# The Freeway Phantom Murders PT 2

An episode of [Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1455668750), 4 Mar 2026, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/976825e3-37d8-4387-a0cd-b24b002d91e5/30b610f4-8002-433f-b43b-b3fd0039fff7/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3df02c7c-f75a-4bea-abe8-b24b002d91ff

In this concluding episode of the Freeway Phantom case, Kate and Paul analyze even more victims that seem to be connected. As time goes on and the investigation becomes more public, all sorts of figures and suspects come out of the woodwork. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
[0:05] Speaker 2: I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
[0:08] Speaker 2: writing about true crime.
[0:09] Speaker 3: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
[0:12] Speaker 3: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
[0:16] Speaker 2: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
[0:19] Speaker 2: compelling true crimes.
[0:21] Speaker 3: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
[0:24] Speaker 3: new insights to old mysteries.
[0:26] Speaker 2: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
[0:31] Speaker 2: cases through a twenty first century lens.
[0:34] Speaker 3: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
[0:38] Speaker 2: This is buried Bones.
[1:01] Speaker 3: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you?
[1:03] Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I think you should give the summary
[1:06] Speaker 2: of the Freeway Phantom Killer, because people love it when
[1:11] Speaker 2: you do the summary. They like it when I do
[1:12] Speaker 2: the summary, but they love it when you do the summary.
[1:17] Speaker 2: I choose, I think I choose what to be offended by.
[1:19] Speaker 2: I'm not offended by that, So why don't you do
[1:21] Speaker 2: the heavy lift and do our summary for everyone?
[1:25] Speaker 3: At the point we left off last last time, we
[1:28] Speaker 3: have an offender that apparently has been abducting and killing
[1:34] Speaker 3: younger black girls. Ranging in age from r fly ten
[1:38] Speaker 3: up to sixteen years old. He appears to be contacting
[1:43] Speaker 3: the victims while they're on foot, like they've been sent
[1:46] Speaker 3: to go to the store, whether it be a Safeway
[1:49] Speaker 3: grocery store or like a seven to eleven convenience store.
[1:53] Speaker 3: Appears that some of the victims are possibly taken back
[1:56] Speaker 3: to a residence or maybe a work location or some
[2:01] Speaker 3: place where he is holding them captive for a period
[2:04] Speaker 3: of time. He is killing them through strangulation, whether manual strangulation,
[2:09] Speaker 3: ligature strangulation, or a combination of both. Appears that he
[2:13] Speaker 3: is consistently redressing these victims, so they are found with
[2:18] Speaker 3: their clothes on. Most of the victims. Three of the
[2:21] Speaker 3: four victims don't have their shoes on when their bodies
[2:25] Speaker 3: are found, and then the fourth victim has shoes on,
[2:30] Speaker 3: with another shoe left behind, and authorities think that that
[2:35] Speaker 3: other shoe possibly belonged to the second victim, which is
[2:39] Speaker 3: a very interesting aspect. There's no question that these are
[2:42] Speaker 3: sexually motivated crimes, and these crimes appear to be taking
[2:47] Speaker 3: place in the general d C Upper Maryland area. How's
[2:52] Speaker 3: that you did? Great?
[2:54] Speaker 2: A couple of interesting points, and I know, you want
[2:56] Speaker 2: to talk about the apparent killer. Ledge killer has been
[3:00] Speaker 2: calling a couple of the families, and he allowed Brenda,
[3:05] Speaker 2: one of the victims, to call her family too, which
[3:09] Speaker 2: we said was pretty unusual. It feels like the discoveries
[3:13] Speaker 2: versus the kidnappings are getting closer and closer together. So,
[3:17] Speaker 2: you know, we remember Darlinia was so decomposed they really,
[3:21] Speaker 2: you know, couldn't even identify how she was killed. And
[3:24] Speaker 2: then we have, you know, the third victim, Brenda, who
[3:27] Speaker 2: went missing on July twenty seventh, and then her body
[3:30] Speaker 2: was found the next day. That might have just been
[3:33] Speaker 2: luck because it was in a grassy shoulder of Root fifty.
[3:37] Speaker 2: And then the last victim that we've talked about, who
[3:41] Speaker 2: is Nino. You know, she was discovered a little more
[3:44] Speaker 2: than an hour and a half after she was last
[3:47] Speaker 2: seen getting into a blue car. And we seem to
[3:50] Speaker 2: be getting more details, like a blue Volkswagen with a
[3:54] Speaker 2: yellow stripe is pretty specific. So it feels like they're
[3:57] Speaker 2: getting closer. But how many more kids are going to
[4:00] Speaker 2: have to die for them to figure out who is
[4:02] Speaker 2: doing this?
[4:03] Speaker 3: Right? You know? And I think when it comes to
[4:06] Speaker 3: you know, where he's placing the bodies. You know, they're
[4:09] Speaker 3: not being placed too far off the road. And you
[4:12] Speaker 3: think about some of the younger kids. They're not going
[4:15] Speaker 3: to be huge individuals. They're not going to be a
[4:17] Speaker 3: lot of weight. So I'm assuming an adult man would
[4:20] Speaker 3: be able to if he needed to, really you know,
[4:23] Speaker 3: carry them off the beaten paths, so to speak, to
[4:27] Speaker 3: further hide the body. He's really not hiding the bodies,
[4:30] Speaker 3: you know, he's doing what I call a dump and
[4:32] Speaker 3: run with these bodies. That may just be out of
[4:34] Speaker 3: risk management, not wanting to you know, loiter too long
[4:38] Speaker 3: where he's dumping the bodies, but also there is a
[4:41] Speaker 3: chance that he's really wanting these bodies to be found.
[4:43] Speaker 3: And we know he makes a phone call to I
[4:46] Speaker 3: think it was in the second case, on the Darlinia case,
[4:50] Speaker 3: and he's making a phone call saying, you know, I've
[4:53] Speaker 3: killed this girl and her body is in this general area.
[4:56] Speaker 3: Just took law enforcement like eleven days to finally find her,
[5:00] Speaker 3: and she had been dumped right next to hers first
[5:03] Speaker 3: victim had been dumped basically yeah.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. In Darlinia's case, he called the mother and said
[5:09] Speaker 2: I killed your daughter, and then he threatened Dorothy Wheeler,
[5:13] Speaker 2: who was a community organizer. And then Brenda, the third victim,
[5:18] Speaker 2: calls home twice, and we have so far not heard
[5:23] Speaker 2: anything about Nino the fourth victim, but we are going
[5:27] Speaker 2: to be coming up on a fifth victim where we
[5:30] Speaker 2: took a slight detour from what we've seen before, and
[5:33] Speaker 2: then we actually have some good pictures for you to
[5:35] Speaker 2: look at. I think. Okay, so they make no forward
[5:39] Speaker 2: motion on Nino Yates, the twelve year old who had
[5:43] Speaker 2: been seen about an hour and a half before they
[5:46] Speaker 2: discover her body, and she had been dry and it
[5:49] Speaker 2: was raining. So this feels like it's getting closer and closer.
[5:53] Speaker 2: We had already talked about the man exposing himself. It
[5:56] Speaker 2: seems like a different person. You don't know, but this
[5:59] Speaker 2: seems pretty for a killer who is in some ways
[6:03] Speaker 2: seeking a lot of risks by what you just said,
[6:06] Speaker 2: you know, leaving these girls in areas where they're going
[6:09] Speaker 2: to be found. But at the same time he seems
[6:12] Speaker 2: to be you know, he's washing them and some of
[6:15] Speaker 2: them and he's trying to be clever at the same time.
[6:17] Speaker 2: So it's unusual, I know. Let's get to the next incident.
[6:21] Speaker 2: What we have, Okay, So when Nino is kidnapped. That
[6:27] Speaker 2: is October first, and we have a month where nothing happens,
[6:33] Speaker 2: and they try to investigate, and I said, at this
[6:35] Speaker 2: point the FBI is involved. So on November sixteenth, we're
[6:39] Speaker 2: still in nineteen seventy one. It is four forty five
[6:42] Speaker 2: in the morning, and there is another young black girl
[6:46] Speaker 2: who is found off of Route two oh two near
[6:50] Speaker 2: Prince George's County Hospital. This girl's body is lying face up,
[6:57] Speaker 2: her eyes are open, her arms are straight out with
[7:01] Speaker 2: the right arm thrown over her head. Okay, she is
[7:04] Speaker 2: fully clothed. She has her shoes on, although her clothes
[7:08] Speaker 2: are in a state of disarray. Her sweater is inside
[7:11] Speaker 2: out and there is a hole in the front of
[7:14] Speaker 2: the sweater. Her skirt is not zipped. There are buttons
[7:18] Speaker 2: missing from her skirt and her dark coat. Her wig
[7:21] Speaker 2: she was wearing a wig is abandoned in a median
[7:25] Speaker 2: about thirty yards from her body. So I have photos.
[7:30] Speaker 2: Photo one is going to point to the area where
[7:34] Speaker 2: she was found, so this is off Route two o two,
[7:38] Speaker 2: and then the second photo shows where her wig is found.
[7:44] Speaker 3: Okay, So the first photo is an aerial photo taken
[7:48] Speaker 3: of the freeway it's showing an interchange, and there is
[7:54] Speaker 3: what I'm assuming the hospital and the backdrop, and then
[7:59] Speaker 3: the there's a large arrow that is pointing at a
[8:02] Speaker 3: location right next to it's a curved area of the
[8:09] Speaker 3: street that's not feeding directly up onto the freeway. So
[8:13] Speaker 3: that curved area of the street goes down to what
[8:18] Speaker 3: appears to be a primary a very large road, but
[8:22] Speaker 3: not a freeway, or at least it almost looks like
[8:25] Speaker 3: it says it's Route two oh two, So this is
[8:29] Speaker 3: sort of like a road. Where her body was found
[8:33] Speaker 3: is just right off of a pretty major road, but
[8:36] Speaker 3: it's not a prime marterial road. It almost looks like
[8:41] Speaker 3: the area where her body was deposited is possibly it's
[8:47] Speaker 3: there's a forested, hilly area in that area, but along
[8:51] Speaker 3: the stretch where her body's found looks like it's mostly
[8:54] Speaker 3: just brush and trees. So it's a pretty good location
[8:59] Speaker 3: to hide a especially if he's taken the body deep
[9:02] Speaker 3: into these the trees. But he doesn't do that. He's
[9:07] Speaker 3: depositing it close to the side of the road, so
[9:10] Speaker 3: that's a purposeful choice on his part.
[9:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you look at the second photo, so
[9:14] Speaker 2: that's a close up of the area, and I'm trying
[9:18] Speaker 2: to figure out where there's a Baltimore sign and a
[9:21] Speaker 2: Washington sign. And it's the third photo that shows the wig,
[9:25] Speaker 2: and you can actually see the wig where it's at
[9:27] Speaker 2: the median. So I still have a hard time kind
[9:30] Speaker 2: of piecing together where this stuff is and all of that.
[9:33] Speaker 3: But oh, I can tell you where it's at.
[9:35] Speaker 2: Okay.
[9:35] Speaker 3: So in the in the first photo where her body
[9:39] Speaker 3: is found, if somebody is driving in the direction going
[9:43] Speaker 3: down on as as the photo is, you come to
[9:47] Speaker 3: that intersection, you can see the median that's right there,
[9:51] Speaker 3: that's got the right shape, and then he can see
[9:54] Speaker 3: the building to the left. That's where her wig is found,
[9:58] Speaker 3: is on that median, And so he dumps her body,
[10:01] Speaker 3: and I'm determining his direction of travels. He is driving
[10:05] Speaker 3: on the side of the street in which her body
[10:08] Speaker 3: is found. He continues driving down, comes to that intersection,
[10:13] Speaker 3: and of course you have to stop there, right and
[10:16] Speaker 3: now he's dumping the wig out out of the driver's
[10:19] Speaker 3: side window. So it's possible he dumps her body and
[10:23] Speaker 3: as he's driving away, he's going, oh shit, her wig
[10:27] Speaker 3: is still in here. Now he comes up to that
[10:29] Speaker 3: media and dumps it off and then continues on and
[10:31] Speaker 3: after that. Don't know which direction he takes, you know,
[10:34] Speaker 3: but there is a little bit of reconstructive information in
[10:38] Speaker 3: terms of what is going on between the body dump
[10:40] Speaker 3: location and where the wig is found.
[10:43] Speaker 2: So let's see, they are searching through her clothing. Remember
[10:47] Speaker 2: she's fully clothed. There, let's get so weird. In the
[10:51] Speaker 2: pocket of her coat is a handwritten note and it
[10:55] Speaker 2: is says, this is tantamount to my insensitivity written in
[11:00] Speaker 2: to people, especially women. I will admit the others when
[11:05] Speaker 2: you catch me if you can exclamation point freeway phantom.
[11:10] Speaker 3: Okay. So I think it's also it's important to point
[11:13] Speaker 3: out when this case is taking place nineteen seventy one.
[11:19] Speaker 3: At this point, we haven't crossed into nineteen seventy two
[11:22] Speaker 3: with any of the crimes up to this point. Nineteen
[11:24] Speaker 3: seventy one, what was the big case that had the
[11:28] Speaker 3: nation completely riveted out there in the Bay Area, California. Zodiac, right,
[11:35] Speaker 3: that's when what was the Zodiac doing.
[11:38] Speaker 2: He was writing notes.
[11:39] Speaker 3: Exactly and had this moniker right like Zodiac and is
[11:45] Speaker 3: doing these taunts to the police and is trying to
[11:48] Speaker 3: capture the public's attention and keeping everybody in fear. Well,
[11:52] Speaker 3: I think this guy has most certainly got to be
[11:56] Speaker 3: aware of the zodiac case, even though it's all the
[11:58] Speaker 3: way across the country. And now he's seeing that he's
[12:01] Speaker 3: got his own moniker. You know, he is liking the
[12:05] Speaker 3: fact that he's getting some notoriety. And now he's leaving
[12:08] Speaker 3: a taunt if you will, I'll admit to the others
[12:12] Speaker 3: when you catch me, if you can, you know. So
[12:15] Speaker 3: that's a challenge. So it's interesting. And I often pay
[12:19] Speaker 3: attention to handwriting, and this looks like the handwriting of
[12:23] Speaker 3: somebody who's got some serious issues.
[12:28] Speaker 2: Okay, so there is a missing person report out, so
[12:32] Speaker 2: they look at children, they look at adults, and this
[12:35] Speaker 2: is an eighteen year old and her name is Brenda
[12:38] Speaker 2: Denise Woodard. So this is another Brenda. I mean, certainly
[12:42] Speaker 2: by coincidence, I'm sure, But remember we have another Brenda. Yeah,
[12:46] Speaker 2: she is a teenager. She's interested in fashion and music,
[12:49] Speaker 2: and you know, it sounds like she wants to be
[12:52] Speaker 2: kind of maybe an elementary school educator. She was kicked
[12:55] Speaker 2: out though of her high school. This was called spring Guard.
[12:59] Speaker 2: She through an an empty beer can at her ex boyfriend,
[13:02] Speaker 2: so they kicked her out for that, and she had
[13:05] Speaker 2: been taking night classes at Cordoza High School. Here's what
[13:09] Speaker 2: happened that day. At six forty five pm on November fifteenth,
[13:14] Speaker 2: Brenda left her parents' home in Baltimore and she went
[13:18] Speaker 2: to Cardoza High School where she's taking the night classes,
[13:21] Speaker 2: which is in Washington, d C. She does her classes.
[13:25] Speaker 2: At nine forty five, she and a friend from class
[13:28] Speaker 2: go to Ben's Chili Bowl for dinner and then they're
[13:33] Speaker 2: there for about forty minutes and then they both get
[13:37] Speaker 2: on a bus. So she transfers at the eighth and
[13:40] Speaker 2: H Street Northeast stop and she never gets home. So
[13:45] Speaker 2: the last time her friend or anybody saw her was
[13:48] Speaker 2: at this transfer Now.
[13:50] Speaker 3: You know what I'm trying to figure out is where
[13:53] Speaker 3: does the offender contact her? Well, he could contact her
[13:57] Speaker 3: at the transfer station after she has separated from her friend,
[14:02] Speaker 3: or he could contact her if this bus is, you know,
[14:06] Speaker 3: going all the way out to Baltimore, then he's contacting
[14:09] Speaker 3: her as she's getting off the bus to maybe walk home.
[14:14] Speaker 3: And so where her body is found? Where is her
[14:17] Speaker 3: body found?
[14:18] Speaker 2: So we have conflicting information about whether she lived in
[14:23] Speaker 2: DC or whether she lived in Maryland. But the reality
[14:26] Speaker 2: is is that her body is found in Maryland off
[14:29] Speaker 2: of two two. Now we know who she is. She
[14:33] Speaker 2: is taken to the Maryland Medical Examiner for the autopsy,
[14:38] Speaker 2: and this is you know what. The results are violently raped.
[14:42] Speaker 2: Her neck is bruised and broken, and she has defensive
[14:45] Speaker 2: wounds on her hands and blood under her nails, you know,
[14:49] Speaker 2: which means a struggle. There are hairs from a black
[14:51] Speaker 2: person and a Caucasian individual that are found on her coat,
[14:56] Speaker 2: on her boot, on her shirt, her bra. She was
[14:58] Speaker 2: riding a bus, so so that doesn't surprise me. And
[15:02] Speaker 2: then they say that the hairs belonged to a crime
[15:05] Speaker 2: scene investigator, they think who covered the body with a
[15:08] Speaker 2: blanket from the trunk of his or her car and
[15:11] Speaker 2: disregarded as evidence. They're also the telltale green synthetic fibers
[15:17] Speaker 2: found on her socks and in her underwear. And unlike
[15:21] Speaker 2: the other victims of this is different, Paul. She's been
[15:24] Speaker 2: stabbed four times and they say likely by a left
[15:28] Speaker 2: handed individual, and the wound to her right chest was
[15:31] Speaker 2: the fatal wound they believe, So this is different. Do
[15:34] Speaker 2: you think it's that he got up close and figured
[15:37] Speaker 2: out that she's older, and she fought. She must have fought, like, hell.
[15:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, Well I would say that with the I mean
[15:44] Speaker 3: the fact that she has a broken neck. I mean
[15:46] Speaker 3: that's not easy to do. You know. It's not like
[15:50] Speaker 3: what you see in the movies where guy just you know,
[15:52] Speaker 3: twists the head of you know, some enemy. And so
[15:57] Speaker 3: she fought that. There's a lot of force being used
[16:01] Speaker 3: during this combat between her and the offender, so you know,
[16:06] Speaker 3: she is fighting back. She's the oldest, she's probably the
[16:10] Speaker 3: most physically capable of all the victims so far in
[16:13] Speaker 3: this series, and he potentially really struggled to get her
[16:18] Speaker 3: under control. You know. Now, sometimes I'll see certain things
[16:23] Speaker 3: and I can get a guess of a sort of
[16:26] Speaker 3: the difference between the offender and the victim in terms
[16:29] Speaker 3: of their you know, size and strength and capabilities. I
[16:33] Speaker 3: can't say that with with whoever is attacking Brenda just
[16:36] Speaker 3: based off the fact she has a broken neck. But
[16:39] Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, she fought back, but he still
[16:43] Speaker 3: carries out a sexual assault. Can't sequence when the sex
[16:48] Speaker 3: assault occurred relative to you know, the fight between the two,
[16:52] Speaker 3: but the stabbing in part may be due to him
[16:56] Speaker 3: trying to get her under control, or he's just trying
[16:59] Speaker 3: to ensure she's dead. The broken neck may not necessarily
[17:03] Speaker 3: have resulted in death or even paralysis, depending on what
[17:07] Speaker 3: they found.
[17:08] Speaker 2: And you know, I was thinking that, boy, the knife
[17:11] Speaker 2: seems different for me, but one of them had cuts
[17:16] Speaker 2: on her.
[17:17] Speaker 3: Yep, Nope, for sure.
[17:18] Speaker 2: So there's a knife involved somewhere else too. You're right, okay,
[17:21] Speaker 2: So here, I'm going to throw you another curveball, and
[17:24] Speaker 2: you're going to tell me what you think about this.
[17:25] Speaker 2: The note, the tantamount things misspelled note. So there's a
[17:29] Speaker 2: handwriting expert that says this is Brenda's handwriting because they
[17:33] Speaker 2: have her handwriting samples, obviously from school, and he said
[17:36] Speaker 2: this is it. I don't find it's under duress. So
[17:40] Speaker 2: three of her school notebooks were missing. She had been
[17:43] Speaker 2: carrying them that night from the high school. So of
[17:46] Speaker 2: course the theory is is that he made her write
[17:48] Speaker 2: this note.
[17:49] Speaker 3: Handwriting comparison is one of those really loose types of
[17:54] Speaker 3: if you want to call it a science, Yeah, i'd
[17:57] Speaker 3: want to see her examples of writing. You know how
[18:01] Speaker 3: much examples did this handwriting expert supposedly have. Yeah, but
[18:06] Speaker 3: sure you know, if the offender made her write it.
[18:09] Speaker 3: You know, it's in some ways a way to minimize
[18:13] Speaker 3: in his mind, you know, the evidence that law enforcement
[18:16] Speaker 3: could use back in the day with fingerprints to try
[18:20] Speaker 3: to identify him. You know. So he's saying he's not
[18:23] Speaker 3: touching that piece of paper. He's having Brenda do it.
[18:25] Speaker 3: But I don't know. I'd have to judge judge the
[18:28] Speaker 3: handwriting myself to see if I if I agreed, And
[18:31] Speaker 3: I'm not going to say I'm a handwriting expert, but
[18:33] Speaker 3: I definitely you know, know what I'm looking at.
[18:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, before we continue on the route we've been on,
[18:40] Speaker 2: we have to introduce some new people. We have nineteen
[18:44] Speaker 2: seventy one style criminal profilers, which I always find profilers
[18:49] Speaker 2: from the past to be really interesting. I mean some
[18:51] Speaker 2: of them now are interesting too. They have medical experts
[18:54] Speaker 2: who are trying to build this profile of whoever is
[18:56] Speaker 2: doing this now that we have five people who are dead,
[19:00] Speaker 2: and they have too from the Springfield State Hospital, and
[19:04] Speaker 2: they think that the killer is a sociopath who has
[19:07] Speaker 2: recently suffered a traumatic event. And there's a third physician
[19:12] Speaker 2: who says this is an intelligent, paranoid, schizoid sadist who
[19:18] Speaker 2: is under the influence of drugs and might be interested
[19:21] Speaker 2: in necrophilia. And they're saying, you know, the reason that
[19:25] Speaker 2: he's leaving these girls in plane view near major highways
[19:29] Speaker 2: is that, you know, we've already said this, he craves
[19:31] Speaker 2: publicity and attention, and that means feelings of inadequacy, and
[19:37] Speaker 2: it's possible that I mean, now we're really digging in here.
[19:41] Speaker 2: There's a missing father figure in his life. And of
[19:44] Speaker 2: course other people think that he himself is an intellectual
[19:49] Speaker 2: and that he is a sexual sadist and loner. He
[19:52] Speaker 2: derives pleasure more from violence of his actions than through
[19:55] Speaker 2: any sexual activity. Pretty specific, without being specific at all,
[20:00] Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, I'm sure you could throw
[20:01] Speaker 2: a rock at a lot of people, a lot of
[20:03] Speaker 2: men in the DC area at this time. But what
[20:06] Speaker 2: do you think about that assessment, you.
[20:07] Speaker 3: Know, their conclusion or their opinion that he is a
[20:11] Speaker 3: sexual sadist. I mean, there is a possibility he is,
[20:15] Speaker 3: you know, when you start getting into sort of diagnosing
[20:19] Speaker 3: him from afar, you know, in terms of he's you know, paranoids, schizophrenic.
[20:24] Speaker 3: You know, right now, I've worked with profilers my entire
[20:27] Speaker 3: career and all these characteristics that they're saying about this
[20:33] Speaker 3: freeway phantom is something that's internal. You know, it's nothing
[20:39] Speaker 3: that I can use to what I say is narrow
[20:42] Speaker 3: the suspect pool. There isn't a database to give me
[20:45] Speaker 3: a list of all the paranoid schizophrenics in the DC
[20:49] Speaker 3: area that are black males. You know, it's like, I
[20:51] Speaker 3: can't do it. Now. If I run across a suspect
[20:55] Speaker 3: and fits these types of characteristics that can be discerned,
[20:58] Speaker 3: then sure that might be helpful. Right now, I really
[21:02] Speaker 3: can't draw any conclusions as to their opinions because it's
[21:06] Speaker 3: nothing that you know, that is externally available to you know,
[21:11] Speaker 3: flesh out a suspect.
[21:13] Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well let's move on. There is an
[21:18] Speaker 2: incredible amount of pressure on the police. There's media everywhere,
[21:21] Speaker 2: the FBI are around, there's lots of community involvement, and
[21:26] Speaker 2: so the phantom goes silent for ten months. Now, you know,
[21:32] Speaker 2: that is kind of what logically in your head would say,
[21:35] Speaker 2: is what happened? He got scared, But you and I
[21:38] Speaker 2: know lives changed. Things happened. Maybe he was in prison,
[21:41] Speaker 2: maybe he was confined in a psychiatric facility. Maybe he
[21:45] Speaker 2: don't got married. We don't know, but this is what
[21:48] Speaker 2: the common knowledge would be, that that he is laying low,
[21:52] Speaker 2: but not for much longer, because in September of nineteen
[21:56] Speaker 2: seventy two there.
[21:57] Speaker 3: Is a sixth victim seventy two. Okay, so yep, ten
[22:01] Speaker 3: months later and so let's let's hear it. What does
[22:04] Speaker 3: he do?
[22:05] Speaker 2: Okay? So September sixth, nineteen seventy two, it is eight
[22:09] Speaker 2: oh four in the morning, and the body of another
[22:12] Speaker 2: black girl is found on the shoulder of I two
[22:17] Speaker 2: ninety five, basically next to where Darlinia's body was found.
[22:21] Speaker 2: And you'll see it on the map. But let me
[22:22] Speaker 2: tell you the circumstances first. So she is found face
[22:26] Speaker 2: down eight feet from the shoulder of I two ninety five.
[22:30] Speaker 2: She's wearing wet clothing and white sneakers without shoelaces. She
[22:36] Speaker 2: has been manually strangled to death, and there are fingernail
[22:40] Speaker 2: marks creating divots in her neck similar to Carol. I believe.
[22:45] Speaker 2: There is a small bruise on her ribcage and abrasions
[22:48] Speaker 2: on her left elbow. There's semen found in her vagina
[22:51] Speaker 2: in her mouth. Now, the note here is that it
[22:54] Speaker 2: doesn't apeear like she has been sexually assaulted. I mean,
[22:57] Speaker 2: you know, by nineteen seventy one nineteen seventy two standards,
[23:00] Speaker 2: I'm sure that's what police said, but she obviously has been.
[23:03] Speaker 2: There are hairs from black and Caucasian individuals that are
[23:07] Speaker 2: collected from her body, green synthetic fibers found in her
[23:11] Speaker 2: bra Without those fibers, is there any argument that this
[23:15] Speaker 2: could be just copycats? I mean, this isn't it the
[23:18] Speaker 2: synthetic fibers, besides of course the semen, which they can't
[23:21] Speaker 2: really do anything within seventy two. But is it the
[23:23] Speaker 2: fibers that are connecting all of these beside circumstantial stuff?
[23:27] Speaker 3: Besides circumstantial stuff, I mean, the consistent presence of fibers
[23:31] Speaker 3: is interesting for sure. You know, this is also you know,
[23:36] Speaker 3: part of the concern is what is there a source
[23:41] Speaker 3: within the source of those types of fibers that may
[23:45] Speaker 3: be due to contamination, you know, during the evidence processing,
[23:48] Speaker 3: so they would have to eliminate that. But assuming these
[23:52] Speaker 3: fibers are actually from something that the offender is got,
[23:57] Speaker 3: you know, a as residents, an area, rug, a carpety
[24:00] Speaker 3: inside his vehicle, those as as long as they're reasonably unique.
[24:08] Speaker 3: You've always find blue cotton fibers everywhere. Everybody has blue
[24:13] Speaker 3: cotton fibers on them, just because the prevalence of cotton,
[24:16] Speaker 3: you know, blue jeans and stuff like that. But with
[24:19] Speaker 3: these synthetic fibers, if they are doing you know, fairly
[24:24] Speaker 3: rigorous testing on those characteristics I mentioned before, you know,
[24:28] Speaker 3: it's what kind of fiber is, what kind of cross
[24:31] Speaker 3: sectional shape does it have, what is the dye that
[24:35] Speaker 3: is used? You know, and if all of that is
[24:37] Speaker 3: adding up with all the fibers across each case, then
[24:43] Speaker 3: you're probably I would say, yeah, that's that's a fairly
[24:46] Speaker 3: it's it could be a fairly strong link if this
[24:49] Speaker 3: is a reasonably rare fiber.
[24:55] Speaker 2: Okay, So now they need to id her and they
[24:59] Speaker 2: look through the seeing person reports. Thank goodness, people are
[25:02] Speaker 2: reporting these girls missing. They identify her as seventeen year
[25:06] Speaker 2: old Diane Denise Williams, and she is responsible and trusting,
[25:12] Speaker 2: hardworking girl who hope to become a model. I mean,
[25:15] Speaker 2: these are all good man. Just like I'm not hearing
[25:18] Speaker 2: anything about gang activity or you know, having involvement in
[25:21] Speaker 2: drugs or anything like that. These are just all good kids.
[25:24] Speaker 2: After spending September fifth with her family, she met up
[25:27] Speaker 2: with her sixteen year old boyfriend, who's a kid named
[25:29] Speaker 2: James Pryor, and they were going to just listen to records. Win.
[25:33] Speaker 2: Ten thirty pm rolls around and Diane has not come home.
[25:36] Speaker 2: Her parents get very nervous, and eleven o'clock comes and
[25:40] Speaker 2: her parents report her missing. So I don't know if
[25:43] Speaker 2: they know about James or what, but they don't seem
[25:47] Speaker 2: to call him. They call the police.
[25:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, and well, James most Early was interviewed and he
[25:52] Speaker 3: said Diane took off right.
[25:54] Speaker 2: Well, so this is what he says. He says that
[25:56] Speaker 2: he and Diane had had sex the night before. Okay,
[26:00] Speaker 2: so that night that she went missing, she gets on
[26:04] Speaker 2: the bus. She boards a bus at ten pm to
[26:08] Speaker 2: go back home. So when police go to the bus driver,
[26:12] Speaker 2: he said, yeah, she was on my bus. She had
[26:14] Speaker 2: gotten off at nineteenth and Bnning Road, which is further
[26:18] Speaker 2: away than where she should have gotten off, which is
[26:20] Speaker 2: at twenty first to get to her house. He says
[26:23] Speaker 2: she got off with two who he calls hoodlums, and
[26:27] Speaker 2: investigators don't have any idea why who are these two people?
[26:30] Speaker 2: She got off the bus with and why is she
[26:33] Speaker 2: not waiting to get closer to home? And so then
[26:37] Speaker 2: they're left with a big mystery from this girl. So
[26:40] Speaker 2: James said, yeah, she hopped on the bus. It to
[26:42] Speaker 2: answer your question a roundabout way, Yes, we had sex.
[26:45] Speaker 2: She hopped on the bus, so that could be where
[26:48] Speaker 2: the semen comes from.
[26:49] Speaker 3: It sounds like she she at least got to a
[26:52] Speaker 3: location where she's getting off the bus. I think what's
[26:55] Speaker 3: important is she is observed by the bus driver getting
[26:59] Speaker 3: off at that part time killer stop. You have the
[27:01] Speaker 3: other two thug guys, you know, getting off at the
[27:04] Speaker 3: same time. So she's on foot and that's the last
[27:08] Speaker 3: time she's seen. So that's entirely consistent with how you
[27:12] Speaker 3: know many of these other victims are likely being contacted
[27:16] Speaker 3: by the offender. And you got two in a row
[27:19] Speaker 3: now that have a connection to riding the bus.
[27:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So the note about the hoodlums who had
[27:27] Speaker 2: gotten off the bus supposedly with Diane. The police start
[27:30] Speaker 2: turning to a gang called the Green Vega Gang. And
[27:36] Speaker 2: this is happening in May of seventy four. So you
[27:38] Speaker 2: were in the city when this is happening, Paul, I
[27:40] Speaker 2: don't know if you remember this notorious gang. So Metropolitan
[27:44] Speaker 2: Police detective named Louis Richardson meets with an informant at
[27:51] Speaker 2: the Lorton Prison and is this guy named Fatsy And
[27:55] Speaker 2: he's a member of the Green Vega gang. It is
[27:58] Speaker 2: a group known to commit violent abductions. And I don't
[28:02] Speaker 2: know if they say or it's been proven, but they
[28:05] Speaker 2: have been known to have raped as many as one
[28:07] Speaker 2: thousand women in the DC metro area between sixty nine
[28:11] Speaker 2: and seventy three, which is of course when the killoeds
[28:14] Speaker 2: happened or when these murders happened. Okay, So the name
[28:17] Speaker 2: of the gang is in reference to the Emerald Green
[28:22] Speaker 2: Chevrolet Vega that they used for their crimes. And Fatsy
[28:27] Speaker 2: have been convicted of four rapes, armed robbery, kidnapping, and
[28:31] Speaker 2: he wants a sentencing deal. So he tells investigators he
[28:34] Speaker 2: has information about the Freeway Phantom and he says, I,
[28:38] Speaker 2: of course, he says, I had no involvement, but he
[28:41] Speaker 2: names off four different gang members that are to blame,
[28:45] Speaker 2: and he takes investigators to the locations where Brenda and
[28:49] Speaker 2: Darlenia and Brenda Crockett have been discovered. He gives details,
[28:54] Speaker 2: according to the police, about Brenda Woodard's murder that they
[28:59] Speaker 2: say only the killer would have known. I don't know
[29:01] Speaker 2: what those details are. I'm pretty skeptical, and I think
[29:05] Speaker 2: it was fairly well publicized where these bodies were found.
[29:09] Speaker 2: But Fatty is fingering one guy whose name is John Davis,
[29:15] Speaker 2: who is the one who is the kind of the
[29:18] Speaker 2: gun wielding leader of the gang that fits the profile.
[29:22] Speaker 2: And then you know, we can kind of talk about that.
[29:25] Speaker 2: But then I will tell you Fatsy does recan't you know?
[29:30] Speaker 2: He essentially says this was all a hoax and he
[29:32] Speaker 2: just wanted to reduce sentence and that's it. I'm a
[29:35] Speaker 2: little confused about what info he had. I also think
[29:38] Speaker 2: the police were under so much pressure that that was
[29:41] Speaker 2: a lie potentially, who knows.
[29:43] Speaker 3: Well, it is true that you know, these gangs not
[29:49] Speaker 3: only are you know, selling dope, selling guns, you know,
[29:53] Speaker 3: killing other gang members, rival gang members, et cetera. You know,
[29:56] Speaker 3: that's all part of what people perceive as gangs. But
[29:59] Speaker 3: they also get involved in sexual assaults for sure, you know,
[30:03] Speaker 3: and there's you know, they literally do gang rapes at times,
[30:08] Speaker 3: so that you know, that adds up from yes, you know,
[30:13] Speaker 3: you absolutely could have you know, these gang members that
[30:17] Speaker 3: are truly sexual predators and are participating in crimes that
[30:23] Speaker 3: have sexual motivations with other gang members. You know, it
[30:26] Speaker 3: was interesting, you know, this green Vega chevrolet, you know,
[30:31] Speaker 3: and then of course you've got the synthetic green fibers.
[30:33] Speaker 3: You know, that would be an easy thing to try
[30:36] Speaker 3: to figure out. Could those fibers have originated from the
[30:39] Speaker 3: upholstery that was commonly used within these Vega vehicles. I
[30:43] Speaker 3: just you know, for this series, this seems inconsistent with
[30:49] Speaker 3: the type of offender that is involved with this series,
[30:51] Speaker 3: especially with the taunting, you know, the writing, the note,
[30:56] Speaker 3: the phone calls. I'm not buying this at all. And
[30:59] Speaker 3: part of my concern about, you know, the authorities at
[31:04] Speaker 3: the time saying this fatcy that he's providing details that
[31:08] Speaker 3: only the killer would know. I've literally seen authorities during
[31:12] Speaker 3: the interview feed those details to the person that they
[31:15] Speaker 3: are interviewing, and the person just regurgitates those details. Yeah,
[31:20] Speaker 3: they just you know, and that is sometimes just in
[31:25] Speaker 3: competence by the interviewers. Sometimes it's purposeful because they're just
[31:30] Speaker 3: trying to close a case and they're going to frame
[31:33] Speaker 3: this guy, just so they can say they've made an arrest.
[31:35] Speaker 3: And that's why we have the Innocence Project.
[31:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know I mentioned this guy, John Davis,
[31:42] Speaker 2: and they look at John Davis, who's a member of
[31:44] Speaker 2: the Vego Gang, and he is not a good person.
[31:47] Speaker 2: Of course. He becomes easily enraged, and he seems to
[31:51] Speaker 2: get pleasure out of causing other people harm and misery.
[31:54] Speaker 2: He has a history of pedophilia. He has a rape
[31:57] Speaker 2: victim who says that when he's her to the woods
[32:01] Speaker 2: to sexually assault her, he said, this is where I
[32:04] Speaker 2: kill little girls. Now I know that it's a scare tactic,
[32:08] Speaker 2: you know, So I don't put any weight on that.
[32:10] Speaker 2: I assume you don't either. I mean, if I were
[32:12] Speaker 2: going to intimidate somebody, I would use a weapon and
[32:15] Speaker 2: I would use words.
[32:16] Speaker 3: No for sure, you know. And that's just that's not
[32:20] Speaker 3: an unusual type of threat that's gain compliance.
[32:24] Speaker 2: So Fatsy says, just kidding, I didn't you mean any
[32:27] Speaker 2: of it. He gets scared, of course, that he's going
[32:29] Speaker 2: to get shanked in prison, because all of these guys
[32:31] Speaker 2: are going to end up at some point in prison
[32:33] Speaker 2: and he'll be there with them.
[32:35] Speaker 3: Well, and he's going to be suspected of being involved
[32:37] Speaker 3: in the abduction, rape, homicide of little girls. It makes
[32:41] Speaker 3: you kind of a target in the prison system.
[32:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's not worth a reduced sentence to him.
[32:45] Speaker 2: I think the detective in charge doesn't believe him anyway.
[32:49] Speaker 2: He just doesn't think like you. He just doesn't think
[32:51] Speaker 2: this really adds up. This is not This gang has
[32:54] Speaker 2: been around for a while and nothing like this has
[32:56] Speaker 2: ever been associated with this gang. Horrible things, but different
[32:59] Speaker 2: horrible things. So the detective, Lloyd Davis, he believes that
[33:05] Speaker 2: the killer is connected to the Saint Elizabeth's Mental Hospital
[33:08] Speaker 2: because we've seen some bodies be deposited right there, you know, notably,
[33:13] Speaker 2: I think it's Carol and Darlinia the very close together.
[33:17] Speaker 2: So he starts digging into past patients and he sees
[33:21] Speaker 2: a guy named Robert Elwood askins, I think this is
[33:26] Speaker 2: the person we need to pay the most attention to.
[33:29] Speaker 2: So he's been described as mentally disturbed and he was
[33:33] Speaker 2: currently convicted in seventy four on two counts of abduction
[33:37] Speaker 2: and rape. He is also black. Because I know we've
[33:41] Speaker 2: been talking about race a lot, so let me describe
[33:44] Speaker 2: what happens with a survivor, because there's a couple of
[33:48] Speaker 2: survivors in this case with Askins specifically that can be proven.
[33:52] Speaker 2: So this is seventy six. When this happens, he had
[33:56] Speaker 2: gotten out, So this is five years from the beginning
[34:01] Speaker 2: of the series. So I cannot imagine being in Washington,
[34:05] Speaker 2: d c. Particularly being a person of color. And this
[34:09] Speaker 2: series of girls and very young women being murdered has
[34:13] Speaker 2: not been solved after five years. It must have been
[34:15] Speaker 2: terrifying to be in that environment. Awful. This is where
[34:19] Speaker 2: Askins comes in. So July eighth, seventy six, he poses
[34:24] Speaker 2: as a policeman and he pulls alongside twenty five year
[34:28] Speaker 2: old Martina Stewart and he convinces her to get into
[34:32] Speaker 2: his green car. He could have had a blue Volkswagen
[34:36] Speaker 2: with a yellow stripe and ditched it several years ago,
[34:39] Speaker 2: but this is a green car. Once inside, he threatens
[34:42] Speaker 2: her with a gun. He takes her to his house
[34:44] Speaker 2: and repeatedly rapes her. And after the assault, he demands
[34:48] Speaker 2: that she make the bed. As she leans forward to
[34:51] Speaker 2: tuck in the sheets, he pins her down with a pipe.
[34:54] Speaker 2: She wrestles the pipe from him and throws a can
[34:57] Speaker 2: opener at him, but she can't escape. Later on, he
[35:01] Speaker 2: agrees to let her go. The only condition is is
[35:05] Speaker 2: that she needs to take a bath and she needs
[35:08] Speaker 2: to allow him to lotion her body and comb her hair.
[35:12] Speaker 2: He forces her to write a note stating that she
[35:15] Speaker 2: had thrown the can opener at him because she was
[35:19] Speaker 2: quote high off of drugs and she did what her
[35:23] Speaker 2: high told her to do. What do you think about
[35:26] Speaker 2: that she survives and this is a few years after
[35:29] Speaker 2: all of this other stuff happens.
[35:31] Speaker 3: Well, there's there's some overlap with the previous cases that
[35:35] Speaker 3: are part of the series. You know, the taking back
[35:38] Speaker 3: to a residence, you have the sexual assault, the cleanup,
[35:42] Speaker 3: forcing her to take a bath, and then forces her
[35:45] Speaker 3: to write a note just like possibly that's what happened
[35:48] Speaker 3: in Brenda's case, however different you know, she's twenty eight
[35:53] Speaker 3: years old. The use of a pipe, I think can't
[35:56] Speaker 3: say for sure that a pipe or a bludget weapon
[36:01] Speaker 3: hadn't been used in the other cases. But he's also
[36:04] Speaker 3: not strangling her, he's not killing herries letting her live.
[36:09] Speaker 3: So there are some differences, and you know, are those
[36:12] Speaker 3: differences due to the passage of time? Are those due
[36:16] Speaker 3: to you know, who Martina was to him as a victim.
[36:20] Speaker 3: You know, that's that's kind of hard to say. I
[36:22] Speaker 3: would say he's interesting just because there is, at least
[36:26] Speaker 3: from what I can tell, you know, enough overlap where
[36:29] Speaker 3: you have to look at him and you know, this
[36:32] Speaker 3: is where it's where was he at at the time
[36:34] Speaker 3: of the other cases? You know, what is he up to?
[36:37] Speaker 3: Is there a way I can eliminate him because he
[36:39] Speaker 3: was in the hospital for you know, some of the cases,
[36:42] Speaker 3: So you just have to start, you start digging in
[36:45] Speaker 3: on the guy, and then of course you have to
[36:46] Speaker 3: pull him in and interview him for those other cases.
[36:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, and just a quick note, when seventy six is
[36:52] Speaker 2: here and he has this abduction, he's fifty seven at
[36:58] Speaker 2: the time, so you know he's older and I don't
[37:03] Speaker 2: know if that comes into play later on, but there's
[37:05] Speaker 2: some background that I'll tell you about with him.
[37:07] Speaker 3: Well I'm fifty seven. Well be careful with the term older,
[37:12] Speaker 3: all right.
[37:13] Speaker 2: Moving on, let's not fifty one.
[37:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it does somewhat come into play, though,
[37:20] Speaker 3: is that. You know we've seen these male offenders they
[37:25] Speaker 3: do age out. Now, not necessarily, we do have older
[37:28] Speaker 3: offenders for sure, you know, but it also now comes
[37:31] Speaker 3: back to Okay, when the Freeway Phantom series starts with
[37:36] Speaker 3: Carol in nineteen seventy one, Askins is fifty two, fifty
[37:42] Speaker 3: three somewhere in there, so you know, five years of past,
[37:46] Speaker 3: six years of past, you know. So he's in his
[37:48] Speaker 3: early fifties. He's more your age, Kate than mine. When
[37:52] Speaker 3: the series starts, this is this is a little bit
[37:55] Speaker 3: old for a predator to start, you know. So that's
[38:00] Speaker 3: this is kind of what I'm keying in on is
[38:02] Speaker 3: let's say he is the Freeway Phantom. I'm kind of going, well,
[38:06] Speaker 3: what pre existed the first case with Carol, you know,
[38:10] Speaker 3: whether it be in the DC area or wherever Askins
[38:14] Speaker 3: has been his adult life.
[38:17] Speaker 2: Okay, So about nine months later, after what happened with
[38:23] Speaker 2: Martina Stewart, I mean, he gets away with that, he
[38:27] Speaker 2: asks attempts another abduction. So this is a twenty three
[38:31] Speaker 2: year old named Gloria McMillan, and she was waiting for
[38:35] Speaker 2: an elevator to her apartment complex and he approaches her
[38:39] Speaker 2: from behind. He presses an iron pipe against her throat,
[38:43] Speaker 2: begins a choker, and he forces her into his green car.
[38:47] Speaker 2: Then he takes her to his house. He restrains her,
[38:50] Speaker 2: he sexually assaults her. After he failed to use the
[38:52] Speaker 2: pipe on her, he stuffed a piece of paper in
[38:55] Speaker 2: her vagina, which was similar to I think the first
[38:59] Speaker 2: brin to Crockett. I believe when Gloria fought back, he
[39:03] Speaker 2: choked her and tried to throw her through a window.
[39:06] Speaker 2: The glass broke, it cut her arms. She passed out.
[39:09] Speaker 2: When she regained consciousness, he was in the process of
[39:13] Speaker 2: assaulting her again. Then he bathed her. He put lotion
[39:17] Speaker 2: on her body, he bandaged her arms, and he gave
[39:20] Speaker 2: her three aspirin. She believed he was going to let
[39:22] Speaker 2: her go, but he instead grabbed a knife and a
[39:25] Speaker 2: plastic bag from the kitchen, threatened to kill her and
[39:27] Speaker 2: dump her body in Virginia, and sounds like he was
[39:30] Speaker 2: going to do that. He was dragging her to his car,
[39:33] Speaker 2: and she escaped. So this is where it gets a
[39:36] Speaker 2: little confusing, because this happens in seventy seven, and it
[39:40] Speaker 2: sounds like because of this he is arrested. He claims
[39:44] Speaker 2: that he had only been trying to help these two women,
[39:47] Speaker 2: that he was the victim of their drug fueled violence.
[39:51] Speaker 2: He alleged the women and fabricated their stories to collaborate
[39:54] Speaker 2: with the police and with psychiatrists at Saint Elizabeth's, where
[39:58] Speaker 2: it turns out he spent quite a lot time and
[40:00] Speaker 2: the world was against him. The judge doesn't buy it,
[40:03] Speaker 2: and he is admitted to Saint Elizabeth's Forensic Impatient Division.
[40:08] Speaker 2: So you know, then we have to go back decades
[40:12] Speaker 2: to find out what his background is to give you know,
[40:14] Speaker 2: us more insight here. So what do you think about
[40:17] Speaker 2: that second abduction.
[40:19] Speaker 3: Well, it's I would say it's very similar to his
[40:21] Speaker 3: first abduction, and there's you know, there's overlap with the
[40:26] Speaker 3: Freeway Phantom cases. He absolutely has to be investigated based
[40:31] Speaker 3: on his past and the fact that geographically he does
[40:34] Speaker 3: have a location that you know, fits with the first
[40:37] Speaker 3: two cases, Carol and Darlenia. And you know, but what
[40:42] Speaker 3: that being said is that you're going to find offenders
[40:47] Speaker 3: that have criminal history during the course of your investigation,
[40:52] Speaker 3: and so it's not it's not unusual that you will
[40:55] Speaker 3: find offenders that have committed similar type crimes to the
[40:59] Speaker 3: guy that is actually responsible for the cases you're investigating.
[41:02] Speaker 3: And in nineteen seventy seven, at this point to try
[41:06] Speaker 3: to link them to the freeway. Phantom cases is a
[41:10] Speaker 3: little bit more challenging than what we could do today.
[41:14] Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, they go back to try to figure
[41:17] Speaker 2: out what his connection might be, because now, of course it's
[41:20] Speaker 2: seventy seven, it's six years later when this all started,
[41:24] Speaker 2: and they think that he is certainly involved. So they
[41:27] Speaker 2: do what you say, they investigate in thirty eight. So
[41:31] Speaker 2: let me go back real quick. Robert Askins was born
[41:35] Speaker 2: in nineteen nineteen, so now we're talking about thirty eight,
[41:40] Speaker 2: so he's nineteen I think. In nineteen thirty eight, he
[41:43] Speaker 2: was a chemistry student at a teachers college which is
[41:46] Speaker 2: now it was called Minor Teachers College. Now it's Howard University.
[41:51] Speaker 2: Great school. Oh well, he stabbed and killed a woman.
[41:55] Speaker 2: She was a twenty six year old sex worker named
[41:57] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Brown. And then a week after that, he served
[42:01] Speaker 2: alcohol laced with rat poison, so it's potassium signine to
[42:05] Speaker 2: five sex workers, killing one of them named Ruth MacDonald.
[42:10] Speaker 2: She was thirty one. He was arrested and indicted for
[42:14] Speaker 2: stabbing Elizabeth Brown. He went on a misogynistic rant. He
[42:18] Speaker 2: said that after he contracted as sexually transmitted infection, he
[42:22] Speaker 2: decided to kill them all. Little Jack the Ripper seems
[42:24] Speaker 2: like and orchestrate a purge of prostitutes. He said. Later
[42:28] Speaker 2: he would say police brutality had forced this confession. While
[42:31] Speaker 2: he was awaiting psychiatric evaluation, he freed himself from his
[42:35] Speaker 2: restraints and attacked three female employees. And then he's diagnosed
[42:39] Speaker 2: with something. But it's an interesting diagnosis. But let's, you know,
[42:42] Speaker 2: go through what you think about that this seems in
[42:45] Speaker 2: line with the Freeway phantom killer.
[42:48] Speaker 3: Well, he's showing that he's capable of committing this type
[42:52] Speaker 3: of violence, you know, but we still have to have
[42:55] Speaker 3: a nexus between him and the actual crimes that are
[42:58] Speaker 3: being worked. Like the point I made, you know, earlier
[43:02] Speaker 3: in the first episode is we are talking about, you know,
[43:05] Speaker 3: the DC area. This suspect Askins was developed by an
[43:11] Speaker 3: investigator going and find trying to find former patients that
[43:16] Speaker 3: were staying at that hospital. And so of course you're
[43:20] Speaker 3: going to find some people when you do that type
[43:23] Speaker 3: of intensive dig in a psychiatric hospital, You're going to
[43:27] Speaker 3: find some people who have committed some horrific crimes. So
[43:30] Speaker 3: now it gets down to he's checking some boxes in
[43:33] Speaker 3: terms of his his hostility and violence towards women that
[43:37] Speaker 3: go go back to being a teenage boy. But you
[43:40] Speaker 3: have to you have to find something that ties him
[43:43] Speaker 3: to the freeway phantom cases.
[43:45] Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's keep going because we definitely have a
[43:47] Speaker 2: lot of people weighing in on this. So he was
[43:51] Speaker 2: found guilty and he was diagnosed with dementia Praycox of
[43:57] Speaker 2: the catatonic type. So he was committed to Saint Elizabeth's
[44:01] Speaker 2: and deemed incapable of standing trial, and this was in
[44:04] Speaker 2: thirty eight. So in forty three the murder charges were
[44:08] Speaker 2: dropped and in fifty two he was deemed rehabilitated and released.
[44:13] Speaker 2: So he was at Saint Elizabeth's for fourteen years and
[44:18] Speaker 2: then released, and he was released in fifty two. He
[44:23] Speaker 2: soon goes back to violence, so he strangles Laura Maddie Cook,
[44:27] Speaker 2: who was a sex worker in fifty two. Six months later,
[44:30] Speaker 2: he tries to strangle a twenty three year old named
[44:32] Speaker 2: Marie Sweeney, but she escapes. She doesn't report it because
[44:36] Speaker 2: she was a sex worker also, and you know, she
[44:38] Speaker 2: didn't want to draw attention to that. He was charged
[44:41] Speaker 2: with the murder of Laura Cook, but there was an
[44:44] Speaker 2: indictment that was dismissed because of a lack of evidence.
[44:48] Speaker 2: In fifty eight, his conviction in the murder of Ruth
[44:51] Speaker 2: MacDonald was overturned because of a lapse in the statute
[44:56] Speaker 2: of limitations because he was never charge with Ruth McDonald.
[45:02] Speaker 3: This was a homicide.
[45:03] Speaker 2: He served alcohol with rat poisoning to five sex workers
[45:08] Speaker 2: and he killed one of them. He was interested in indicted,
[45:12] Speaker 2: but then he was awaiting psychiatric evaluation, and this is
[45:17] Speaker 2: where he gets diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that's when he
[45:22] Speaker 2: gets admitted to Elizabeths. So it sounds like when he
[45:26] Speaker 2: gets out of Saint Elizabeths and he kills other people,
[45:29] Speaker 2: they want to go back and charge him with Ruth McDonald, saying, oh,
[45:34] Speaker 2: he wasn't crazy, he needs to pay the price for that.
[45:37] Speaker 2: But I guess there was back then a statute of
[45:39] Speaker 2: limitations on murder and so they couldn't charge him.
[45:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, And I also think so he's the way he
[45:45] Speaker 3: killed Ruth was through the rat poisoning. Maybe they didn't
[45:50] Speaker 3: deem it like first degree murder. Maybe they deemed it
[45:54] Speaker 3: something something else. Unlesser charge, whether it be second or manslaughter,
[46:00] Speaker 3: I'm not even sure if you could. If he's intentionally poisoning,
[46:04] Speaker 3: but there may be a little loophole in terms of
[46:06] Speaker 3: how that crime was charged, which now it has a
[46:09] Speaker 3: statute of limitations, and it told when they went back
[46:12] Speaker 3: to try to charge him with it.
[46:14] Speaker 2: The detective who was working this case, Davis, he went
[46:19] Speaker 2: and talked to people who knew Askins in the early seventies.
[46:22] Speaker 2: He had lived alone, and he had not clocked in
[46:25] Speaker 2: at work during the time of the freeway phantom abductions,
[46:29] Speaker 2: and that he was left handed also, so they're saying
[46:32] Speaker 2: he doesn't have an alibi for any of these. It
[46:35] Speaker 2: sounds like the detective searches Askin's current home. He's hoping,
[46:40] Speaker 2: of course, to try to find any trophy, schoolbooks from
[46:42] Speaker 2: Brenda Woodard, you know, anything like that, and the only
[46:46] Speaker 2: thing he finds is court documents I think from his cases,
[46:50] Speaker 2: one of which includes the word tantamount, which was the
[46:54] Speaker 2: incorrectly used word that the killer had made Brenda Woodard
[46:58] Speaker 2: you know right down.
[46:59] Speaker 3: I don't know, not blown away by that as an
[47:03] Speaker 3: item of evidence. Yeah, so it sounds like that detective,
[47:06] Speaker 3: I mean, he got a warrant, he goes in, he's
[47:09] Speaker 3: searching for anything that can tie Askings to the phantom
[47:15] Speaker 3: killings and he strikes out.
[47:17] Speaker 2: He does, Okay, So they look at this mysterious screen
[47:20] Speaker 2: fiber that has been found on many of the victims.
[47:22] Speaker 2: In seventy seven, the FBI had sent it to its lab.
[47:26] Speaker 2: They confirm its rayon and all from the same source.
[47:29] Speaker 2: So at first they think what you and I thought,
[47:31] Speaker 2: which is a green carpet you know, from a car
[47:33] Speaker 2: or upholstery. But more modern science as in the last
[47:37] Speaker 2: few years says they think it's from a bathmat, which
[47:40] Speaker 2: makes more sense to me because that's probably where all
[47:43] Speaker 2: of the assaults happened, or you know, he has some
[47:46] Speaker 2: of them bathe maybe all of them were bathed. We
[47:48] Speaker 2: don't know.
[47:48] Speaker 3: Well, and that's where Yeah, between nineteen seventy seven and
[47:52] Speaker 3: you know, I don't know when this current testing was done,
[47:55] Speaker 3: but let's say the advances in instrumental analyzes on for
[48:00] Speaker 3: this type of evidence just exponentially got better. So, you know,
[48:05] Speaker 3: I put a lot of weight on the more recent
[48:08] Speaker 3: finding just because I know they have a lot more
[48:11] Speaker 3: information as to what this fiber is, as well as
[48:15] Speaker 3: databases as to where that type of fiber. And it's
[48:18] Speaker 3: not just being ray on, it's also the cross section
[48:20] Speaker 3: of the fiber and the die that's using the fiber.
[48:22] Speaker 3: There's so many things today that they can really isolate
[48:25] Speaker 3: and get good info on that. If they're saying it's
[48:28] Speaker 3: a bathmat, then I believe that.
[48:30] Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's talk about a new detective. So she's
[48:34] Speaker 2: coming on the case. Her name is Romaine Jenkins. In
[48:38] Speaker 2: the eighties, she was the first female homicide detective in
[48:41] Speaker 2: the district where the murders began, and you know, she
[48:45] Speaker 2: wanted to be on this case. She was called to
[48:47] Speaker 2: the first murder in seventy one, but then she was
[48:50] Speaker 2: taken off of the case completely because of the Vietnam protests.
[48:53] Speaker 2: So now she's put on the case, and she speculates
[48:58] Speaker 2: that the freeway phantom killer knew or stalked his victims.
[49:02] Speaker 2: So tell me what you think about this, and then
[49:04] Speaker 2: I have another interesting theory. This is what she finds.
[49:07] Speaker 2: Brenda Woodard's body was left on a street her mother
[49:12] Speaker 2: regularly took to work. Diane Williams's body was found on
[49:16] Speaker 2: an exit ramp her father used during his commute home.
[49:20] Speaker 2: Brenda Crockett was calm and not hysterical when she called home,
[49:25] Speaker 2: meaning she knew whoever she was with, though she doesn't
[49:29] Speaker 2: name him, she says it's a white man. She was
[49:32] Speaker 2: forced to ask if her mother had seen her, So
[49:36] Speaker 2: the detective things that maybe this is a suggestion that
[49:38] Speaker 2: the killer wanted to know if the mom had had
[49:41] Speaker 2: been able to identify him when to make sure that
[49:43] Speaker 2: she didn't recognize him too. So do those seem like
[49:46] Speaker 2: coincidences or what.
[49:48] Speaker 3: They could be? I think it's not outside the wrong
[49:51] Speaker 3: the possibility that this killer is going after girls and
[49:56] Speaker 3: young women, that he has some sort of social interaction
[50:01] Speaker 3: with the families we've seen that, you know, that's just
[50:05] Speaker 3: the victim pool he decides to swim in. At this point,
[50:09] Speaker 3: I couldn't eliminate that as a possibility, but it's just
[50:12] Speaker 3: one of several possibilities. Absolute stranger, you know, victims of opportunity. So,
[50:19] Speaker 3: you know, I think it'll be interesting to see what
[50:21] Speaker 3: Detective Jenkins, you know, how she progresses in her investigation
[50:25] Speaker 3: and what her conclusions are.
[50:27] Speaker 2: Now here's something else odd I haven't mentioned yet that
[50:30] Speaker 2: the media really latched onto. And this is what I
[50:34] Speaker 2: would call the Denise theory. So I don't know if
[50:38] Speaker 2: you picked up on this, but as I named the
[50:40] Speaker 2: victims almost all have Denise in their names. So we
[50:43] Speaker 2: have the thirteen year old first Carol Denise Spinks. Then
[50:47] Speaker 2: we have the second victim, who is Darlenia Denise Johnson.
[50:53] Speaker 2: And then you've got Brenda who is the fifth victim,
[50:57] Speaker 2: and she is Brenda Denise Woodard. And then we have
[51:01] Speaker 2: Diane Williams, who is the last victim that we know of,
[51:05] Speaker 2: and her last name it looks like it's Dennis, but
[51:09] Speaker 2: it's actually pronounced Denise. And so there is a lot
[51:13] Speaker 2: of theory, of course, running around in the seventies that
[51:16] Speaker 2: he has a fixation or trigger around the name Denise.
[51:19] Speaker 2: How would he know these girls middle names?
[51:22] Speaker 3: He wouldn't unless he actually knows them. It's weird, it is.
[51:26] Speaker 3: You know, this of course is going to come down to, well,
[51:29] Speaker 3: how prevalent is the name Denise and these communities where
[51:32] Speaker 3: these victims are from. It's kind of hard to know
[51:38] Speaker 3: how much weight to put on that. You know, this
[51:41] Speaker 3: is sort of like you know, the alphabet killer in Rochester,
[51:44] Speaker 3: New York, and you know, it turns out talking to
[51:47] Speaker 3: that detective, the people who are actually investigating that case
[51:50] Speaker 3: can't say any of those cases are related to each other.
[51:53] Speaker 3: They just happen to have victims that have you know,
[51:55] Speaker 3: their initials are the same. And you know, I recently
[51:58] Speaker 3: finished up a two year active investigation into a serial killer,
[52:02] Speaker 3: Joe Naso, and he also had multiple victims with first
[52:07] Speaker 3: and last initials out in the Bay Area, and he
[52:11] Speaker 3: came from Rochester, you know, So is he the alphabet killer?
[52:14] Speaker 3: You know? And it just turns out it's just you know,
[52:16] Speaker 3: sheer coincidence. You know, it's just an interesting pattern. But
[52:21] Speaker 3: I don't know how much weight to put on this.
[52:24] Speaker 2: It's just like, Okay, whether Askins was the Freeway phantom
[52:29] Speaker 2: killer or not, he was still just an awful person
[52:32] Speaker 2: and a rapist and a killer. So he had been
[52:35] Speaker 2: convicted and did not end up at Saint Elizabeth permanently.
[52:39] Speaker 2: He went to the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland,
[52:43] Speaker 2: and he was there until he died in twenty ten
[52:48] Speaker 2: at the age of ninety one. I hate it when
[52:50] Speaker 2: people like that live that old. I mean, I know
[52:53] Speaker 2: he was in prison, but he was alive. He remained
[52:55] Speaker 2: in prison because of those two DC area abductions and
[52:59] Speaker 2: rapes in the mid nineteen seventies, not even for all
[53:02] Speaker 2: the other murders he had committed, let alone, you know,
[53:05] Speaker 2: being a suspect in the DC stuff. He denied any
[53:09] Speaker 2: role in the killings, of course, all the way to
[53:11] Speaker 2: the end, and he said that he doesn't have the
[53:13] Speaker 2: depravity of mind required to commit the crimes. Okay, here's
[53:17] Speaker 2: the interesting thing that I had thought of before, Paul,
[53:19] Speaker 2: I know you're going to want to talk about this
[53:21] Speaker 2: a little bit. So as of two thousand and one,
[53:23] Speaker 2: there have been ninety five suspects in the Freeway Phanom
[53:26] Speaker 2: murders over the years, and there is a three hundred
[53:29] Speaker 2: thousand dollars reward still offered to anyone with information that
[53:32] Speaker 2: can help close the case. That physical evidence has either
[53:36] Speaker 2: been lost or destroyed, so we don't have DNA it
[53:38] Speaker 2: sounds like to work off of. And because they're not
[53:41] Speaker 2: closing the investigation and it's open, we can't look at
[53:44] Speaker 2: the police reports, right and so Detective Jenkins is pessimistic
[53:48] Speaker 2: this is ever going to be solved.
[53:50] Speaker 3: Well, that's that's going to be the hard, hard part.
[53:52] Speaker 3: Just without that objective physical evidence that could identify, you know,
[53:56] Speaker 3: the Fruay phantom, you can sit there and develop circumstance
[54:00] Speaker 3: cases against you know a number of men, and you'll
[54:05] Speaker 3: be wrong. You know. That's what I did with Golden
[54:07] Speaker 3: Stake Killer, only to be wrong. That's where you know
[54:10] Speaker 3: you got whether it be Jack the Ripper or Zodiac.
[54:14] Speaker 3: You know you got all these persons of interest you
[54:17] Speaker 3: know that have been developed because of circumstances and you
[54:21] Speaker 3: can't prove it, you know, so part of this series here,
[54:25] Speaker 3: you know the evidence has been lost or destroyed as well,
[54:28] Speaker 3: how how intensive of a search has actually occurred. We
[54:33] Speaker 3: ended up finding evidence from old cases when our property
[54:36] Speaker 3: room had to do a complete inventory of every single
[54:41] Speaker 3: item contained with it. That is hundreds of thousands of
[54:45] Speaker 3: items packaged in boxes and paper bags and freezers and
[54:48] Speaker 3: everything else. They had to open everything up and audit it.
[54:52] Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden they're finding supposedly lost
[54:54] Speaker 3: evidence what was placed in the wrong box. And so
[54:58] Speaker 3: that is the type of effort that would needed. You know,
[55:01] Speaker 3: if I were to consult on this case, would be Okay,
[55:04] Speaker 3: where have you looked and how hard have you looked?
[55:08] Speaker 3: Did you ask your property room manager do we have
[55:11] Speaker 3: this evidence? And he comes back and says no, No.
[55:14] Speaker 3: As a detective, you want to go back there or
[55:16] Speaker 3: roll up your sleeves and start looking yourself.
[55:19] Speaker 2: So a couple of kind of footnotes. There have been
[55:22] Speaker 2: other victims names that have kind of been floated around.
[55:26] Speaker 2: One in particular, Tara Ann Bryant, that Blaine Pardo and
[55:30] Speaker 2: his daughter Victoria Hester, we're working on connecting. I don't
[55:34] Speaker 2: have enough information about that, so we're not going to
[55:37] Speaker 2: get into that case at all because it's not a
[55:39] Speaker 2: case that's mentioned with the Metropolitan Police or with the FBI.
[55:42] Speaker 2: So I just want to steer clear of cases that
[55:45] Speaker 2: we don't know have been one hundred percent connected to
[55:49] Speaker 2: this case. I would love to see a development in
[55:51] Speaker 2: this case. And I know that this is the kind
[55:53] Speaker 2: of case that really interests you, you know, because there
[55:55] Speaker 2: is a lot of profiling, and there's evidence and what
[55:58] Speaker 2: might still be around and all of that kind of stuff.
[56:00] Speaker 2: But I would have to say that Askins is as
[56:03] Speaker 2: good a suspect as any and to me, he fits it.
[56:07] Speaker 2: But you're right, there's just illegally there's not enough evidence.
[56:10] Speaker 2: Thank god, he ended up in prison and ended up
[56:13] Speaker 2: dying there.
[56:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, again, I just having investigated men who
[56:19] Speaker 3: have committed horrific crimes in the past, and they weren't
[56:23] Speaker 3: involved in the cases that I was investigating. They just
[56:26] Speaker 3: you know, their names popped up in the investigation for
[56:28] Speaker 3: one reason or another. I mean, you have to pay
[56:30] Speaker 3: attention to somebody that has in the past shown that
[56:32] Speaker 3: propensity or even after the cases like here, like Askins
[56:37] Speaker 3: has cases after but his case is after some overlap.
[56:41] Speaker 3: But you know, some significant differences with what he's doing.
[56:44] Speaker 3: Is that just because he's older, Well he's not that
[56:46] Speaker 3: much older. It's only five years, right, you know, so
[56:48] Speaker 3: why why the difference? So but yeah, I mean he
[56:52] Speaker 3: most certainly percolated to the top of that one investigator's efforts.
[56:57] Speaker 3: And as that investigator, Doug, He's going, oh my god,
[57:00] Speaker 3: look at what this guy has done. But he can't
[57:02] Speaker 3: tie him to the actual phantom cases, you know, And
[57:06] Speaker 3: that's where you know, the people investigating this case it
[57:10] Speaker 3: has to be the ultimate effort to track down any
[57:13] Speaker 3: remaining item of physical evidence with the hope that you
[57:17] Speaker 3: can get that objective identifying evidence such as fingerprints off
[57:21] Speaker 3: of the note or DNA from whether it be the
[57:25] Speaker 3: victim's clothing or from swabs or whatever.
[57:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, well, what a hard I still have a
[57:32] Speaker 2: headyque case gosh, I hate talking about kids who are
[57:37] Speaker 2: hurt and then murdered. It's just awful. But this is
[57:41] Speaker 2: the kind of case I personally, and I know our
[57:43] Speaker 2: listeners personally learn a lot from you and just from
[57:47] Speaker 2: policing in the seventies and about the history behind it.
[57:49] Speaker 2: But what an awful way to learn that stuff.
[57:51] Speaker 3: It's a hard case, right, you know, And it's it
[57:54] Speaker 3: has an impact on the people that are working the case.
[57:57] Speaker 3: You know, of course, got the victims losing their lives,
[58:00] Speaker 3: families losing their loved ones, you know, but you know,
[58:03] Speaker 3: the professionals that are actually working these cases, just like
[58:07] Speaker 3: this Detective Jenkins, you know, I'm sure you know this
[58:11] Speaker 3: has had a massive impact on her as a person,
[58:14] Speaker 3: you know, And it's it's it's something where I know
[58:19] Speaker 3: there's victims families that never want to have their cases
[58:24] Speaker 3: covered in a podcast or a TV show, and then
[58:27] Speaker 3: there's other victim families are going, we want to have
[58:30] Speaker 3: our loved ones, you know, memory alive, you know, and
[58:35] Speaker 3: hopefully it brings attention to the case and potentially could
[58:38] Speaker 3: get them an answer as to who's responsible.
[58:40] Speaker 2: Absolutely, Okay, Paul, a different case next week. I'm excited
[58:45] Speaker 2: for another case with Buried Bones.
[58:47] Speaker 3: I am looking forward to it. Kate, thank you, see
[58:50] Speaker 3: you see.
[58:55] Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
[58:57] Speaker 3: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightemedia
[59:00] Speaker 3: dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.
[59:03] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
[59:06] Speaker 3: Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
[59:09] Speaker 2: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
[59:11] Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
[59:14] Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
[59:16] Speaker 3: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
[59:21] Speaker 2: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
[59:24] Speaker 2: Buried Bones pod.
[59:26] Speaker 3: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
[59:28] Speaker 3: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
[59:30] Speaker 3: criminal mind, is available now.
[59:32] Speaker 2: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
[59:37] Speaker 2: Cold Cases is also available now.
[59:39] Speaker 3: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[59:43] Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.

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