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| Our Highway Serial Killings Initiative is
helping to link unsolved cases and identify suspects.
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In 2004, an analyst from the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation
detected a crime pattern: the bodies of murdered women were being dumped along
the Interstate 40 corridor in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
The analyst and a police colleague from the Grapevine, Texas
Police Department referred these cases to our Violent Criminal Apprehension
Program, or ViCAP, where our analysts looked at other records in our database to
see if there were similar patterns of highway killings elsewhere.
Turns out there were. So we launched an extensive effort to
support our state and local partners with open investigations into highway
murders.
Today, we’re publicly announcing our Highway Serial Killings
initiative to raise awareness among law enforcement agencies and the
general public about this issue and our unique assistance on these cases.
First, some background. The victims in these cases are
primarily women who are living high-risk, transient lifestyles, often involving
substance abuse and prostitution. They’re frequently picked up at truck stops or
service stations and sexually assaulted, murdered, and dumped along a
highway.
The suspects are predominantly long-haul truck drivers. But the mobile nature
of the offenders, the unsafe lifestyles of the victims, the significant
distances and multiple jurisdictions involved, and the scarcity of witnesses or
forensic evidence can make these cases tough to solve.
Enter ViCAP, part of our National Center for the
Analysis of Violent Crime and a national repository for violent crimes. The
database—which contains information on homicides, sexual assaults, missing
persons, and unidentified human remains—is available to law enforcement
throughout the country over a secure Internet link on our Law Enforcement Online
(LEO).
ViCAP analysts have created a national matrix of more than 500 murder victims
from along or near highways, as well as a list of some 200 potential suspects.
Names of suspects—contributed by law enforcement agencies—are examined by
analysts who develop timelines using a variety of reliable sources of
information.
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| This map shows the more than 500 cases in our
Highway Serial Killings Initiative database; the red dots mark where bodies or
remains have been found along highways over the past 30
years. |
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Our assistance also includes:
- Sponsoring free regional training sessions on our Highway Serial Killings
initiative for law enforcement agencies located near major interstates and
highways;
- Educating victim advocacy groups, in particular groups representing women
and children; and
- Using the skills of our behavioral analysis experts at the National Center
for the Analysis of Violent Crime, who can provide investigative, interview, and
prosecutive strategies; ways to link cases using behavioral characteristics;
advice on working with the media; and unknown offender profiles.
ViCAP, though, is only as good as the data it contains, so we ask law
enforcement agencies to make sure they submit to us their cases involving
murders and other violent crimes taking place on or near highways.
Bottom line: is the Highway Serial Killings initiative solving
cases? Yes, it is. So far, at least 10 suspects believed responsible
for some 30 homicides have been placed in custody…including a trucker arrested
in Tennessee charged with four murders and a trucker charged with one murder in
Massachusetts and another in New Jersey.
But what about the case that started it all—the series of murdered women
being dumped along the Interstate 40 corridor in Oklahoma and three other
states? Two people who were working together have been charged with some of the
murders…and the investigation to tie them to others continues.
Resources:
- Violent Criminal
Apprehension Program
- National Center for the
Analysis of Violent Crime |
