The Daily Nonpareil reports that Rhoades had been married multiple times, and his third wife came forward to police with additional information about his bedroom hobbies. He must have seemed okay or I wouldn't have gotten in the truck with him. Patricia was newly married to Douglas Zyzkowski. Robert Ben Rhoades, who already is serving a life sentence for killing a 14-year-old girl in Illinois, pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder when he appeared before a West Texas judge . Years later, Veselka read a news story about a serial killer who had been a long haul trucker named Robert Ben Rhoades. Stowing his paperwork, he released the brake. Appeal-Democrat. Truck stops in the 1980s were closed worlds where what went on passed unnoticed on the outside. He said that no girls had ever been found in a Dumpster at the Martinsburg, West Virginia, truck stop, and I had no reason not to believe him. His trucker handle on the CB radio waves was "Whips and Chains," a reference to his kink. Even at the time, I'd wondered if my running was part of the game. The trucker bought us chicken-fried steak, chatted amiably, and let us nap in the cab while he drove. Eventually, they reconciled and got married as well. Rhoades received a second life sentence in the plea, in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty. I could tell you the last three songs played on the radio if you asked, but only if you asked. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories. I looked at the picture on Young's computer. An unidentified girl, shown here in a photograph taken by Rhoades. Over lunch at a local sushi place, he taught me the difference between a mode of operation and a signature. It wasn't the early '70s, it was 1987, and the woman killed was 19-year-old Lamonica Cole. I flew to Austin to meet with two retired FBI men, special agents Mark Young and Robert F. Lee, who'd both worked on the case. Lee still uses the tape when he trains police detectives in interrogation. The whole thing seemed so uncanny. He got over 900 matches. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. From reading about Rhoades, I knew that he preferred hitchhikers to prostitutes and specifically targeted runaways. In the second installment of Death on the Open Road: Highway Homicides, we cover the case of evil serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades aka The Truck Stop Killer. Like Regina, I also had a little journal and probably wrote something in it that night, because it was far too cold to sleep. Had I confused the state? His eyes were greeted with a shocking scene. Thank you very much in advance. ", Inside the briefcase, officers found dildos, alligator clips, handcuffs, leashes, and whips. The birds went silent, and I didn't know what it meant. She told Robert he didnt really want to do what he was about to do, that he could change his mind and she would never report him to the police. When I got to the part about the sudden switch in his behavior, she got excited. I'd seen the page from Regina's little notebook on which Rhoades had drawn a picture of a gun and a huge dagger dripping blood next to the words RICKY IS A DEAD MAN. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1905de5cd6c356 Neither of us said anything about the dead girl. Robert Ben Rhoades who is famously known as The 'Truck Stop Killer' is an American notorious serial killer and rapist who found taste in killing, raping and torturing young female teens. This former trucker is believed to have killed over 20 people spanning from 1975 to 1990. Along with cutting off her hair, he also shaved her pubic hair and pierced her genitals with fishhooks. But I thought about what she'd said"It would just be my word against his," which was clearly followed by the unvoiced thought: And who is going to believe me? In Robert Ben Rhoades's truck, authorities recovered a briefcase filled with sex toys and torture devices which the hitchhiker said the trucker had used to abuse her over the course of several hours. Rhoades had been arrested in early 1990 for a similar kidnapping in Houston, in which he kept an 18-year-old girl in the cab of his truck for two weeks, shaving her pubic hair . I found her in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette later that night. Young pulled out one last picture and slid it across to me. How could she lack evidence? The body was found in 1990, but not identified until 1992. I asked. Walsh was murdered, and her body was dumped in Utah. However, before he killed the 14-year-old, Rhoades took several haunting images of Walters that the authorities eventually recovered from his home. "You see that, Debbie," he whispered in her ear. The serial killer's name was Robert Ben Rhoades. He said a gun was about control but a knife is personal. Could Debra help solve an active investigation? He wore a cotton button-down with the sleeves rolled neatly up over his biceps and had the cleanest cab I ever saw. Robert remained a free man and continued to attack and kill more victims. If there was any way to connect my story to Rhoades, it would be through the body of the girl in the Dumpster. He welcomed me into his spacious living room. SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Robert Boyd Rhoades was sentenced Friday to die by lethal injection for the rape, torture and murder of an 8-year-old Yuba City boy kidnapped three years ago while walking. Const., art. Martinsburg was nothing but a pinprick, just a dot on a minor route feeding into a midsize highway on the outskirts of Altoona, PA, not the sort of place you'd expect to find a busy truck stop. They are more like habits, he said, and can adapt to circumstances or mood. (Robert Ben Rhoades) And I remember being in the woods off I-95. "Well," said Lee, sitting back after I finished, "you're probably right. I would file charges and sue him.". When rescued, she was wearing fuzzy lion slippers, talking secret prisons and being on a mission to see the presidentjust the kind of testimony that makes most detectives stop taking notes, since they're looking at someone who can't stand trial. 'Truck Stop Killer' Robert Ben Rhoades is thought to have tortured, raped and killed more than 50 women during a reign of terror lasting from 1975 to 1990. Criminals. Murder Victim. She shook her head; then her eyes clouded some. 97.107.136.113 When he grew tired of her, he choked her to death with a garrote made of baling wire (via The Daily Nonpareil). Recently, the New Jersey State Supreme Court handed down a statement on memory, describing it as complex and often unreliable. "What I find interesting is that he told you about the body of the girl and talked about the Laughing Death Society while he was still driving. The Daily Nonpareil reports that Robert Ben Rhoades was set to be free on work release when Illinois police identified the body of 14-year-old Regina Walters. "That was the problem with him," Smith said. So I told him the truth, which I had not told othersthat I didn't say anything because I didn't think anyone would believe me. I only ran about a hundred yards before I turned and hid, because I didn't know if I was being chased and needed to see. "That's him! I expected that to be the end of it, but I got another letter. We have many Rhoades is currently being held in an Illinois prison where he will spend the rest of his days behind bars. Word filtered back that the dead girl was a teenage hitchhiker. This Picture was the key evidence photo. She had been missing from the Houston area since early 1990 after running off with her boyfriend. Debra also talked about Robert having sex with her against her will one time, which finally pushed her to end things with him. He was sentenced to life in prison. This is the last picture ever taken of Regina Walters. The same week that I got the letter from Rhoades, the senior officer from the Berkeley County sheriff's department who had been fishing returned. Robert Ben Rhoades Father Killed himself after being charged with You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Regina would end up being the main focal point in a photo that would later be deemed one of the most terrifying photographs in the world. Holes in the ozone layer. The paper records had been destroyed for file space, and so nothing from the 1980s remained. The couple had just recently wed and were hitchhiking to Georgia from Texas. He stopped responding to my questions. When authorities in Texas were notified, they recognized her as being the same girl in some eerie photographs they seized from Rhoades' home after his April 1990 arrest. Even in jail, his shirt and pants were always ironed and pressed.". If there was any evidence, I would file. A trucker picked us up at daybreak, and I rode in a semi for the first time. Debra Davis and Rhoades met in the early '80s at a Houston bar called Chipkikkers. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It was later determined that Rhoades kept Walters alive for weeks while he subjected the young woman to an immeasurable amount of cruelty. There was going to be no more talking. They were heading west on I-10 and stopped somewhere in Arizona at a busy truck stop. Like a lemur in a canopy of trees, I barely saw the ground. Some of these were women left in Dumpsters. I began by Googling things like "dead girl truck stop Martinsburg." He pulled the truck into a wooded area, took out a hunting knife, and told the girl to get into the bed of his truck. Last Photo Taken of Regina before she was killed by Robert Ben Robert Ben Rhoades, a Houston trucker who kept a torture dungeon in the cab of his long-haul rig, accepted two life prison sentences http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/sns-ap-tx--serialkiller-texas,0,3734866.story Houston trucker already imprisoned in Illinois for murder avoids Texas death penalty with plea Around the same time that Robert joined the military, his father was arrested for molesting a twelve-year-old girl and ultimately committed suicide while awaiting trial. Robert Ben Rhoades at one of his swingers clubs in Houston TX 1985. The true number of victims of Robert Ben Rhoades may never be fully known, for a variety of reasons. I had been a drifter. Debra had a difficult time coping with the news that Robert had tortured women and killed multiple people. Richard Speck, A New Kind of Mass Murderer, Henry Howard Holmes, The Devil in the White City, Charles Ng & Leonard Lake, Family Slayers, Timothy Jay Vafreades, The Vampire Trucker, Highway Horrors: Robert Ben Rhoades, The Trucker With A Mobile Torture Chamber. When it turned, when it downshifted, when it drifted toward the shoulderI woke. When the Illinois state trooper who was trying to identify the body of Regina Walters, the girl Rhoades left in that barn, put her forensic description out on the national teletype, he was totally unprepared for the response. Initially, agents had disagreed over whether the young girl on Rhoades's film was Regina. Her remains were found in September 1990. She never reported the incident, as she had promised Robert. All rights reserved. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. It's supposed that Rhoades quickly killed Jones and disposed of his body (via The Telegraph). But then, Rhoades looks like a lot of guys. Maybe they would remember something the others hadn't. Police looked at the photos, noting that the growth of Regina Walters' hair and the changing color of her bruises meant that she had been in Robert Ben Rhoades' clutches for several weeks (per All That's Interesting). Robert "Bob" Berdella (also known as known as The Kansas City Butcher and The Collector) was a serial killer and torturer who documented his sinister slayings in photographs. To her shock and horror, she realized Rhoades had converted the cab of his truck into a mobile torture chamber, equipped with chains, shackles, and handcuffs to help him restrain his victims. Why did he let me go? Described by authorities as a sadistic killer, Rhoades was charged with their 1990 abductions and slayings, and pled guilty to their murders. Everything I expected from Bob Lee changed in that moment. In her weeks with Rhoades, many drivers saw her, but somehow no alarm was raised. When they visited his home, they uncovered a number of disturbing photographs, taken right before he murdered one of his teenage victims- photos that are perhaps even more disturbing than Rhoades's mobile torture chamber. That first ride was a preview of how it would often go for me with truckersdodging sex and getting strandedbut I had learned one crucial lesson: When a truck slows down, you get up. Robert Ben Rhoades. Robert Ben Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. He grinned. Rhoades, for instance, used guns and ligature strangulation and probably knives, too. Rhoades was dressed that night as an airline pilot, and it was months before Davis found out he wasn't one. As a true sexual sadist, Rhoades would have been interested in a level of submission requiring no chains. "It has to be him," a friend said. "Were there any murders that summer?" Rhoades didn't live a double life as much as a shadowed one. Listening to her, it occurred to me that this investigation of mine wasn't a detective novel. Believing that the driver needed a hand, he climbed over the side of the rig and peered inside (via The Forensic Examiner). You asked me to have sex and offered to pay. Robert was immediately arrested and charged with unlawful confinement, and sexual and aggravated assault. The vehicle had been converted into a refuge for the killer, a place where his most sinister desires could be inflicted on victims without detection. It brought her back to that terrifying night in 1985. Robert kept her for over a week, torturing and raping her repeatedly. I didn't recognize him from the initial photos, but as I found pictures of him as a younger man, his face came to seem more familiar. By now papers and photographs were spread out all over the table, and Young was waiting for me to tell my story. "Bob was obsessed with how they used an imaginary secret society to keep her from running away," Davis said. I thought that maybe in a truck stop where known murders had occurred, people would be more forthcoming. Despite the initial deception, Debra wanted to give the relationship a shot and continued to date him. Investigation Discoverys Evil Lives Here: Deadly Fetish has serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades ex-wife, Debra Davis, talk about when she met Robert and how their relationship ended eventually. One night on I-95, she hitched a ride from a stranger and endured the most terrifying moments of her life. The next morning, I drove to the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. We both had our own systems, our own rituals, and our own beliefs about what people were really like and how they acted under pressure. The sun is coming down on her long hair, and she's laughing. I knew from talking to the Martinsburg police that the truck stop had been under the jurisdiction of the Berkeley County sheriff. Between 1984 and 1987, he murdered at least six men in Kansas City, Missouri. At the center of everything was my own breath. He came around behind her and grabbed her shoulders. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Like me, she left home with her older boyfriend. He held Patricia captive in his makeshift torture room in the bed of his truck for over one week where he continuously raped and tortured the poor woman. she said. ", "Oh no, not at all!" they uncovered a number of disturbing photographs, taken right before he murdered one of his teenage victims, Inside the cab of the truck was a woman, chained to the wall and screaming, Rhoades had converted the cab of his truck into a mobile torture chamber, he told her his nickname was "Whips and Chains. I finally got to Davis through agent Young. Rhoades was first arrested when an Arizona state trooper found a screaming woman named Lisa Pennal* chained in the back of his cab. Silence fell over the Sacramento County courtroom as Judge Loyd H. Mulkey . I also knew the first thing he did was to get them into the back of his sleeper cab, which had anchor points for shackles. His clothes were gray or blue, but that may have been the light. Movie Actress. Rhoades was from Texas. The young girl ran out of Roberts truck and into the woods. Then he said one word: Run. Mark Young said Rhoades likes to feel like an expert and that I should ask him to "educate" me, so while writing my letter I used permissive language, saying I wanted him "to teach me what I did right and what I did wrong" when I was traveling. I only ran about a hundred yards before I turned and hid, because I didnt know if I was being chased. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Just a few months after she left Robert, he was taken into custody for a kidnapping. As per the show, when Debra decided to leave the next day, he flew into a rage, physically assaulting her. But to ex-wife Debra Davis, when they. Whatever the man thought he had broken in her had already been broken and healed back stronger. Eventually, law enforcement discovered Robert Ben Rhoades was a serial killer, in addition to being a sexual sadist who enjoyed torturing women and girls. Robert Ben Rhoades (defendant), pursuant to negotiations with the State, on September 11, 1992, pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to imprisonment for natural life. Officers later discovered this was the name Rhoades, who had been involved in BDSM for years, went by when he used his CB radio to communicate with his fellow truckers. He also wanted $500. I kept my eyes closed, stayed still, then rolled away from him, pretending I was still asleep. Magazine porn often dominated the aislesglossies like Hustler and Barely Legal but also newsprint rags with cheap color covers. The Daily Nonpareil reports that these logs put Rhoades in the immediate vicinity of as many as 50 unsolved murders. Robert Ben Rhoades Popularity . Smith said that should Rhoades ever be released from the Illinois prison for any unforeseen reason, he would be returned to a Texas prison. Eventually, law enforcement discovered Robert Ben Rhoades was a serial killer, in addition to being a sexual sadist who enjoyed torturing women and girls. The memory was twenty-seven years old, and nothing in it was actionable. She was on a trip with her husband, Bob, the last she ever took in his truck. She hid there until she was sure she heard his truck leave. When a state trooper founda nude woman chained up and terrified in the cab of Robert Ben Rhoades's vehicle, he inadvertently stumbled upon a sadistic serial killer who had been using his job as a long-haul truck driver to find vulnerable victims for years. However, shortly after they accepted a ride from Rhoades, the middle-aged trucker shot Zyskowski and dumped the 28-year-old's corpse near a Texas highway. By her own account, she had been raped at least twenty times and had already had a baby. Rhoades picked her up along with her boyfriend, Ricky Jones, in February of 1990. We had $60 and a Smith Wesson five-shot with one bullet in it, which we accidentally fired off in a field in Maryland during a discussion about whether the safety was on. One library archivist explained that I was looking for the kind of news nobody wanted to read. They found her near a Dumpster behind the restaurant at the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood. 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