Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? This gave me a screen behind which to observe drivers when they thought I was distracted. Her hair, long at the time of her abduction, had been clumsily cut short. I hadn't been able to get a copy of Shana Holts's police report because I was told there was no official suspect. Adhering to my rule (that the only safe truck was a moving truck) meant I woke when a truck took an exit. She was the only person who asked me this, and of course I did. I lived with my mom in New York, and the fights between us were growing in intensity and emotional violence. Or rather, I remember what he was not wearing. Then he said one word: Run. Your IP: When I first saw his apartment, I thought I'd walked into the showroom of a furniture store. Her murder happened twenty-seven years ago and was essentially pre-Internet. Wherever I went, I was told nothing "like that" ever happened, which was remarkable given the numbers of bodies the FBI had tracked over the past thirty years. Robert Ben Rhoades at one of his swingers clubs in Houston TX 1985. The next morning, I drove to the Gateway Travel Plaza in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. Robert shot and killed Douglas right away and dumped his body in Sutton County, Texas. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Robert Benjamin Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. Her own sister had been on the street, and she was overwhelmed by the woman at the door and didn't want to just walk away. She brought the police right back to Rhoades's truck but then balked at pressing charges, so they had to let him go. He was involved in the BDSM and swinger scene in his hometown of Houston. 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. In 1994, Robert Ben Rhoades was convicted of the first degree murder of Regina Walters. This tells me that he liked manipulating through terror. The general rule was that you were a prostitute until proven otherwise. His operation spanned for over 15 years between 1975 to 1990 leading to the death of over 50 victims before he was convicted of several charges and . The whole thing seemed so uncanny. I expected that to be the end of it, but I got another letter. Eventually, they reconciled and got married as well. I stuck to trucks because they were safer than cars. It was just the kind of promise a sexual predator or child molester would try to extract. So, if youre curious about where Debra might be today, heres what we know! 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. Upon searching Rhoades's vehicle, officials found he had converted his semi-truck into a mobile torture chamber, allowing the middle-aged husband and father to torment and abuse women as he crisscrossed the United States. As a 15-year-old, the author left home and became a hitchhiker, hopping from semi to semi on the interstate. Like Young and Lee, she had never heard of the Laughing Death Society, and since it had featured so strongly in my experience, I thought it salient. An FBI agent who reviewed the contents of the briefcase dubbed it a "rape kit," and he claimed it was one of the most "refined" kits he'd ever seen, leading him to conclude Rhoades had been torturing and abusing victims for a very long time. However, she fell asleep shortly after climbing into the vehicle, and when she awoke, she found Rhoades had placed restraints around her wrists and ankles. After that, she spoke of feeling inadequate and questioning if something was wrong with her. By her own account, she had been raped at least twenty times and had already had a baby. 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. ", I was in the one place where I knew for certain women had been found, one less than a hundred yards away from where she was standing. That ride turned out to be fine. Keeping her captive, he repeatedly sexually assaulted and tortured the woman for days. These are narratives we know. Sagittarius. His trucking logs place him in the area of fifty unsolved murders in the three years prior to his arrest alone. She had existed enough for me to call my dad all those years ago and warn him about what he would read. Upon approaching Roberts vehicle he heard screaming and discovered a naked woman in the bed of his truck. She passed through that world as if she were invisible. ", "That sure sounds like Bob. She later stated that she wasnt comfortable with some of the things he made her do. 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. He talked about it frequently and applied its ideas. Records on her would provide a date and a place that could then be checked against Rhoades's trucking logs. There was a Martinsburg truck stop somewhere in my story, and there was a dead 17-year-old hitchhiker. Robert Benjamin Rhoades, fdd 22 november 1945, r en amerikansk seriemrdare och vldtktsman, aktiv mellan 1989 och 1990. The true number of victims of Robert Ben Rhoades may never be fully known, for a variety of reasons. On the show, Debra talked about a point in the relationship where she found Robert with another woman at a party. Robert Ben Rhoades Is A Member Of . 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. As per the show, when Debra decided to leave the next day, he flew into a rage, physically assaulting her. I'd never heard the word "drifter" used in earnest. Rhoades was identified as a suspect . It wasn't the early '70s, it was 1987, and the woman killed was 19-year-old Lamonica Cole. He stopped responding to my questions. After his eventual arrest for murder, this ex-spouse told the FBI that Rhoades would often organize orgies. A few minutes later, he pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road by some woods, took out a hunting knife, and told me to get into the back of the cab. 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. While she slept, he handcuffed her hands and feet. Going through the truck stops, I'd heard about women getting their throats slit or strangled. He struck a deal with prosecutors in Texas, pleading guilty to avoid the state's death penalty for the murder of both Patricia Walsh and Douglas Zyskowski. In his early life, Rhoades got into trouble from a young age, he was arrested for . ", Inside the briefcase, officers found dildos, alligator clips, handcuffs, leashes, and whips. Robert Ben Rhoades used his job as a long haul truck to satisfy his sexually sadistic needs. 1983. This modus operandi makes it difficult for authorities to determine how many victims Robert Ben Rhoades had. Through these stories, I jumped from truck to truck. It would appear that crime was in Roberts blood. Debra said she looked about 18 or 19 and desperate. Robert Ben Rhoades. Without looking back, I ran into the woods and hid. I remember a fuel island in the blue morning light and a driver with a white shirt that stood out like a flag, and taking the turn back east, then south, and a gray day just before a storm so pressurized my ears hurt. I was sure he would remember where he took me back then, so last spring I called him. Const., art. Robert Ben Rhoades known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. 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. "She's one of the invisible people. Today Rhoades is a prisoner of the Illinois Department of Corrections. As a true sexual sadist, Rhoades would have been interested in a level of submission requiring no chains. Rhoades immediately exited the cab of his truck and attempted to give a hasty explanation of what the patrolman was seeing. 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. How could she lack evidence? Several days later, though, heading south on I-95 through the Carolinas, I got picked up by another trucker who was not fine. The question of what you do with your old SWAT jacket when you retire had never entered my mind. 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. Please enable javascript before you are allowed to see this page. Eventually the locus shifted to the Houston FBI, because at some point every thread ran through Texas. Lists about who they murdered, how they did it, and other horrifying facts that will keep you wide awake tonight, shaking your head at humanity. Who was the girl in the Dumpster? My mother was happy to pay for school. He wasn't nervous, angry, or excited. Robert Ben Rhoades was born in Council Bluffs in 1945. The young girl ran out of Roberts truck and into the woods. After Evil: Master Manipulator. 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. 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 said it was his choice. I go through the paperwork, get fingerprinted and led through a channel of air-locked doors into a room with him. As I saw it, it didn't matter if I left, because in so many ways I was already gone. With all her freckles, she looked very Irish. Despite the initial deception, Debra wanted to give the relationship a shot and continued to date him. He was not wearing a T-shirt. A chipper recorded voice told me to press 1 for tas, press 2 for guns"all other callers stay on the line!" Robert Ben Rhoades, truck driver, is a serial killer, and rapist. I was accepted, and that provided a thin strip of pride on which to stand while I made contact with my family. Robert was pulled over on the I-90 with his hazard lights flashing when a state trooper drove by and decided to check if the driver needed help. Could Debra help solve an active investigation? She also had children from another marriage. Looks too much like a target.". Women couldn't really get on the "zoo channel," as they called it then, because the sound of their voice would trigger twenty minutes of crass chatter. Investigation Discovery's ' Evil Lives Here: Deadly Fetish' has serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades' ex-wife, Debra Davis, talk about when she met Robert and how their relationship ended eventually. I only saw the man with the knife. But Holts, 18 years old, had been on the street since she was 12. After Robert Ben Rhoades graduated from high school he decided to follow in his fathers footsteps and joined the Marine Corps. If there was any way to connect my story to Rhoades, it would be through the body of the girl in the Dumpster. One night on I-95, she hitched a ride from a stranger and endured the most terrifying moments of her life. I said I knew he didn't want to do it. However, before he killed the 14-year-old, Rhoades took several haunting images of Walters that the authorities eventually recovered from his home. Rhoades, in exchange for dropping the death penalty, pleaded guilty to their deaths . He was sentenced to death for the crime. Rhoades was first arrested when an Arizona state trooper found a screaming woman named Lisa Pennal* chained in the back of his cab. I asked him. But I hadn't seen any shackles. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). Anyone want to party?". October 20, 2022. Law enforcement eventually learned that in addition to BDSM, Rhoades was a swinger who regularly had sexual liaisons with other married people in his hometown of Houston, Texas. He lived with his mother, Fay Rhoades, and several siblings in a two bedroom home at 2400 Avenue D. Robert's father, Ben Rhoades,. 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. What evidence was she lacking? But it was also a dangerous form of brinksmanship, because if a trucker was going to cross the line, the higher stakes meant he was going to do it for real. Robert Ben Rhoades, un serial killer amricain, vient de trouver un accord avec le bureau du procureur. The case of Robert Ben Rhoades serves as an excellent example of the type and nature of case to which VICAP s services would provide critical assistance and support. Today, Robert, the Truckstop Killer, is 74 and is paying for his crimes, serving two life sentences in the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois. And they're right. But an expert in what, I thought, killing? The source notes that Rhoades kept a "murder kit" in the cab, containing tools that he would use on anyone unlucky enough to be caught in his lair. ", "Oh no, not at all!" I quickly realized I would have been nothing but a burden. Instead, police suspect he held the teenager captive for at least two weeks, subjecting her to sickening acts of torture and rape, before he strangled her to death with a garrote and dumped her corpse in an abandoned barn in Illinois. 202202. And I remember being in the woods off I-95. He'd never heard the phrase. She knew how to survive. 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'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. But, months later, she learned that Robert wasnt a pilot. The phrase "play, pass, run" is used twice in the letter. 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. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. "We don't have any records," she told me. creator of The Wicked Truth - a true crime blog https://ko-fi.com/fatim. Today, Davis lives in College Station, Texas, and her kids, the product of a previous marriage, are grown. Rhoades was dressed that night as an airline pilot, and it was months before Davis found out he wasn't one. Rhoades avtjnar ett livstidsstraff p Menard Correctional Center i Chester i Illinois . The serial killer's name was Robert Ben Rhoades. "But a real serial killer wouldn't have let me go, right?" 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. Rhoades is thought to have killed Zyskowski while the young man slept. Why didn't I go to anyone? The 27-year-old woman, who had been restrained by both her hands and ankles, was freed by the officer, and once at the police station, she told the officers the horrifying story of how she'd ended up shackled inside the truck and covered in red welts and lacerations. I'm a 30-something true crime writer living in North America with my hubby & two fur babies https://thewickedtruthblog.com/membership Follow More from Medium Fatim Hemraj 8-Year-Old Boy Solves His Own Mom's Murder Fatim Hemraj Teen Murders Her Best Friend for $9 Million Dollars Jonathan Harker To keep creating 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. Candace however was not so lucky. In the morning, they talked me into applying to the college. After Debra Davis interviewed about life with her ex-husband, serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades, Kentucky state troopers reached out, telling her that they suspected Rhoades in a 1985 cold case. I began talking, saying the same things over and over. In this automatic appeal ( Cal. Laying asleep next to her was the driver of the truck, Robert Ben Rhoades. One snowy night several months later, I was hitchhiking through Amherst, Massachusetts, and a carful of students from Hampshire College picked me up and let me stay with them. Just a few months after she left Robert, he was taken into custody for a kidnapping. Not even the FBI knew that he had already tortured, raped, and killed at least two people along his routes. 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. The couple were traveling from Georgia to Seattle when they allegedly crossed paths with Rhoades, a long-haul trucker suspected of a decade of rape . It's actually from a Halloween party in Houston where he went as a "slave," led on a chain by his wife, who was dressed as a dominatrix. Ex-Wife Of Serial Killer Robert Ben Rhoades Speaks Out | Evil Lives Here: After the Evil. ", I had a vision of Lisa Pennal as a truck-stop Kali roaming the back lots in her denim skirt and fuzzy slippers with an ozone hole for a halo. He kidnapped women, tortured and raped them for weeks before killing them. Nothing came up, but that wasn't too surprising. I stayed there until I saw the truck pull onto the interstate. She told me there was only one and he had gone fishing. It was a woman, probably in her midfifties. It was a ghost story. Out of desperation I made one last attempt and swung by a smaller truck stop in Hancock, Maryland. Criminal. Instagram: @openshuddetspodcast. I asked her the same questions I was asking everybody: Did you ever hear about a hitchhiker in a Dumpster? Holes in the ozone layer. Her thick red-blond hair had been cropped close to her head with a knife or scissors and was now growing back. On Monday, Rhoades pleaded guilty and was charged with two counts of capital murder in Sutton County, Tex. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 76 Year Old Criminal #4. Back then, though, my thoughts weren't on misogyny; they were on logistics. "Bob was fascinated by secret societies.". In her weeks with Rhoades, many drivers saw her, but somehow no alarm was raised. Without fake ID, I couldn't stay in a shelter. Robert Ben Rhoades Father Killed himself after being charged with "She was on the end of the roll with Regina," he said. I never went to the police and didn't tell anyone for years. They were stringing crime tape around the Dumpster just as another state trooper rolled into the lot. "Her body was found months later so she was probably kept alive for a while," Smith said. "Of course," Lee says, "Lisa was talking all sorts of crazy stuff. His truck is said to have contained a homemade torture chamber. 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