USA TODAY
10/5/10
During the past four decades, at least 459 people may have died at the hands of highway serial killers,
FBI statistics show. Investigators do not know how many people may be responsible for the killings but at least one such case of murder, attempted murder or unidentified human remains has been reported in 48 states, along roads as far north as
Alaska and as far south as
Key West. They believe the killers find their victims and dispose of the bodies along highways, sometimes near quiet roadside rest areas or at bustling truck stops.
Often, the victims are prostitutes, abducted in one state and dumped in another. And the killers? Authorities say they have 200 suspects; almost all are long-haul truck drivers. To date, the FBI says it has helped local authorities arrest at least 10 suspects believed to be involved in more than 30 of the killings.
Harrigan and other law enforcement authorities believe serial killers still operate along some of the most well-traveled roads in the nation.
"They're out there," he says.
Harrigan says a typical motorist isn't in danger. At least 234 victims were prostitutes, he says, and stranded motorists represent "a very, very small" number of the homicide cases. But Harrigan will not say how many, and he acknowledges that investigators know "nothing" about 130 of the victims. Among the mysteries are more than 80 cases including the February case in Barstow in which authorities couldn't identify the remains or recovered only body parts.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-10-05-1Ahighwaykiller05_CV_N.htm?csp=usat.me
That's a lot of Doe's.
We have another thread on this subject somewhere from last year when the report was released. I'll look for it and see if we can merge the two. At the time we talked about the high number of unsolved highway killings along the I-40 corridor, particularly Tennessee, Texas, and Oklahoma.
