105. The Freeway Phantom Murders
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. All right, this week we're jumping right into Garrett's 10 seconds. Look at me, I'm all special today. Let's see, what's been going on? Well, I got a haircut today. But you can't see it. But you can't see it because I had on. Sometimes it's just too hard to do your hair.

You know, girls just don't understand. You know what I'm saying? Oh, okay. Yeah. I know. Such a struggle for you boys. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, I got a haircut today and we are actually Thursday. We're going to a podcast conference. We're kind of excited about that. Yeah, I'm really excited. That'll be pretty fun. We're supposed to be like speaking. So yeah, we'll just be on like a panel. See how that goes. It'll be pretty fun. Yeah. We'll keep you guys updated on our social media though. Cause I think there should be some other podcasters there. Then that will be fun.

I've been doing some more modifications to my truck. Oh, yes. Well, not yet, but I've been buying stuff. So if anyone wants to see that, I mean, I'll probably post it in like a couple weeks when everything's done on my Instagram. You don't have to come watch, but you should. Other than that, we've kind of just been busy this week. We were traveling, visiting some family.

And now here we are recording. And then we leave in a day or two. Back to back to back. Back to back to back. So that's my 10 seconds. So I guess we'll just hop into the episode today. Great. Yeah, let's go. So our case sources are...

MPDC.com, unresolved.com and then case file podcast actually did a great in-depth episode on this. And that was amazing. If you want to check it out, Wikipedia, wikitree.com, findagrave.com, the Washington post W U S a nine.com. And there was actually a book written on this that I use to get some research from the innocenceproject.org researchgate.net and encyclopedia.com. Okay.

All right. So from April 1971 to September 1972, six young black girls all around the same age were abducted from their own neighborhoods and then murdered in Washington, D.C. Holy crap. All of their bodies were found in both the District of Columbia and Prince George's County, Maryland.

Despite there being six victims, an obvious serial killer, and all the girls identified, these murders have still gone unsolved. No way. A serial killer roaming free after brutally abducting and killing six young girls. So until this day? Until this day. Wow.

The media had dubbed this unknown serial killer as the Freeway Phantom. And in hopes of raising awareness, sparking interest, and honoring the victims,

I'm going to tell you the story of the Freeway Phantom murders today. Now, I want to note before we start that I will be referring to the victim's race in this story as black because I'm not able to find or ask if they are African-American. And I know that black and African-American are not always interchangeable. So as a default, I will be using black to describe the race. So our case begins on April 21st, 1971.

Carol Denise Spinks lived at 1058 Whaler Place and was in the seventh grade at Johnson Junior High School. Carol was actually one of eight children, and her siblings all called her Bebe instead of Carol. In an article from 2019 by People Magazine, Carol's sisters, Carolyn Morris and Evander Spinks,

Remember that young Carol loved to play jacks and hula hoops. She was just very fun to be around. So that night, April 21st, 1971, Carol's mother, Allentine, decided to visit an aunt in Brentwood, which is in Maryland. And that was leaving Carol and her younger siblings home alone for the night. And they were instructed to stay inside the home and they were absolutely to go nowhere while their mom was out.

Carol's 24-year-old sister Valerie actually lived in the same apartment complex as her family, just in a different apartment because she's 24. And so there were adults nearby, a sister right next door if the kids needed help. But despite the rules, after Allentine left, sources say that Carol was asked by her older sister Valerie to walk down to the 7-Eleven on Wheeler Road and buy some snacks for the night.

The 7-Eleven was only four blocks away and they had made this walk many times before. They all actually wanted five TV dinners, some bread and some soda. So Carol decided to quickly begin the trek to 7-Eleven and according to the Case File episode on this case, she actually ran into her mother on the way to the 7-Eleven. The mother who just told her not to leave the house.

So her mom, you know, obviously said, don't leave the apartment. And then she runs into her while sneaking over to the 7-Eleven. When Carol explained what she was doing and that her older sister Valerie had just sent her, Allentine, her mother, was like, OK, hurry along and go grab this stuff. But you are still in trouble and go home after and do not leave the house until I'm home.

Alan teen says goodbye to her daughter and then continues on with her night as Carol continues on her journey to the gas station. You know, I was thinking about it, a six minute walk. Is that what you said? Four blocks away, four blocks away. Okay. That's, that's not far. It's not pretty close. Yeah. But as the time passes and Carol is taking longer and longer than what you're saying, four blocks should take, um,

Valerie, the older sister, begins to worry. Then slowly, it's been three painful hours since Carol originally left for the 7-Eleven four blocks away and she still hasn't come home. By this point, Valerie has alerted friends and family and everyone in the complex begins searching for her, tracking the way to the 7-Eleven and home.

Family actually contacted the 7-Eleven and asked if Carol had been there, and the employees informed them that yes, they had seen a girl matching Carol's description in the store earlier that night around 7:40 p.m. This confirms to her family that she had in fact made it to the 7-Eleven after running into her mom. So what happened on her way home? Where was she?

As there is no sign of Carol on the route to 7-Eleven and she's now been missing for hours, Allentine decided to call the police and report Carol missing. As police begin the investigation into Carol's disappearance, they discover that the last time she had been seen was leaving the 7-Eleven that night with grocery bags in her hand.

It was actually a teenager and her mother who noticed Carol walking back home and they told police. Around 40 members from the community and the whole Spinks family continued searching the surrounding area for days and knocked on anyone and everyone's door. But still, there was no sign or clue as to where young Carol was. As the search continued on, something was discovered on May 1st, 1971, 10 days after Carol went missing.

Around 2.46 p.m., a group of children were playing near a grassy embankment behind St. Elizabeth's Hospital, which was located next to the northbound lanes of Interstate 295. The embankment was about a mile and a half away from Carol's home, so not far. One of the children wandered away from the group and accidentally stumbled across something laying in the embankment.

The young child called over their friends, but no one would get close enough to see what it actually was. They all ran back up to the road and actually eventually flagged down a passing police car to tell them about the strange thing laying down in the embankment. The policeman made his way down to the area and confirmed his worst fears. It was the body of a young girl, the body of missing Carol Spinks.

Carol had been strangled and sexually assaulted. She had cuts to her face, neck, chest, and both hands, as well as a bloody nose. She was definitely beaten. Police actually found green synthetic fibers on Carol's clothing. And while she was completely dressed when she was found,

Carol was missing her blue tennis shoes that she had been wearing when she went missing. So she's dressed head to toe, just no shoes. I was thinking about it too, because she went missing. She had groceries in her hand. Like, did he take the groceries too? You know, like, it just seems like,

To take everything, it would be hard. Right. Because how many bags did she have? How many bags? And then he has to get her and the groceries. Or something falls out. Right. And does he have to go back for it? There's just so many scenarios. Yeah. So Carol actually had the same gym shorts and red sweater that she left the house in 10 days earlier on. Yeah.

Based on the position her body was found, police theorized that she was either thrown down into the embankment from the freeway or dragged there. She hadn't been carried. And to think that someone just threw her body out of the car and it rolled down into the embankment is really disturbing. Yeah.

An autopsy determined that she had been dead for only two to three days, but were 10 days from when she went missing, which suggested that she had been alive, you know, since the night that she disappeared. There was citrus fruit in Carol's stomach remains, but her family confirmed that they did not have any citrus fruit at home and Carol hadn't eaten any of the day she was missing. An autopsy

And all of this confirmed that Carol didn't just go missing that night. She was abducted, kidnapped, beaten, abused, and murdered, then dumped so carelessly a mile and a half away from her home. This was cruel and evil and incomprehensible for Carol's family. Around this time, 1971, there was a young female police officer named Romaine Jenkins on the force who was just driven and brilliant.

But she was stuck when it came to kind of ranking up in the Academy because it's 1971 and she was a woman. But

But when Carol's body was found and police realized that a young girl had been kidnapped off the streets and murdered, it was kind of an all hands on deck attitude. So Romaine Jenkins, who had been wanting to be transferred over to the homicide unit for a while, was actually assigned to work this case. Romaine had been pushing and edging her way into homicide very slowly, kind of using her spare time to work on cases, really having to earn it when other people weren't.

The problem is there was and never had been a female officer in this specific department that was allowed to work on homicide.

And because of Carol's cases and the cases to come, Romaine Jenkins would go on to be the first female assigned to the homicide unit. About two months later, a young girl named Darlenea Denise Johnson was on her way to her summer job on July 8th, 1971, when she never showed up. It

It had been 68 days since Carol's body was found. Darlene was supposed to be going to the Oxen Run Recreation Center where she was going to work an event. It was actually a sleepover for kids in the neighborhood and she was a little bit older so she was kind of helping run the event at the rec center. After some

saying goodbye to her mother, she had left for work that evening wearing a green sweater, blue blouse, blue shorts, and a red, white, and blue striped miniskirt.

And like I said, she never made it. So what were the age differences between her and Carol? They're both in like their preteen years, like high school to middle school level. The biggest red flag about this whole situation was not that Darlenea had not shown up for work that night.

Okay. Okay.

It took a while for Darlene's disappearance to be reported because she was supposed to sleep at the rec center that night for work, so her parents didn't realize she was missing until the next day. It was only after calling the rec center and discovering that Darlene had actually never even shown up the night before that her parents realized something had happened to her while walking to work, and it was while walking the same road that Carol had when she was abducted.

As police are called in and they connect the dots and feel deja vu from the similarities between the two cases, they are on edge. Carol's murder was bad enough. The community was still healing. Police still were no closer to finding justice for her and her family. And now another girl goes missing. Another girl is abducted off the street.

Police discover from one witness that they believe they saw Darlene that night in an old black car that was being driven by a black male shortly after her abduction. This sighting was more than they had in Carol's case, but it still got them nowhere. Four days later, on July 12th, another teenager, 14-year-old Angela Denise Bollinger,

It just seems so weird that all these would happen so close to each other. And I don't mean area, I mean time frame. Right. It had only been four days since Darlene was abducted and now another girl has gone missing. Even nine weeks. Right. Like that just seems very, very odd. It doesn't seem normal.

I mean, I know none of this is normal, but it doesn't seem normal for a serial killer or something of that sort. I think it's kind of quickly spiraling into a frenzy. Police are kind of like, what is going on? I think, wouldn't you like be in that area? Like if this was happening this much, like, okay, we should probably just chill in that area for a bit. Right. I think you would be, but we're going to go on to learn that the police were kind of slow while all of this was happening. Yeah.

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Just two days later, on July 14th, 1971, Angela Barnes's body is discovered. But there was some differences between Carol and Angela's murder that once you know the whole story kind of seemed major, but her being only the second body found at the time wouldn't have stood out as bad as it will right now. The first was that Angela had been shot to death. She was also found with her shoes on.

But she did live in the same area as Carol and Darlenea. She was around the same age and she had the same physical appearance as them. So it's not weird that police kind of lumped all three girls together.

Five days later, on July 19, 1971, around 5.30 p.m., and 11 days after she went missing, Darlenea's badly decomposed body is found by Police Sergeant Charles Baden on the grassy embankment next to the northbound lanes of Interstate 295.

She was found just 15 feet away from where Carol Spink's body was dumped. - So now we have three girls, three deaths, all dumped within 11 weeks?

Something like that? Yeah, but Angela's body wasn't dumped on the same embankment as Darlenea and Carol's. Okay, got it. Darlenea, like Carol, was completely dressed, but her shoes were missing. Her body was too badly decomposed, though, to tell the cause of death or if there had been sexual assault, like in Carol's case. They did, however, find evidence of strangulation, so they assume that she probably was strangled to death, just like Carol. Oh, gosh.

Okay. And as a listener right now, you're probably like, why did it take 11 days to find Darlenia if she was only 15 feet down from where Carol was found? That's true. I didn't even think about that. But I'm going to make the situation and the lack of response even worse right now. Apparently, according to detective Romaine Jenkins, who was barely working the case and pretty low on the food chain at the time, the

The same day that Angela had been abducted from Safeway, two calls had come into the police department about a possible body in the same embankment where Carol was found. But Darlene's body wasn't recovered until 11 days later. So they were ignored.

Yes. In an interview with the Washington Post, Detective Romaine Jenkins went on to later say that a D.C. Department of Highways and Traffic employee had actually had car trouble back on July 12th, 1971, and pulled over a long I-295. When he got out, he saw what he believed to be a body or a mannequin down in the ravine and decided to call the D.C. police just to check it out.

That same day, police also got an anonymous call about a body dumped in the embankment along 295. So two calls about a body and then another missing girl in the same day who turned out to be Angela. Police dispatched two officers out to the embankment along 295 after receiving the calls.

but the officers just drove slowly along the side of the road and looked down into the embankment. They didn't even get out of the car, and they claimed that they didn't see anything. Seven days after the two calls, the original D.C. Department of Highways and Traffic employee, who had called in the first place, actually drove back out to the spot on the embankment and noticed that the body he saw was still there. He was so infuriated that he called the department back

and eventually talked to Sergeant Charles Baden. He was like, I demand to talk to someone in charge. I'm confused why that would just be ignored. Charles Baden actually went on to corroborate what Roman Jenkins claims that police ignored these two calls because he remembers the second phone call very clearly from the highway employee who once again explained where the body was to them. He said on the freeway opposite 295, just north of Bowling Air Force Base.

After the call, Sergeant Charles Baden got on his motorcycle and drove along the shoulder until he found the body, which ended up being Darlenea. Police have since noted that the anonymous call from July 12th, the same day that the call from Charles Baden came in, was most likely placed by the killer or someone who knew that the murder had happened because it was too specific.

But since it had been so long since that call happened, it's almost impossible to learn anything more about it. Yeah, I'm trying to think right now, like if I was somewhere and I saw a body, if I would call anonymously. Right. Or if I would call and say my name. Right. I think maybe because you're like. I think I'd be a little freaked out.

And so, I mean, I want to be suspect number one, but I think I'd probably just say my name, especially if I didn't do it. Right. I mean, granted, I could always be blamed. Right. Right. But I just don't know. I don't know if I would be in the right headspace to be thinking ahead of I could be blamed for this. Yeah. And I'm not going to tell my name. And they asked my name. I think it's a oh, my name's Garrett. The body must have been pretty visible because Charles is.

found it and so did the highway worker. So maybe it was just someone random who had a warrant out but was a good civilian. You know what I mean? That's true too. I guess that's true. Like if I had a warrant or if I was a suspect or if I was on parole or something like that. But you're still a good person, you might just call. That's true. Then I probably wouldn't say my name. Right. We also need to note here that police probably would have been able to determine more about the crime if

if they had gotten to Delenia's body sooner, like maybe on the 12th when they were notified about it twice.

The heat in D.C. in the summertime was speeding up the decomposition process very badly. I think it goes without saying here, but I'll reiterate for everyone. The detective Romaine Jenkins, who was somewhat on the force and working this case, is completely right in accusing the police of dropping the ball here.

Eight days later, on July 27th, 1971, 10-year-old Brenda Faye Crockett is abducted while walking to the Safeway grocery store. What is going? First of all.

Safeway ain't very safe. Apparently not. And second of all, like what? This many girls? And this store is, again, just five blocks away from her home. She was running to buy bread and pet food for the family dogs and sent to the store by her mother, Ritha, around 8 p.m.,

Before we go blaming people other than the kidnapper here, I do want to say that this was completely normal behavior in this area during this time. And they didn't really know the dangers of the world like we do now. Kids often ran errands for their parents, especially if it was in walking distance. The Safeway was located in the 1900 block of 14th Street Northwest.

Brenda Crockett left her house barefoot and in pink foam curlers and had asked her mom if her friend could walk with her to the grocery store like they had done many times before. And Ritha said yes, but the friend actually ended up not being able to go. So Brenda Crockett just left on her own. After an hour, her friends and family made their way out into the summer night to look for the 10 year old.

At 9.20 p.m., the Crockett's house phone rings, but only Brenda Crockett's seven-year-old sister is home as everyone else is out searching for her. Her sister answers the phone, and according to her, it was Brenda Crockett on the other line. She was crying, and she told her sister that, quote, a white man had snatched her up.

She explains that she's somewhere in Virginia, but is heading home in a cab. And keep in mind, this is a 10-year-old talking to a 7-year-old. Okay. So...

This is a very complicated conversation already. When family stopped by the house while in the middle of looking for Brenda Crockett, her little sister told them about the call she had just had with her. And roughly 20 minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, her stepfather slash mother's boyfriend answered the phone. And again, it was missing Brenda Crockett.

She told him that she was taken by a white man and did not know where she was. According to police records, while on the phone, she asked her stepfather the question, did my mother see me? Her stepfather was confused and asked her how her mother could have seen her if she was in Virginia right now. When Brenda Crockett couldn't explain, he asked her to put the man on the phone who took her. He's like, let me talk to the man who took you.

Her stepfather then heard loud, heavy footsteps and then Brenda Crockett whispered, "Well, I'll see you soon," and hung up the phone. Oh, I can't do that. Police initially didn't know what to make of these calls, and so they figured that maybe it was an attempt to distract them from what was actually happening,

but romaine jenkins came up with her own theory she thinks that perhaps the killer actually knew brenda crockett's mother and feared that she somehow saw him with her so he made her call home to figure it out because why let her call home twice like that's really weird if this is true this means that the killer probably lived in the same area or worked nearby

I also noted that if he was forcing her to make these calls, maybe he insisted that she say he was a different race because her clarifying that he was a white man twice as a 10 year old just seems weird, especially to her seven year old sister. It's not like her seven year old sister asked, hey, can you describe who took you? You know what I mean? So maybe she was being forced to say that.

The next morning, July 28th, 1971, a hitchhiker stumbled upon Brenda Crockett's dead body on a grassy shoulder alongside John Hanson Highway in Chevrolet near the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Maryland. So we're at four girls now. Yes. Yes.

This body was in Prince George's County. And so now another unit is involved in the case. Brenda Crockett had been strangled, sexually assaulted, and had all of her clothes on except her shoes. So this is now three of the four girls have had all three of those things happen. She too had green synthetic fibers on her clothing. But the only thing that was different is she also had a scarf tied, like knotted around her neck. Yeah.

Romaine Jenkins made her way over to the scene and noted that Brenda Crockett's feet were incredibly clean, almost like someone had washed them. Because remember, her feet are the only thing that are bare. I mean, that's the only missing article of clothing there.

And it looked like they were really clean. And as we know, staging a body can be a sign of remorse or an attempt to get rid of evidence. It could also give us a look into a killer's psyche, maybe an obsessive compulsive behavior or fixation on cleanliness. And you're not going to get this joke, but for everyone else, where is Spencer Reed when we need him? He could probably tell us what this means.

Nearly one month goes by before the next abduction. It was October 1st, 1971, when Nina Moshea Yates is taken on her way to once again... Good old Safeway, am I right? Yes, a Safeway store. But keep in mind, this is once again a different Safeway. Okay. This Safeway store was just down the street from where she lived. Like literally both her house and the store are on the same road. Wow.

At the time, Nina Moshe's mother was in the hospital after just delivering a baby, and her father, a construction worker named William Yates, was at home with her and her younger sibling. That night, he needed to run back to the hospital to check on his wife and new baby, so he asked Nina Moshe to run to the store down the street for sugar, flour, and paper plates.

She left in brown shorts, a sweatshirt, and white tennis shoes. When William came home from the hospital and Nina Moshe was still not back from the store, he began calling friends and family before eventually walking down to the Safeway himself to look for her. He confirms with the store employees that she did actually make it and buy the things that she went for. But when he walks back outside, he notices something devastating. Aw.

all of the items that he sent her there for were strewn across the ground outside of the store. - And that's what I was talking about on the first kidnapping. - Yeah, like where did the items go on the first one? - Like where did the other items go on the first one? - Maybe he took them, but on this one, it just wasn't worth the time. I don't know.

But just three hours later, her body was found on Pennsylvania Avenue. Three hours. So it's almost like it's escalating. Yes, exactly. And I totally thought that while researching the first time he kept the girl alive for a while before killing her. And this time it was almost like he kidnapped her.

and then immediately killed her. Nina Moshe did not have her shoes on once again and the same green fibers were found on her clothing. This makes me think that whatever he's wrapping or transporting the bodies in is the same material every time and it keeps getting on their clothes. Her body was still warm when the hitchhiker found her.

Some loose change, a bag of sugar, and her house key was scattered near her body. She too had been sexually assaulted and then strangled, but this time strangled with such force that her esophagus was broken. A witness came forward and said that they saw Nina Moshe getting into a blue Volkswagen with a Maryland license plate.

Over 25 blue Volkswagen cars were seized in a search for the perpetrator, but it led nowhere. At this point, police believe that Nina Moshe was the fourth victim in an abduction murder plot done by a serial killer. And I know you're thinking, wait, this is the fifth.

But they figured that Angela Barnes went missing during the same time, but because she was shot and her shoes were on, it was unrelated to this exact string of murders. I don't think so. You don't think so? No. Here's my thing. Like, I mean, I guess...

I don't know. What are the chances? Right. But there seems to be a pretty obvious pattern. The shoes are always missing. There's green fibers on the body and they're always strangled. She's the only one who had shoes on, was shot, and had no green fibers on her body. Well, I guess, I mean, something could have gone wrong. Yes. Something could have happened. She could have fought back. She was in the same area. She's the same. She's the exact victim profile. Yeah, I think it's probably...

The same person. Okay, we'll get there. Okay. A larger task force was formed at this point that included detectives from neighboring Prince George County, as well as the Maryland State Police and the FBI. After this fourth or fifth, according to Garrett, victim, the media also begins reporting on the case. And it was the first time that the unsub was dubbed the freeway phantom because all of the

bodies were being dumped on the side of roads, usually a freeway. And if you're on YouTube, you'll see the picture. But if you look at the location of where the bodies are dumped on a map, it literally makes a line down the freeway. I don't understand. Like, I know it's so much harder than, than I think it is, but how is this guy not found if it's all in the same area? We're on four, according to Garrett, five people now, five girls, five

And this is what I was saying about the beginning. I mean, all of them are identified. It's not like they're Jane Doe's. We all know their last whereabouts. We know their name. We know where they go to school. We know they all are in the same area. And half of them are going the freaking safe way. And do we even have one clue? Not really. We have basically one eyewitness account. And who knows if that's even correct? Yeah. Okay, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work.

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A month later on November 15th, 1971, a girl named Brenda Denise Woodard is abducted after moving out to live on her own due to a minor disagreement with her parents. But at the time of the kidnapping, they were on talking terms and they maintained contact and had been visiting each other. Brenda Woodard is in high school. This specific day, her father dropped her off at Cordozo High School for evening classes in typing and shorthand skills.

After class, she went to a place called Ben's Chili Bowl with a friend to get something to eat. And

And then after dinner, this classmate, who would have typically driven Brenda Woodard home, but their car was in the shop, so they just together took the city bus and eventually said goodbye around 11.30 p.m. while she was waiting for another bus to come get her so she could finish her way home. She was last seen at this bus stop on 8th and 8th Street Northeast. The next day, around 5 a.m., Brenda Woodard's body is found on the shoulder of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

She was found by Chevrolet police officer David Norman, who was out conducting a routine patrol. I understand. And this is the next day. This is crazy. So at this point, to me, this perp is definitely dumping them in a place that they are easily going to be found. He's not going to any effort to try and hide the body. Yeah, I feel like he just doesn't care. I think at this point,

He feels like I can get away with anything I want. Right. No one will ever catch me. Right. The officer reports that he shown his flashlight into her eyes to see if there was life, but she didn't even blink. She did nothing. Brenda Woodard had been stabbed four times. So this is the first stabbing. So this is why I think it's the same person because she,

You don't think it's that weird that they've crossed over? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it's that weird that it's crossed over. So she was stabbed four times, sexually assaulted, and strangled. Okay. But she had defensive wounds on her hands suggesting that she fought back. Okay.

So Peyton, my personal belief is that because she was older, she put up much more of a fight than the other girls. So he had to stab her, which he didn't want to do, but he needed to control her. He likes to strangle, which is why he still strangled her after he stabbed her. Brenda Woodard's burgundy coat was found draped over her and her turtleneck was inside out, which leads them to believe she was redressed like most of the other victims.

Buttons were actually missing from her coat and her skirt. But Brenda Woodard still had on her black boots. So she had her shoes, even though the MO of the killer has been to take the shoes. Police found two hairs, one from African-American descent and one from Caucasian descent. There was no DNA testing back in 1971. They also found a note from the killer in Brenda's coat pocket.

It read, this is tantamount to my insensitivity, which was spelled wrong, to people, especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me if you can. Freeway Phantom.

So he's totally doing it on purpose. Yes. And does not care. Right. What a psycho. I don't even know how to explain somebody like that. A note like that. Yeah. For those fellow people out there who didn't know what tantamount means, it means equivalent in seriousness to or virtually the same as. So basically he said, I am doing this because I hate women. That's basically what his note says.

The note was written on a piece of paper cut from Brenda Woodard's school notebook that she was carrying. It appeared as if the note was written in Brenda Woodard's own handwriting, like whoever had done this had forced her to write it.

At this point, a tip line is created by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for the Freeway Phantom murders, which Romaine Jenkins once again admits was an extremely late reaction from authorities. It took till the fifth murder.

Roadblocks were set up and press conferences held about the murders where police released a lot of information to the public about the killer and their M.O. saying that they don't have their shoes on, that he likes to strangle, that he dumps them by the freeway. And while I understand that releasing information to the public is important and is something we as true crime listeners love,

At the same time, you're now making it very easy for people to have false confessions because they know every detail. You also are giving the ability for copycat murders. Like, oh, if I just do it the same way, then maybe it'll get blamed on them and not me.

Between the months of November and December 1971, a psychologist named Dr. Sheldon Frood worked with the police and pointed out that three of the five victims so far had the middle name Denise. I thought it was six. There is six in total. We've only covered five unless you're including Angela, then we've covered six. Oh, so there's still one more. So technically there's seven.

Okay. Yes. Okay. Got it. And I don't know if you noticed that three of them have had the middle name Denise. No, they did not. But as I was researching, I kept getting confused because I didn't know this until later. And I was like, wait, what?

And then there's been two Brenda's. So I was like, wait, I'm so confused. But this psychologist points this out. And so a warning is issued to any black women with the name Denise. Oh my gosh. They were like, be warned. This guy might be targeting Denise's because three of the five victims so far have had the middle name Denise. Yeah.

Police asked for any young girls who had experienced any close calls recently to come forward. Whether it was someone tried to take them or maybe tried to get them to follow them, whatever it was, please come forward and tell. Within four days of opening the tip line, police received 4,000 calls. Holy crap. Primarily from women reporting suspicious vehicles and being offered rides or harassed verbally, which if that does

tell you what a woman has to go through daily. That's crazy. I don't know what does. Some theories of the person or the perp being a school teacher or working in education came out because how would they have known the middle name was Denise if they didn't have access to records? Or he's very, very close with everybody in

Yes, in this area.

or had been picked up on a different charge and was sitting in prison. But then, on September 5th, 1972, all of that changed. 17-year-old Diane Denise Williams, a senior at Bayou High School, was abducted while walking home from the bus stop. Diane, I can't believe that. Another Denise. So, this is obvious that this is what he's doing. Or,

Or the fact that they released that to the public now created a copycat murder. Yeah, true. That evening, she had cooked dinner for her family, then visited her boyfriend's house who drove her to the bus stop at Martin Luther King Road so that she could head home.

Diane's mother, Margaret, noticed that Diane had not come home at curfew and alerted her father, Leon. Margaret then called Diane's boyfriend who confirmed that he watched her board the bus over an hour ago. The bus driver remembers Diane and says she got off at Martin Luther King Avenue on South Capitol Street and then from there it was supposed to just be a short walk home. She left the house in blue jeans and a yellow blouse and never came home.

When Diane had not returned by the next morning, Leon calls and reports her missing on his way home from his night shift. While driving, he notices a truck pulled off on the side of the road with people standing around, but just keeps driving home because he's worried about his daughter. But what he didn't know was that that truck that was pulled over and stopped was because the driver noticed something strange on a grassy incline next to the highway. It was Diane's body.

Diane had been strangled and left along I-295, 200 yards away from the D.C. line. I just don't get how this is happening. And it sucks that it's like no one sees anything every single time. Right. Her shoes were missing. However, this time there were no signs of sexual assaults.

While her parents drove to the station to identify and talk to authorities, her siblings back at home actually found out that their sister had been found dead via the news broadcasting it, which is just an awful way to find out that a family member has not only died, but been murdered. And although this was the sixth time

or seventh victim police believed was involved in the freeway phantom murders. Even now, they weren't one step closer to catching the killer than they were when the first victim, Carol was abducted and time went by the rest of 1972, 1973,

And then in 1974, the FBI created a task force to investigate the freeway phantom murders. And at one point it had 100 detectives and federal agents from DC, Prince George's County and the Maryland state police. Pretty soon after this, an inmate actually came forward to provide information about another inmate blaming him for the murders. But it turned out that the accused had an alibi and

An interesting fact here, years of evidence and research have listed jailhouse inmate testimonies as the leading factor in wrongful convictions and cost taxpayers millions of dollars tracking down fake or incorrect leads. Yet this tactic is still employed today. And I had no idea that I didn't know that.

That's super interesting. Then also in 1974, two former police officers, Edward Sullivan and Tommy Simmons, were arrested and charged. No freaking way. For Angela Denise Barnes's murder. Oh, it all makes sense now.

Well, just her murder. They conclude that it wasn't connected to the rest of the murders conclusively. And they say that they, those two officers only killed the girl that you said was a part of them. And they say it wasn't. I don't know if I believe. Okay. I mean, we still probably still have more to talk about. Well, the problem is, is we don't really have the evidence as to why other than the fact that they just believe the murders weren't like connected. Yeah.

In March 1977, a man named Robert Elwood Askins, who was a 58-year-old computer technician, was arrested and charged with abducting and raping a 24-year-old woman inside his Washington, D.C. home. And when he was arrested, police went on to discover several prior murder charges. Like this guy was murdering and harassing and poisoning and killing women all

Okay.

but there's been no fibers or any physical evidence actually linking him to the freeway phantom murders other than his past with murdering women and hating women, which he admitted. Although an eyewitness did actually pick him out of a lineup as seeing him near one of the freeway phantom victims. Um, but he was never charged with it. Nothing conclusive ever came from it. And then he died in 2010 and denied any role in the murders. Um,

So that kind of went nowhere. A woman named Victoria Hester and her father, Blaine Pardo, actually went on to spend years researching this case and wrote a book called Tantamount, The Pursuit of the Freeway Phantom Serial Killer. And they believe someone out there knows the killer because he kept tantamount.

textbooks from one victim, curlers from another, shoelaces from another. He was collecting trophies. And they didn't find this at any of the cops place or anything like that? The cops place or Askin's place. They searched both. So these book writers are hoping that maybe a family member or a friend out there would recognize these trophies, whether it's in an attic or they find them in a family member's house and find it weird.

They also believe that the St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital has a tie to the murders based on its location. And Robert Askin was a patient there. This hospital, I looked this up, actually has thousands of patients buried in unmarked graves across the grounds from earlier, more awful, sketchy times. And due to poor record keeping, the actual number and locations are unknown. Wow.

And they also have an on-site incinerator. That's pretty crazy. The book also lists another victim.

Named Tara Bryant that police don't list or have any connection to this case. She was found on November 26, 1972 under a bridge in the metropolitan area. She was strangled. Her body was washed and she was missing a shoe. And why don't we hear about this? Because only the book has named this victim as a possible tie. Okay. Police haven't.

So much. Which doesn't make sense because she's missing a shoe. Right. But she was found under a bridge, not near a freeway. Yeah. But I mean, it's so hard to try to figure out who belongs to what. It is hard because now that you mentioned that the cops were charged for this other girl, for the other girl who was shot. I mean, you're probably right. It probably was them. They probably weren't connected to the other girl.

to the other ones. Maybe they knew about the first one and tried to get away with it. Tried to do. Yes. I don't know. So much remains unknown about this case. And a lot of suspects and evidence is just pure speculation. Evidence has been lost, moved or destroyed. And original police officers have passed away now. Not to mention that when this was all first happening, the ball was kind of dropped over and over again. Yeah.

During this time, Washington DC was still actually feeling pain from the years of civil unrest previous. And when Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Tennessee in 1968, this is all happening kind of right before this time.

The District of Columbia's population was almost 70% black at the time, and the police force was predominantly white. There was a lot of mistrust and years of discrimination that most certainly had an effect on this case. People magazine covered this case just recently and talked to Carolyn Spinks, who was Carol Spinks' identical twin sister.

Carolyn feels the impact of losing not only a sibling, but an identical twin. And it has been very traumatic for her. She has struggled with fear that she's next and she does not trust anyone. They also talked to Patricia Williams, who's Diane Williams' sister. She went on to become a D.C. police lieutenant because of what happened to her sister. Wow.

Carol Denise Spinks was murdered at age 12 and survived by her parents and siblings. Darlenea Denise Johnson was murdered at age 16 and survived by her mother and siblings. Brenda Faye Crockett was murdered at age 10 and survived by her family. Nina Moshea Yates was murdered at age 12 and survived by her family. Brenda Denise Woodard was murdered at age 13 and details of her family are unknown.

Diane Denise Williams was murdered at age 17 and survived by her family. And those are the recorded victims of the Freeway Phantom murders, their case unsolved. Wow. I was thinking that there's probably a good chance that their killer is dead. Right. I mean, this was... If he was in his 40s or his 50s, there's a pretty good chance that...

He's not alive anymore. And I mean, this is obviously just rumored, but it doesn't seem like we have any DNA to compare to try to find him even though he passed. Even if he was in his 30s, there's a good chance that he's not alive anymore. Right. That's crazy. I cannot believe that it wasn't found, that whoever it was was not found. With six, but potentially more victims. I don't know if... I don't think it's the cops...

I don't think it was that other guy. Well, there's a lot more. I mean, this guy killed a lot of people, but I feel like because they were able to physically tie him to all of the other murders he committed, why would they not be able to tie him to six other murders that he committed? Like, how are they so easily able to find evidence? And he was like, yeah, I did all these, but they didn't connect him to any of these. I know this is a whole nother

Probably episode. I can't believe those cops killed that girl. I know. What the freak? I know. I wish we had time to just now go off and talk about that case. That's insane. But anyways, that's so crazy. I think he's probably dead. I don't think he's alive anymore. Whoever did it.

Most likely, but I still wish because some of these siblings are alive. Yeah. And I still really wish... They knew if they could have some peace and not feel scared. Or at least just some justice. I don't know if closure is the word, but like just some...

just the justice that they are able to have. Yeah. All right, you guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Thank you for always supporting our show. We love you guys so much and we will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.