FBI database links long-haul truckers, serial killings

LA Times ^ | April 5, 2009 | Scott Glover

[zaphod3000]

The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the last three decades.

Federal authorities first made the connection about five years ago while helping police link a trucker to a string of unsolved killings along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and several other states. After that, the FBI launched the Highway Serial Killings Initiative to track suspicious slayings and suspect truckers.

A computer database maintained by the FBI has grown to include information on more than 500 female crime victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies discarded at truck stops, motels and other locations along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.

[zaphod3000]

Red dots on the map above supplied by the FBI mark the locations of hundreds of bodies and human remains discovered along highways over the past three decades

[zaphod3000]

Sorry if this has been posted before . . . searched and didn’t see it.

[dr_who]

Ich.

[conservative cat]

I wonder how much brainpower that theory took.

They were looking at truckers as possible suspects in the Green River killings a long time ago. Turns out he only PAINTED the trucks.

[umgud]

From the looks of the map, the east has most of the dots.

[Riverine]

Haven’t countless movies and weekly crime shows been made on this subject?

[Clintons Are White Trash]

Scary stuff!

[autumnraine]

Alot of produce moved from Florida up the coast to airports.

[Parley Baer]

Saw a story on the FBI Files on this very subject. Trucker was picking up woman and killing them. Had a torture chamber in his sleeper. Took awhile to track him down. Very chilling story. This looks to be more common than I had thought.

[Candor7]

We hav an I 91 truck stop about 12 miles away.Its the first major Southbound Truck Stop out of Canada.

The girls have CB units and they hook up and ride with truckers by having their friends drop em off.

Dangerous business.

[Cicero]

Certainly very interesting. But as usual, I can’t see that the FBI deserves much credit.

Over 500 victims, but only a few people have been caught.

Of those, one was caught when his girlfriend confessed. Another was caught when the parents of a 15-year old found him in their house about to stab their daughter. It’s not clear in the third case mentioned whether credit goes to the FBI or a police detective.

I’m not saying that this database isn’t a useful tool, but it doesn’t look as if the success rate is very high so far.

[antiunion person]

It's freaking bad enough that truckers get blamed for most things but now....... California won't let truckers idle their trucks for over 5 minutes, no matter how hot or cold it is due to carbon dioxide pollution. We can't drive over 55 mph in California but cars can do 70 and let me see, oh yeah, that causes rear end collisions that truckers are blamed for. When truckers are involved in wrecks, over 80% of the time, it's caused by cars. (But you never hear that). People blame truckers for causing traffic jams because we don't have the get up and go a car has.
NOW, for God's sake, they claim to associate murders with truckers. People just don't realize that everything, I mean EVERTHING, everyone has, i.e.; cars, food, clothing, just the necessities of life, has been in or on a truck. Stop blaming truckers for everything bad in the world and just thank one someday. I thank soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airman all the time, but it would be nice to have someone thank a trucker for doing what we do under adverse conditions and separated from our families in the process.

[SpaceBar]

In the southwestern states there tends to be a strong North/South trend.

[conservativeharleyguy]

"...Haven’t countless movies and weekly crime shows been made on this subject?..."

"Suspect Zero", is an excellent example. Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley put on great performances in this psychic thriller (although, maybe I'm partial 'cause it was filmed in NM).

[rabidralph]

[Clint Williams]

We need more safety for our daughters. Register every long-haul trucker -- name, face, address, fingerprints and DNA. Update these every year.

Of, and mandate RFID chip implants too.

0.5 / sarc

[JasonC]

Um, over the last 30 years, 590,000 people have been murdered in the US. That's a long time, you see. At this moment, there are 1.86 million truck drivers (heavy tractor trailers only, not local light delivery trucks), or roughly 1.2% of all jobs, 0.6% of the total population (including kids etc). That means purely statistically, if there is no difference between a trucker and anybody else, you'd expect around 5000 to 6000 murders to have been committed by truckers over the last 30 years. The true figure is probably less than that, because (employed) truckers are probably more law abiding that your average yute in the cities. But there is no reason to suppose serial anything about it, nor for that matter to assume trucker anything about it, since oh about 80 times as many people drive.

In short, this is a crazy fantasy of nutjobs with too much time on their hands...

[bpjam]

long haul trucker - serial killer.

Having seen that in more than, hmmmm....at least three different hollywood movies. How ever did the FBI figure that out???

[Ouderkirk]

It would seem to me that a theory such as this is not exactly a stretch.

Let me see if I have this straight: Tens of thousands of men on the road alone with thousands of hours each of time un-accounted for. Would not be too much of a reach to suggest that there may be a few serial killers among this lot. But more to the point, these are more likely crimes of opportunity that happen in a similar fashion from a broader group of individuals.

Applying simple probability to such a large and transient group of individuals, will yield at least a few that are a part of a pattern, and more that match a pattern that are random and unrelated.

Also, if one were to commit a murder of a prostitute, why wouldn’t one dispose of the body where it would point to a group that is transient? Easy deflection of suspicion.