it looked like a bite mark on his left shoulder just as kathleen had described rhodes claimed he sustained the injury while loading his truck but detective barnhard believed kathleen's story she told me she tried to bite his throat but he moved and she bit him on the left upper shoulder and we we've got a photo of her bite mark and her story completely corroborated you know what happened in that in that sleeper cab local prosecutors arrested robert ben rhodes and held him for aggravated assault sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment but their only witness kathleen vine suffered from paranoid delusions to keep him behind bars they needed additional witnesses kathleen's claim that rhodes had been kidnapping women for 15 years haunted detective barnhart he entered rhodes's name into the ncic in case other agencies had reported similar crimes as the detective pursued the case it made headlines across the southwest a houston police officer was among those who read about it the trucker detained in arizona sounded like the same man who was stopped outside of houston earlier in the year police suspected rhodes had held a woman captive in his truck for six days raping and torturing her until she finally escaped they were unable to press charges since the woman failed to identify him houston police sergeant beaumar described the case to detective barnhart i was contacted by sergeant bomar his was the case where the young lady escaped i was fairly positive that robert rhodes was at least a serial rapist i had suspicions that he might he might be a murderer since rhodes had crossed state lines since his last crime detective barnhart contacted the fbi to request assistance he hoped that with the fbi's support he could gather enough evidence of the trucker's serial sex crimes to build a case that would stick special agent bob lee of the houston fbi field office knew the place to start was in rhodes's houston apartment he spoke to rhodes's landlord she had checked the apartment after the trucker's arrest and was horrified to find bloodied torture devices based on her statement agent lee secured a warrant to search the premises we know that serial rapists often keep souvenirs from their victims whether it be a piece of clothing or a piece of jewelry or whatever when we went in we found bondage paraphernalia we found chains we found handcuffs we found a rack that someone could be tied to we found a lot of women's jewelry agents in houston police also found bloody white towels women's clothing and stacks of photographs the snapshots depicted some women with shorn hair in various states of undress bound and bruised investigators believe that rhodes shot the photos as souvenirs of his crimes to relive his victim's terror though agents now had evidence that rhodes was likely a serial rapist they were unable to identify any of his victims from the photos with no additional witnesses the case in arizona was still written prosecutors only witness kathleen vine was questionable a trial would be a contest of he said she said and a mentally disturbed woman might leave jurors unconvinced by december 1990 the best arizona prosecutors could do was to offer rhodes a deal six years including time served and work release eligibility if he pled guilty to the charges against vine his attorney accepted in about a year rhodes could be out on parole stalking new prey by october 1991 a year after fourteen-year-old regina k walters was found murdered in illinois her case remained unsolved special agent mark young an fbi profiler predicted the murderer was probably a trucker or traveling salesman with prior sexual offenses his signature behavior was to hack off his victim's hair agent young spoke to area law enforcement agencies hoping they had open cases that might match the profile one day bob lee who's an a was an agent in the fbi on the violent crime squad overheard me talking on the phone to a police officer and he said hey i had a case i had worked a few months back was a truck driver kidnapped a young girl and her head hair was cut just like you're saying the victim's name was nicole tuttle she had also been raped repeatedly and had escaped the day regina walters and ricky lee jones were last seen alive on monday february 5th 1990. that same day houston police had stopped a trucker named robert ben rhodes who fit nicole's description of her attacker at the time she told the officers it was the wrong man special agent bob lee from the fbi's houston field office recalled that nicole later changed her story in the hospital where she was treated for her rooms later that night she told the detectives that robert ben rhodes was in fact the individual that had kidnapped her when asked if she wanted to press charges she told the police officer that all she wanted to do was go home lee also told agent young that nicole was not the trucker's only victim rhodes was serving time in an arizona prison for the assault of kathleen vine and was eligible for work release in just three months the agent then described the search of the trucker's residence and he said we found some photographs in his apartment some of his own pictures with somebody else with short hair who it seems like she was at a barn the chilling photos portrayed a young girl at different locations wearing a variety of seductive outfits at the barn she was in a black dress shielding herself from rose's camera when i saw those photos i said this is regina walters in order to verify that i went to the family and i got several of their pictures and there are facial characteristics and markings that exactly duplicated the pictures roads took the fbi began to build a kidnapping and murder case against robert ben rhodes they revisited the evidence from the search of rhodes's apartment and found more photos of regina they also found several articles of women's clothing including a black dress which lab examiners confirmed was the dress regina had worn in the photos illinois state agent mike sheeley was notified he forwarded the evidence found in the greenville barn to the fbi lab in houston lab examiners discovered that the cotton fiber recovered in illinois was consistent with the bloody towels found in rhodes's houston apartment but the results were inconclusive since that type of towel was so common detective jackson from pasadena texas met with agents sheila young and lee at the houston fbi field office to discuss what they needed for a solid indictment against rhodes not only for regina's murder but for crimes against his other nameless victims with roads nearing his release date illinois state agent mike sheely knew they were racing against the cars he was eligible for parole and that he was actually eligible to work outside the prison almost on a release system and so we were under pressure to to have the indictments and and to to get him arrested on our charges agents interviewed rhodes's former houston employer mike eggleton the trucking firm owner was not surprised to see him eggleton had been questioned by authorities about roads before a few years back local police suspected the trucker of assaulting a woman in the back of his rig but no formal charges were ever filed the truck roads had driven had been sold but eggleton provided its vehicle identification number as well as roads trucking logs and fuel receipts while agents waited for a trace to come back on the truck's id number the team began to assemble a timeline of the trucker's travels agents found fuel receipts from a gas station in annas texas dated march 17 1990 the same place and date as the call made to regina's father jerry walters oklahoma city several of the local calls to regina's mother carol also coincided with rhodes's time in houston one question about the calls remained the killer could easily have gotten carolyn's number from missing persons flyers posted around town but how had he gotten jerry walters unlisted home number agent young found the answer in evidence stored in arizona it was in that evidence that we located regina walters little spiral notebook in the front cover was all of her personal information her mother's address and phone number and her father's when young flipped the notebook over he found something even more disturbing a message that he believed was written by rhodes himself a knife and gun were drawn above a phrase that appeared to have blood dripping off its letters the phrase read ricky's a dead man only a dna test would confirm if the partial remains of the young man found in southeast texas was ricky lee jones unfortunately investigators lacked a known source of jones's dna to perform a comparison since rhodes claimed to have been abducting and torturing his victims for the past 15 years the team submitted their timeline to vicam the violent criminal apprehension program an fbi database that lists thousands of solved and unsolved crimes nationwide despite the limited information and gaps in the timeline detective jackson was not surprised when the system returned over 50 possible matches with open homicide and missing persons cases his trips from houston to baltimore to l.
