It was a raw moment. He was convicted for three murders, and slated to be tried for two more before charges were dropped due to the wishes of victims' families. They had to make up stories for me: "I got a beaver needs a ride to Flagstaff for her grandma's funeral don't want no trouble, c'mon back." It was clear Rhoades had been using the relative anonymity of the nation's highways to spread terror throughout the nation. I'd never heard the word "drifter" used in earnest. To keep creating She's shown sitting in Rhoades's truck wearing a gray hoodie. Regina Kay Walters is remembered among his victims for the terrifying photograph he took of her moments before he murdered her. Douglas remains were identified in 1992. Robert Ben Rhoades is a 71 year old white male, 6' 1" 175 pounds, and currently resides in the Menard Correctional Facility in Chester Illinois. Walsh and Zyskowski, the newlywed victims, left Seattle in November 1989 to hitchhike to Georgia where they were going to preach the Christian gospel when Rhoades picked them up in Texas. Robert kept her for over a week, torturing and raping her repeatedly. I crouched on netted twigs and breathed into my shirt to muffle the sound. Robert Benjamin Rhoades ( 22 de novembro de 1945) um assassino em srie americano e estuprador. He shaved her head and pubic hair, pierced her with fishing hooks, dressed her up in a black dress and heels, and photographed her in moments of terror, then killed her with a garrote made of baling wire, leaving her one-hundred-pound body to decompose in a barn in Illinois off Interstate 70. He stopped responding to my questions. This gave me a screen behind which to observe drivers when they thought I was distracted. If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. Young was a profiler for the bureau as well as a field agent. The driver reached the cab, swung up behind the wheel, and said we should get going. Watching the driver of my truck walk back across the wet asphalt, a second thought arose: It could be him. The trial began in 1994 and Robert was ultimately convicted of the first-degree murder of Regina Kay Walters. When I got home from West Virginia, a letter from Rhoades was waiting. He then killed her and dumped her body in Millard County, Utah. "He was on the interstate everywhere.". This meant that several of the photos she was the subject of were taken during her last moments alive. 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). GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. He said he didn't want to get caught up in anything time-consuming. Just a few months after she left Robert, he was taken into custody for a kidnapping. With all her freckles, she looked very Irish. Robert Ben Rhoades, born November 22, 1945, in Council Bluffs, Iowa turned out to be one of the most sadistic sexual predators that the US had ever encountered. His clothes were gray or blue, but that may have been the light. We were back on the road before dawn, walking down a highway covered in black ice, shivering in our hoodies. Watch with discovery+. One game in the book is called "Courtroom." A few days later, Robert kidnapped another couple. Why didn't I go to anyone? Eventually, law enforcement discovered Robert Ben Rhoades was a serial killer, in addition to being a sexual sadist who enjoyed torturing women and girls. He lived with his mother, Fay Rhoades, and several siblings in a two bedroom home at 2400 Avenue D. Robert's father, Ben Rhoades,. A month after Robert brutally murdered Douglas and Patricia, he picked up his next victim, an eighteen-year-old transient who lived in Houston. Without fake ID, I couldn't stay in a shelter. She knew how to survive. The more I learned about Rhoades, the more I saw parallels between us. Further compounding this problem is that Rhoades did not presumably kill his victims where he met them. In the morning, they talked me into applying to the college. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1905de5cd6c356 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters and her boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones had run away from their homes and like Roberts first victims, they were hitchhiking when he picked them up. The next morning, I drove to the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. "How many of those guys could there be?". The natural light brought his hair closer to the color I remembered, and, again, the side view heightened the key similarities, his cheekbone shape, glasses, the expression; but as I had learned from the echo chamber of Martinsburgs, memory is strange territory. Inside the cab of the truck was a woman, chained to the wall and screaming, with only a pair of slippers on her feet. It's just going to be my word against his. Adhering to my rule (that the only safe truck was a moving truck) meant I woke when a truck took an exit. for the slayings of Patricia Walsh, 24, and her husband Douglas Scott Zyskowski, 28. Ricky Lee Jones body has never been found. Berdella was conscious of his homosexuality. "But a real serial killer wouldn't have let me go, right?" 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. And if it happened, she could be found. And I remember being in the woods off I-95. Could Debra help solve an active investigation? Arizona state trooper Mike Miller was cruising along I-10 one April morning in 1990 when he noticed a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway. The story was that she was too scared, but I wondered if there was more. 1 of 3 DNA26C-C-24JAN00-EZ-HO --- Convicted murderer Robert Boyd Rhoades was linked to the 1984 slaying of eighteen year-old Julie Connell through DNA records. Around her neck was a dog chain with a padlock attached to the ring that had been used to restrain her neck. Sadly, while the remains of both Zyskowski and Walsh were discovered shortly after they were murdered, it took years for both of them to be identified and returned to their families. The sun is coming down on her long hair, and she's laughing. The photos stayed in my head, though, and with them came questions: What if the man who pulled the knife on me really did murder the hitchhiker? November 22, 2021. These were my private feelings. She was on a trip with her husband, Bob, the last she ever took in his truck. There was a Martinsburg truck stop somewhere in my story, and there was a dead 17-year-old hitchhiker. 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. In Roberts truck, the authorities found his murder kit which contained cords, chains, whips, leashes, and fishhooks. When investigators searched Roberts house they found several nude photos of Regina and Patricia. However, before he killed the 14-year-old, Rhoades took several haunting images of Walters that the authorities eventually recovered from his home. "No," she said, "I never heard of anything like that anywhere.". I found her in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette later that night. Robert Ben Rhoades, 66, is already serving a life sentence without parole for the 1990 murder of 14-year-old runaway Regina Walters in Illinois. While he was in the Marine Corps, he committed a robbery and was dishonorably discharged in 1968. Robert is believed to have tortured, raped, and murdered over fifty women between 1975 and 1990 during truck stops, but because most of his victims were sex workers and hitchhikers it is difficult to confirm exactly who and how many people he has killed. Although he was convicted of three murders, the police have always believed he was responsible for many more. His ex-wives described him as verbally, physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive; one stated he would become sexually aroused when she was suffering from the pain of lupus, an autoimmune disease. Robert Andrew "Bob" Berdella was an American serial killer from Kansas City, Missouri. The young girl ran out of Roberts truck and into the woods. Patricia was newly married to Douglas Zyzkowski. Before serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades killed his victims, he like to snap a photo of them. If we went missing, months could pass before a report was filed, and by then there was little to connect the missing person in one state with the decomposed remains in another. Truck stop killer: Robert Ben Rhoades, described by authorities as a sadistic killer, was first jailed in 1990 for killing a 14-year-old runaway girl in Illinois (left), also pleaded guilty to. It said he would see me if I promised never to say that I had seen him or what had passed between us. The Daily Nonpareil reports thatRobert Ben Rhoades was set to be free on work release when Illinois police identified the body of 14-year-old Regina Walters. I spoke to a woman who had worked there a long time and told her about the dead hitchhiker while she fingered the gold cross on her neck and listened. They were heading west on I-10 and stopped somewhere in Arizona at a busy truck stop. 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 . Criminals. The outlet reports that Rhoades had filled the rest of the sleeper of the cab with various pieces of "BDSM equipment and pain-implementation devices." Davis asked quietly. Whatever the man thought he had broken in her had already been broken and healed back stronger. 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. He would only have been 39 at the time, and I remember the trucker as an older man with light brown or graying hair. Rhoades allegedly dumped the body of Walsh's husband, Douglas Scott Zyskowski, 28, in Texas. It had the same neutral arrogance. 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. She shook her head; then her eyes clouded some. Being 16 and in college is an easier thing to talk about. Nothing came up, but that wasn't too surprising. His trucker handle on the CB radio waves was "Whips and Chains," a reference to his kink. allowing the middle-aged husband and father to torment and abuse women as he crisscrossed the United States. So I went back to hitchhiking in circles and discovered a state of half-consciousness wherein I could be asleep and not asleep at the same time. Most say she's a prostitute and that it's a "transaction gone bad." : r/pics r/pics 10 yr. ago Posted by punkindrublicrpp Before serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades killed his victims, he like to snap a photo of them. Eventually, they reconciled and got married as well. I only ran about a hundred yards before I turned and hid, because I didnt know if I was being chased. To a teenager, though, someone pushing 40 is pretty old, and hair often looks darker in photos. "Were there any murders that summer?" She attested that she was pressured to perform acts to satisfy his masochistic fantasies. Unlike those of other young women on the road, my story was now recognizable. He was not wearing a T-shirt. He immediately killed Doug and dumped his body in Texas. I'd heard of at least one who got hung up on a meat hook in the back of a refrigerated trailer because a trucker thought she'd given him VD. Robert Ben Rhoades is suspected of raping and murdering more than 50 women over a 15-year period in the 70's and 80's as he road his semi-truck up and down the highways trolling for victims. Police photo. Robert Ben Rhoades Popularity . I finally spoke to a woman and asked if they had a homicide record for a girl who may have been found in the Martinsburg truck stop during the summer of 1985. Robert remained a free man and continued to attack and kill more victims. Now, years later, she returns to the scenes of her fugitive youth looking for clues to that terrorand the girls who lost their lives to it, All the Under-$20 Style, Tech, and Home Goods We're Feeling This March, 35 Alarmingly Good Watch Deals to Upgrade Your Wrist, Fellas, You're About to Blow Your Rent Money at the SSENSE Sale, Jeff Staple Breaks Down Pigeon Dunk, Building a Brand & Top 5 Sneakers | My Life In Sneakers, Symbas Slow But Steady Path to Rap Stardom, The Best Sandals for Men Make Every Season Even Hotter. Despite the initial deception, Debra wanted to give the relationship a shot and continued to date him. Robert Ben Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is a serial killer and rapist and a native of Council Bluffs. Rhoades later was extradited to Texas for the murder of Jones and another victim. Not even the FBI knew that he had already tortured, raped, and killed at least two people along his routes. "Well," said Lee, sitting back after I finished, "you're probably right. Condamn la prison vie pour une srie de meurtres, il en a confess un nouveau . The arrest set off a chain of events that led to Robert being convicted for three murders and suspected of many more. It's more like a set of still photos. The ruling went on to question the admissibility of eyewitness testimony. Robert Ben Rhoades was born in Council Bluffs in 1945. He then forced her to wear heels and a black dress before taking several photos of her, strangling her with baling wire, and leaving her body to decompose in the barn. He was not wearing flannel. Rhoades picked her up along with her boyfriend, Ricky Jones, in February of 1990. "They don't use that emblem now. Behind the tragic elements of Regina's story, like some kind of pentimento, I saw my own. Young then showed me some photos of Rhoades in the 1980s that had come from his wife. Records on her would provide a date and a place that could then be checked against Rhoades's trucking logs. 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. Walsh and Zyskowski had recently gotten married, and they had decided to travel from their hometown of Seattle, Washington, to Georgia. 6min. Ad Choices, He was methodical, he rode the highways, and he preyed on teenage girls. They kept her from running away by convincing her that a secret society called The Company would find her and bring her back. "I just want you to know," he said, looking me squarely in the eye, "that what Rhoades did to women, he did to women. There was no safe way for me to get it. I had just hitched a ride and was sitting in a nearby truck waiting for the driver to pay for gas so we could leave. "That's from my old SWAT jacket." Like Regina, I also had a little journal and probably wrote something in it that night, because it was far too cold to sleep. 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. It was a cloudy day just before a summer storm, and everything in the truck is cast in gray. 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. They are more like habits, he said, and can adapt to circumstances or mood. What put him away for life, though, was the rape and murder of Regina Walters, a 14-year-old girl from Pasadena, Texas. Whether or not he'll make any confessions to police about other murders remains to be seen. I said I wouldn't go to the cops if nothing happened to me, but it was his choiceuntil he looked at me and I went still. From 1975 to 1990 he is believed to have tortured . The victim began saying anything she could think of to try and save her own life. In that one, driven by penis envy, a woman's inner child taunts a man into seducing her so that she can be freed from guilt for her own "sadistic fantasies." There's a picture of him in leather and chains that floats around the Internet. Who was the girl in the Dumpster? Thinking that it would be her word against his, his victim recanted her statement, and Rhoades was free to go. Wearing down from lack of sleep and trying to get a handle on my risk level, I began to work off a 1-to-5 scale of sexually aggressive behavior: You (the driver) kept your urges to yourself. I imagined for a moment flying to Illinois. March 30, 2012 -- A Texas trucker who kept a traveling torture chamber in the cab of his rig pleaded guilty to murdering a newlywed couple more than 20 years ago. Sometimes they're threatening, sometimes cajoling, but always manipulative. 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. Rhoades was a sexual sadist. Original. She also claimed that Rhoades was bringing men into their home to act as her sex slaves. She also had children from another marriage. I could easily imagine my own teenage voice whispering those same words. 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