Speaker 1: M M.
Speaker 2: A wall street line shackle change, Oh do someome gird
it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's
been a tentery juice as the huge stream game Wrangle three.
Speaker 3: Come here.
Speaker 1: By me to die inside these walls, inside the wild,
and went theirs.
Speaker 3: I Hey, everyone, welcome back to Bloody Angola. I'm your host,
Jim Chapman, and today I am bringing you another fifty
Shades of Evil episode, and we're going to go to Tennessee.
And I want you to imagine a long haul trucker Chris,
crossing the interstate highways, blending in to the anonymous flow
of commerce. And he travels. He looks ordinary, He does
not stand out, just blends in. But beneath that ordinary
facade hides a predator with a chilling trail of bodies
stretching across multiple states and multiple murders at truck stops
and rest areas. Now I'm talking about Bruce Mendenhall, the
infamous truck stop killer. This is a man who turned
parking lots into graveyards and confessed to a string of
brutal murders that shocked an entire country. Now he was
arrested in two thousand and seven and a Nashville truck
stop with blood still fresh in his cab. And his
crimes targeted vulnerable women, sex workers, hitchhikers, and others that
he encountered on his trucking routes. Eventually, he was convicted
of multiple crimes in Tennessee and Indiana, and he was
suspected in even more crimes across Alabama, Georgia, and beyond.
He is widely considered the most dangerous inmate in Tennessee.
And today I'm going to cover all of those crimes,
his conviction, his sentence, and his incarceration. So let's get
into it now. Bruce Mennenhall was born on April fourteenth
of nineteen fifty one. This is in Crawford County, Illinois.
That's a rural part of Illinois. Nothing fancy there. He
grew up. He served in the United States Marines during
the Vietnam War era. Now, after the military, he settled
into seemingly a normal wife. He married a woman named Linda,
and incidentally, Linda was a diabetic that would cause her
to go blind later on in their marriage, and together
they would have three kids. They would have two daughters
and a son, and he worked as a long haul
truck driver out of Alboyne, Illinois. He would haul loads
across the country, and on the surface, he just seemed
to be another blue collar guy grinding it out on
the interstate right, getting things from to point b The
family lived in a modest home in Illinois, and Bruce
was not someone you would meet and say, hey, that
guy has a great personality. He just lacked really any
personality according to those who knew them. He was kind
of mouthy, not a very friendly guy, but not overtly
rude according to his neighbors, which long haul truck driving
probably the perfect job for him considering his personality. He
didn't have to be around a whole lot of other people.
It was just him in the road. Now, it is
interesting to note that despite this lack of personality that
Mendenhall had, in nineteen ninety seven actually ran for mayor
of Alboy in Illinois. But if you're going to step
into politics, you better have some sort of personality, and
he lost in an absolute landslide against the incumbent. So
let's talk about his job quickly. Being a long haul
truck driver, you're all over the United States five hundred miles,
thousand miles, even three thousand mile trips across country are common,
and you're never in one area for long. This type
of job would serve Bruce menden Hall well, it would
give him the perfect cover, endless miles of highway, anonymous
truck stops, and encounters with what you would say were
typically vulnerable people, people that were struggling in life. So
I'm going to take you to June sixth of two
thousand and seven, and I'm going to tell you about
Samantha Winters. Now, Samantha was forty eight years old. She
was from Nashville, Tennessee. In her forty eight years, she
had a very tough life. She was no stranger to
law enforcement, having a very lengthy criminal record, mostly for
prostitution and drug related charges, and she was a transient figure.
She would turn tricks often at truck stops in Nashville
and the surrounding areas. On June six of two thousand
and seven, workers at a pilot truck stop in Lebanon, Tennessee,
they make an absolutely shocking discovery when inside of a
trash ben literally thrown away like a piece of trash,
was the body of Samantha Winters. Police in the corner
were called in. An autopsy was performed, and it showed
that Samantha was killed via a twenty two caliber gunshot
to the head. Now, as horrific of a murder as
this was, it didn't create the outrage that you would
think it would create. Now, had this been a soccer
mom with three kids and a husband, you might have
seen a lot more outrage. If this was a transient
it was someone that lived that life right. They were
in a high risk lifestyle, and it made the news,
But it wasn't like national news that this lady was killed.
But police were investigating, and it wouldn't be long before
another murder would shock the Nashville community. And that brings
us to Sarah Nicole Holbert. Now, Sarah was twenty five
years old, and much like Samantha Winters, she had her struggles.
She had lost her mom at a relatively young age.
She was shuffled from family member to family member. By
the time she reached adulthood, she had two daughters and
had spiraled into a crack cocaine addiction. After a failed relationship,
her children would be removed from her care and that
would cause her to just enter this dark world as
a sex worker, and she would frequent those truck stops
in the Nashville area when her life would come to
a tragic end. So on June twenty fifth of two
thousand and seven, a security guard was making his rounds.
This is at the TA truck stop in Nashville, and
he sees the body of a woman. She had been
shot three times in the head with what an autopsy
would determine later was a twenty two caliber firearm and
she was posed by whoever killed her. She was on
her back, she was completely nude. Her feet were together,
but her legs were apart, Her arms were positioned over
her head, and she had her genitals exposed. She also
had a tattoo on her buttocks, and this was of
a like lips if you will, It had been completely
cut off. Nashville police, of course, would be called in
a legendary homicide detective from the Nashville area would be
assigned to that case. His name was Pat postig Leo. Now,
if you do what I do, you cover crime for
a living. This guy is pretty well known. But for
those unfamiliar, let me tell you a little bit about
the legendary detective. He had worked for Nashville PD at
this point for thirty two years and he had a
mind blowing twenty five years as a homicide detective. That
is a long time as a homicide detective. You don't
see a whole lot of guys with twenty five years
in and the reason is for a living, you are
going to murder scenes. That's what you do. It takes
a toll on these guys. So a lot of guys
don't make it twenty five years or gals, but Pat did.
And everyone who ever worked with this guy would say
he was the best homicide detective they had ever worked
with anywhere in the country. Now, in his twenty five
year Pat was so good that he had solved fifty
five cold cases. So whoever did this once Pat was
put on the case, they are likely in a bind.
He was legend then and he still is now. So
experience like Detective Pat had that helps you to spot
things right off the bat. And one thing that Detective
Pat made note of from the start was that this
girl was posed. People who kill on a whim, if
you will, They get in a fight maybe with this
transient woman, and they just shoot her. They're not going
to take the time to pose that victim. That's precious time,
that's also taken a huge risk, and they're not going
to do it. Typically, that is legit serial killer stuff,
something that comes from progression of a crime. Not always,
but in an extremely high number of cases, if that
body is posed, that person is killed before and they
want everybody to know about it. So in Pat's mind,
there must be other cases out there that are yet
to be solved where he can find similarities to this case.
So the first thing he does, he starts reviewing surveillance
tape from the truck stop in which this murder took place,
but also other truck stops in the area to see
if he spots anything unusual. Maybe this young lady traveled
from one truck stop to another with whoever killed her.
He didn't know, but he's gonna find out. He also
reaches out to the FBI and he asked them to
send him any information they may have on the murders
of female victims at truck stops in their area of
the country where someone was killed and hopefully he would
be able to find in these other cold cases from
other truck stops. Some similarities to his case. Maybe they
have bullet casings that he could compare to the bullet
casings found in Sarah's murder. And he also wanted to
take a look at what is known as fuel tickets,
which these truckers they get gas or when they get food, whatever,
but primarily gas. Essentially, it's a log that keeps track
of the truck number, etc. And there's a receipt attached
to it. This is known as a fuel ticket. But
if the trucker doesn't get full, obviously that ticket is
not going to exist. But it was certainly worth checking. Now,
sometimes in life you get lucky, and it's even better
when you're good and lucky, and pat was certainly all
of those on this day. So he tells one of
his homicide partners, Hey, man, let's go check out those
fuel tickets. I'll meet you there. This is on July
eleventh of two thousand and seven. He leaves his office
and he starts heading that way and an eighteen wheeler
passes him when he's almost to the truck stop. Now,
he had already reviewed prior to this the surveillance video
from the night that Sarah Holbert was murdered and while
he didn't actually see the murder take place, the cameras, unfortunately,
were not in a position where you could see a
martyr take place or anything of that nature. They just
didn't catch it. What you could see was people pulling
in and out of that truck stop. And one thing
he did notice was an eighteen wheeler that just stood
out to him, and I'll tell you why in just
a second, as it pulled in the night of that murder.
And the reason it stood out was that eighteen wheeler.
The cab of it was yellow in color, and you
just don't see a lot of cabs that are yellow
in color. These eighteen wheeler ca So it pulled in,
you can clearly see that in the video, and then
just sixteen minutes later it pulled out. And he also
found that strange because the trucker did not get gased.
There was no fuel ticket for this guy or a
log of it that they could find in the past,
so that was strange. He didn't get any food either,
He just pulled in and pulled out sixteen minutes later. Now,
again the camera was not in a position to see
what this eighteen wheeler was doing for those sixteen minutes
but being a sharp detective with a photographic memory, incidentally
he remembered that, and lo and behold. As he's traveling
down the road going to meet his homicide partner, Detective
Pat sees an eighteen wheeler going the opposite direction of
the way that he was traveling, and it appeared to
be the same yellow eighteen wheeler. He's so sure of
fact that he turns around and he actually starts following
it from a safe distance. So, while he's following this
eighteen wheeler, he calls his partner and Pat tells him, look,
here is the tag number. I'm following this guy. You know, basically,
if something goes hey wire, you know the tag number
of this eighteen wheeler. Well, the eighteen wheeler does something
kind of strange, and it starts circling several blocks that
surround this truck stop, and then it pulls in to
the same truck stop that Sarah was murdered in the
same place. As a matter of fact, that Pat was
headed to go check for more fuel tickets and meet
his partner. So this eighteen wheeler pulls into the truck
stop and when he does, something else stood out to Pat,
and that is that the eighteen wheeler pulls in knows first. Now,
typically when eighteen wheelers pull into a truck stop, they
pull in to the spot and they back end. They
don't pull in those first for obvious reasons. You got
this big ass eighteen wheeler on the back that you've
got to back out at that point. That's kind of
hard to do when you have other truckers pulling in
and out. And detective pad he makes note of that
as well. Now as he's watching this driver, he sees
the driver put the eighteen wheeler into park and he
immediately gets out of the driver's seat, and the detective
notices him go to the back sleeper portion, the sleeper
section of that eighteen wheeler and close that back curtain.
And basically there's a curtain that you can slide all
the way across in the back of it that provides
for privacy right when you're trying to sleep. A lot
of them sleep inside of their I guess you could
call it a sleeper section of their cab. The detective
just found that strange that he would immediately close that
curtain as soon as he got out of the driver's seat.
Whatever he gets out of his vehicle and Detective Pat
approaches the eighteen wheeler. He knocks on the door and
the driver appears, and Pat basically says, hey, man, do
you mind stepping out for a minute. I want to
talk to you. I'm a detective with the Nashville Police Department.
The driver steps out of the truck and his shirt
is like wide open. He doesn't have any shoes on,
and he's stretching as if to make Detective Pat think
that he just woke up from a long sleep, that
he was startled and woken up. Now, what the driver
doesn't know is that Pat had been following him and
knows full well that this eighteen wheeler driver just pulled
in to that parking spot. He didn't just wake up.
So Pat gives him a quick somepnosis of why he
wanted to talk to him, and he mentions, hey, man,
you're driving this yellow eighteen wheeler that's unique in a
murder case that I'm working. And this driver gets kind
of mouthy with the detective and he says, oh, well,
there's a ton of yellow cab trucks all over the
roads at all times, and Detective Pat says, yeah, I
understand that, but would you mind if I looked into
your cab of your eighteen wheeler. And the reason that
he asked him that, although he didn't mention it to
the driver before, was because when the driver opened the door. Initially,
Detective Pat this awesome homicide detective who is very aware
of everything going on around, and he notices right off
the bat blood droplets on the driver's side into your door. Now,
you could tell that someone tried to haphazardly clean these
blood droplets, but they couldn't get all the stains out apparently,
and he noticed that right off the bat. So at
this point, Detective Pat's partner had arrived on the scene,
and Detective Pat tells him, hey, man, go get a
can sent to search form out of your vehicle, and
we're going to get this driver to sign this. And
he's given us permission to search his vehicle because they
had to have that consent. And it's at that point
that the driver, who turned out to be Bruce Mendenhall, incidentally,
he mouths off, well, you're not going to tear up
the interior of my truck, right, And I say that
to show you kind of his personality. He was just
kind of a deck you know, that's what people said
that grew up with this guy, and that's how he
was acting to these detectives. And Detective Pat tells him, no, man,
I'm just going to give it a once over. That's it.
So men in Hall consents to the search. He signs
the paper. Pat climbs in and he steps behind that
curtain and initially he doesn't notice anything that stands out,
like a sore thumb, but then he sees a bag
and it's kind of half open, a trash bag, and
you can see towels in these paper towels they are
blue in color, and he knows right off the bat
these are the ones that you get from truck stops
to clean your hands, the very heavy duty and they
are absolutely soaked with blood, and I mean soaked. There
are a ton of them in this bag. And the
alarming thing that the detective knew right off the jump
was that this was fresh blood, so it was not
the blood of the victim that he was investigating, Sarah.
So the detective goes back to the front of the
cab and he asked men in Hall. He said, hey, man,
what is all the blood in this bag? And men
in Hall responds oh, I cut my leg and I
use these towels to clean the cut. So Detective Pat
then says, okay, show me the cut on your leg.
So men in Hall, he pulls his pant leg up
and guess what, Absolutely no cut on his leg, no scar,
no bag, nothing, and that is a lot of blood
in this trash bag. Detective knew this guy's full of shit.
Detective Pat also notice is a lot of female clothing
and when he asks Mendenhall whose closes are these, Mendenhall
struggles to come up with an answer. By this point
in time, the detective knew this guy's full of shit,
so he gets out of the cab and right there
on the spot, he places mendon Hall under arrest. He
puts him in the back of his car, and as
soon as he sits down to drive away, Bruce Menenhall
says to him, out of a clear blue sky, they're
the ones who did the killing, and he basically points
out to an empty parking lot. So Detective Pat he
thinks this guy is fucking absolutely crazy. He tells him, look,
we're gonna go down to the station and you can
fill me in on whatever the heck you're talking about
with these guys that you claim did these killings. So
to go down town and he starts interrogating Bruce men
in hall and Bruce spends the most bizarre story that
this detective had ever heard. He said that three men
were following him around and they were killing women in
his truck. And he stated he was pissed off these
acquaintances and that they were from Illinois and they were
killing these women using his twenty two rifle and forcing
him to dispose of the bodies because he didn't want
to get blamed. He even admitted to cleaning up the
blood and leaving the body of Sarah Hulbert, but he claimed, hey,
I left her in plain view, in plain sight because
I wanted y'all to do your job and catch these
guys because they keep trying to frame me for all
these killings. Just totally off the wall nuts story, right. So,
a couple of things that I need to note here.
FIR police did what you would think they would do.
They would scrub the truck for DNA. And I've gotten
some different numbers on how many people's DNA were found
in this truck. Some reports say six, some reports say seven.
But I listened to an interview with Detective Pat where
he said eight people. And I'm going with what Detective
Pat said because he's the one who worked this freaking case.
So eight people's DNA matched in that truck other than
mende Hall. Now doesn't necessarily mean they knew who all
this DNA belonged to, but they knew there was DNA
outside of the drivers in this vehicle, and it was
eight different people. And I'm talking blood DNA, not like
touch DNA. Now, not only that, but a more extensive
search of the truck also yielded a blood soaked twenty
two caliber knives, handcuffs, latex gloves, weapons cartridges, black tape,
a night stick, and sex toys. Now, Mendenhall had worked
for this trucking company for only two years, and he
was fifty six years old. So who becomes a serial
killer in their mid fifties. As many as I've covered
over the years, I've never come across someone like that
mid fifties and you start killing at that age, that's
like atypical af And this legendary detective knew that as well.
And he's like, oh, this guy's been killing a while.
He knew that there had to be other victims, and
that leads us to Carmen Papura. So Carmen was a
thirty one year old mother of two. She was living
in Indianapolis at the time of her disappearance. In her family,
they would describe her as a devoated parent. Her daughter
was fifteen years old when Carmen went missing and Carmen
was last seen alive in the early morning hours of
July tenth of two thousand and seven at the Flying
Jay Travel Center in South Indianapolis. Now, Carmen was different
than the other two victims I had mentioned. She was
not a known sex worker, So how does she tie
in to Bruce men in Hall Well? When Detective Pat
was questioning Bruce about whose fresh blood was all over
the toweles the day that he was arrested, Bruce Minnenhall
said he didn't know her name, but it was a
girl from Indianapolis that was shot in the cab of
his vehicle, but that he didn't do it. Those three
acquaintances did it. So Detective Pat calls the Indianapolis Police
and he asked him, Hey, do y'all have anyone missing
in the past few weeks from a truck stop in
that area, and they said, well, as a matter of fact,
we do, and that of course was Carmen Papura. So
detective pat asked Bruce Menninghall where the body was. Okay,
so these three guys quote unquote shot this girl, left
her in your cab. Where is her body? Now? Bruce
Mendenhall said, well, I drove to Kentucky and I threw
her in a trash can at a truck stop, which
we know now was not true. And I'll get to
that in a minute. But in the meantime, detectives follow
up on that lead and they find nothing. He would eventually, however,
be charged with Carmen's murder after a slew of evidence
turned up, including DNA that was matched to Carmen from
that blood soaked trash can and towels that were found
inside of his vehicle. And they also had some surveillance
cameras from the Flying Jay and in Indianapolis showing Carmen
talking to men in Hall outside of his vehicle, his
eighteen wheeler. Now, there are many more victims connected in
one way or another to Bruce Menen Hall, but for
now we're going to focus on the convictions first, really
give you a good idea of why this guy was
dubbed the truck stop killer. So I'm going to go
into a timeline of all this just to keep you
posted on how things moved along. July twelfth of two
thousand and seven, he's arrested at that TA truck stop
in Nashville for the murder of Sarah Hulbert. Then a
little over two weeks later, he is charged with yet
another murder. This is on July twenty eighth of two
thousand and seven. And this murder charge is related to
yet someone else that I have not mentioned yet. And
her name is Greta Carter. So Lucille Greta Carter was
a forty four year old transit woman. She was murdered
in Birmingham, Alabama, in July two thousand and seven. Her
body was discovered nude and it was dumped near a
trash bend on a service road. She had been shot
with a twenty two caliber weapon and a plastic bag
was found over her head with duct tape around her.
Her DNA was actually found in the cab of Mendenhall's truck,
as well as some of her personal effects. So for
now just keep that in your back pocket, that he
was charged with her death. And incidentally, I do want
to mention there were several cases where they would find
these victims with a bag placed over their head that
was taped very tightly around their neck, and Detective pat
theorized that that was to keep them from bleeding out,
because meaning Mendon All would have to drive around with
these bodies in that sleeper section of that cab for
several days sometimes to hide them and to dump them.
So we move on to August seventeenth of two thousand
and seven, and he gets indicted in the death of
Samantha Winners. And on April tenth of two thousand and eight,
finally he gets charged in the murder of Carmen Papura
in Indiana, based off of the DNA found in the
trash bag of his truck. Primarily, so he is in
a world of shit. He has now been charged in
four murders and indicted in three, and he's in jail
awaiting trial. And in August of two thousand and eight,
he gets indicted again, but this time not for murders.
It's for solicitation of murder, basically murder for hire. When
an inmate rats him out for offering to pay fifteen
one thousand dollars to kill those three individuals that he
tried to blame for killing. All of these victims initially
as well as Detective Pat in his partner at Nashville PD,
so a total of five people. Now you may be
wondering where this guy is gonna get this kind of cash. Well,
while Bruce is sitting in prison, get this. He's a
waiting trial for all these murders. And his wife dies,
and apparently he had an old life insurance policy out
on his wife, and regardless of whether you are in
jail or not, you can still collect on that life insurance.
So he had the money to pay for these murders,
but these inmates writing him out. So the next significant
thing that occurs for Bruce is the trial on these
murder for higher charges. That's in January of twenty ten. Now,
surprisingly he be he eats the case regarding the two detectives,
Detective Pat and the partner. Apparently the prosecution could not
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was planning to
pay to have them killed, but it is commonly believed
that he was. He is however, found guilty of attempting
to hire someone to murder those three acquaintances that he
was blaming for all of this, and incidentally, they were
real people. They were actually people that Bruce Menenhall in
the past had had problems with from his hometown. And
he gets thirty years total at his trial for attempting
to hire someone to kill them. Now, next up is
the murder trial in the murder of Serholbert in twenty ten.
He gets convicted and he is sentenced to life in
prison for that murder. Then the next significant thing that
occurs in this case is in twenty eleven. Remember Karma
paper Well. Her remains were finally found in twenty eleven.
August fifteenth of twenty eleven, more than four years after
she disappeared. Apparently, her skeletal remains were found in a
steep ravine off the shoulder of a parkway in Barren County, Kentucky,
south of Louisville, and investigators recovered approximately thirty bones, including
her skull, which showed evidence of a fatal gunshot wound. Now,
at the time of the discovery, the remains were unidentified,
and some theorists initially speculated they might belong to a
Native American woman. However, they were identified as being the
remains of Karma, but that was not until twenty eighteen,
So they were discovered in twenty eleven, but at that
point nobody knew or nobody was able to definitively prove
that they they were Karma's remains. Not only that, but
also in twenty eighteen, he is convicted in Tennessee of
the first degree premeditated murder and abuse of a corpse
in the death of Samantha Winners, the first person we
covered today, and he is sentenced to life in prison
in that case. So in twenty twenty one, finally he
is transferred to Indiana to stand trial in the murder
of Karma Papura, but it would be a lengthy process,
likely due to the trials kind of coinciding with COVID
in the timing there, and it's not until January of
twenty twenty five, just last year, that at two day
trial takes place. This is in Marion County, Indiana, and
he is convicted on January twenty second of twenty twenty
five of the murder of Karma Papura after Jerry deliverers
of less than ninety minutes, So that tells you how
strong the evidence was there. And he is sentenced to
sixty five years in an Indiana prison for that crime. Now,
remember the Alabama case for Lucille Carter that I told
you about earlier in this podcast. Remember he was charged
in Alabama but never indicted. Welld de mended Hall's existing
sentences on June fifth of twenty twenty five. That case
is closed and the warrant was recalled without an indictment.
I personally disagree with that decision. It's my opinion that
this lady's life was no less worthy than anyone else's.
She deserved her day in court, Her family deserves their
day in court, so to speak. But it is what
it is now. As of today, Bruce Min is seventy
four years old. He's currently incarcerated at the Trialsdale Turner
Correctional Center. This is in Hartsville, Tennessee, and he remains
a suspect in multiple other cold cases across several states.
And I want to cover the facts of those quickly
because I think they are important. I just don't believe
that this guy decided, at fifty six years old to
be a serial killer. I believe this was going on
far earlier, and of course I have no direct evidence.
But here are some other murders that he is possibly
suspected in, and I'm going to put them in chronological order,
and we're going to start with Tammy Ziwiki and Tammy
Joe Siwiki was a vibrant twenty one year old. She
had a passion for soccer photography. She grew up in
a close knit family and she would eventually go to
Grennell College in Iowa, where she was entering her senior
year as a Spanish major. And she was also a
standout athlete on the college soccer team. And obviously, with
the way I started off her story, this was not
his mo later on, this was not a transient female.
This was someone with the hell of a future right well.
On the morning of August twenty third, nineteen ninety two,
Tammy set out from her family's home and she made
a stop in Evanston, Illinois. She wanted to drop off
her younger brother, Darren at Northwestern University. They part ways.
That's around name that day, and she continues in her
nineteen eighty five White Pontiac T one thousand. Those are
sporty hatchbacks, if you will. But one of the problems
with her Pontiac was it would overheat at times when
it was on the road too long, and she knew that,
and she was kind of prepared for it, but she
knew at some point I might have to pull over.
She was dressed casually for her drive. She had on
one of those college t shirts from her college, some
denim shorts, and flip flops. Now somewhere between Lesalle and Utica, Illinois,
trouble strikes witnesses would later report seeing Tammy pulled over
on the shoulder of the road. The hood of her
vehicle was up and it looked like she was dealing
with engine issues, and a tractor trailer was parked nearby,
and a man described as a white male in his
early forties, over six feet tall, dark bushy hair, was
spotted talking to her and it looked like he was
trying to be a good Samaritan, offering to help this
girl on the hot summer day. Right but that afternoon,
in Illinois, state trooper discovers her car abandoned. The keys
were still in the ignition, but Tammy was nowhere to
be found. Her side her cleats were there. Her camera,
a distinctive watch that she had with a soccer ball
face on it was missing, and she was missing, so
obviously there's a frantic search for Tammy. Her family and friends.
They refused to believe this girl just simply ran away.
There was no boyfriend, she was very into her schooling
and things like that. She didn't have distress in her life,
no reason for her to just often disappear. Authorities. Initially
it seemed like we're dragging their feet due to the
fact that, hey, maybe she just ran off despite what
the family told her. But on September one, some hunters
stumbled upon a body in a rural ditch along I
forty four in Springfield, Missouri. Now this is nearly five
hundred miles from where her car was found. The remains
were wrapped in a red plaid blanket and bound with
duct tape, and it was discarded. She was this poor
child was discarded like a piece of trash. An autopsy
would then reveal some pretty traumatic shit that Tammy and dirt.
She had been sexually assaulted. She had been stabbed seven times,
and in this stabbing, it was in a circle around her.
It looked like this person wanted to stab out her heart.
It also looked like she was possibly strangled to death.
So over the years, several names surface, and one of
those was Bruce Mendenhall. His routes aligned with the crime scenes,
both where she broke down and where she was dumped,
but he was never charged in that case. Now, to me,
there's some problems with the profile. She just doesn't fit
the profile of how Mendenhall operated. But a lot of
people think he had something to do with this because
of the proximity to the route that he was working
at that time. And I'm gonna tell you about Belinda Cartwright,
and we're going to go to two thousand and one.
But Belinda Cartwright was born on January nineteenth, nineteen sixty
five in Georgia. She grew up in a close knit family,
but she had some mental illness in her life that
would lead her down a pretty rough road. She would
wander the highways, often hitchhiking with truckers that she trusted.
And in late winter of February twenty second of two
thousand and one, she was thirty six years old, and
Belinda finds herself at a truck stop. This is in
Loundess County, Georgia, just outside of Valdosta. She had been
riding with a truck driver in a black flatbed semi
truck marked young brothers on the side. Now, she stepped
out to gather her belongings from the cab. The driver
suddenly put away and he leaves her behind. So she's
pretty desperate, and Belinda jumps onto the running board and
she pounds on the windshield and she's begging this guy
to stop. And Whennesses later will report seeing the chaotic
scene unfold, the truck was swerving as it hit a curb,
trying to knock her off of the truck. This caused
her to las her grip and fall underneath the truck
in the rear wheels. The massive tires would crush her instantly,
but the driver never even slowed down, sped off into
the distance without so much as a glance backward. She
had no idea on her body. All her possessions were
still in the truck, and authorities would later identify her
through fingerprints as Blended Cartwright. That trucker was never found
and the case just kind of stalled. But here's something
really sad. No one in her family was notified of
her death. For six agonizing years, her siblings were searching
for Belinda. They would call hospitals, shelters, and police agencies,
fearing the worst right but holding on to hope. And
it wasn't until the truth would emerge from Social Security
records that the family would not only learn her fate,
but also locate her pauper's grave. This was in Sunset
Hills Cemetery in Georgia, and it was marked by a
simple headstone that simply read Belinda Gaale Courtwright. Now, the
composite sketch from Belinda's case bore a striking resemblance to Menenhall,
and his mo would fit this particular person. He preyed
on hitchhikers and prostitutes, and the circumstances just kind of
aligned here, especially because of the fact that it was
a runover killing, because he would be linked to another
runover killing later on, and I'll get into that in
just a second, but he was never formally charged in
Belinda's death. Now, let's talk about Deborah and Glover. She
was a forty three year old from Atlanta, Georgia, and
little is publicly documented about her early years. We did
know that she was involved in sex work. So on
the morning of January twenty ninth, two thousand and seven,
Deborah found herself at a Motel six in Swanee, Georgia,
which is about thirty miles outside of Atlanta. And this part,
this drag that she was found in was peppered with
truck stops. Police find her at a Motel six. She
was shot multiple times with a twenty two caliber pistol.
Her body left discarded behind the motel near a truck
stop in Deborah's body was found nude. Now, trucking logs
that were investigated later after the arrest of Mendenhall would
confirm he was in Georgia on that day, and his
routes would align perfectly with that Motel six's location, say,
nearly two decades later, in twenty twenty six, right now
when I'm recording this, her murder remains officially unsolved, though
Mendenhall is still to this day considered the prime suspect
in her murder. And a few more here that I
want to talk about. Sherry Drinkard. Her body was found
February twenty second, two thousand and seven, at a Tha
truck stop in Lake Station, Indiana. She was found naked,
She was discarded in a snow embankment, and her cause
of death was shot to the head, which was a
method consistent with Mendenhall's other confirmed victims. Now During his
his initial police interviews, men in Hall reportedly told Nashville
investigators that he knew Drinkard and admitted to being in
the Lake Station area around the time of her death.
He didn't admit to killing her, but you know, totality
of circumstances and the timing two thousand and seven. He
killed a lot of people in two thousand and seven.
Let's go to really less than two weeks later, and
I'm gonna tell you about Letitia Milligan, who was twenty
seven years old. She was last heard from on March
fourteenth of two thousand and seven. At that time, she
was living in a homeless camp none his tenth City
in Nashville, Tennessee, and although she remains a missing person,
investigators did find a positive DNA match for her blood
inside the cab of Bruce men Inhall's truck following his
two thousand and seven arrests Now. Despite the blood evidence,
men in Hall has never been charged formally with her
murder because there's no body, they're not quite sure where
she's at. But considering the timeline of these two, in
the locations they were both in Tennessee, the lifestyles match,
I would say there's better than a ninety five percent
chance Bruce Meninhall killed both of those ladies. And I
got one more for you if you can believe that.
And I'm gonna tell you about Robin Bishop. She was
a woman in her early forties. She was known to
frequent truck stops along major highways and engage in sex
work to make her ends meet. And that's exactly the
type of person Bruce men in All hunted. Right on
a sweltering afternoon in July of two thousand and seven
July first to be exact, Robin was at the Flying
Jay truck stop in Fairview, Tennessee, and witnesses would later
report seeing a chaotic scene. A truck suddenly accelerates from
that truck stop, strikes Robin and runs over her with
the eighteen wheeler tires. The impact alone was fatal and
her body was absolutely crushed. That's important to mention. He
has not been formally charged in Robin's murder, but he
does remain the prime suspect in that case. And unbelievable
the amount of cases that are linked to him that
he's still not been or still not had to answer
for as of yet. And that's all I got for
you today. Thank you so much for listening. Check out
the Patreon Patreon dot com slash Bloody and Goal of podcasts,
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you can find us and support us if you would
like to do so. Next week I'll be back with
another edition of fifty Shades of Evil. We're going to
be going to another state, decided exactly where yet, but
I promise you you'll enjoyed the content that I bring you.
Until next time for Bloody and GOA. I'm your host,
Jim Chapman, much.
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