Police looked at the photos, noting that the growth of Regina Walters' hair and the changing color of her bruises meant that she had been in Robert Ben Rhoades' clutches for several weeks (per All That's Interesting). Even so, it still wasn't safe to sleep. Getting sleep was pretty easy with a boyfriend, because one of us could always stay awake. Robert Ben Rhoades Father Killed himself after being charged with Fondoleding a fourteen year old girl. If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. She'd been picked up in a truck stop, shackled into the back of the cab, tortured and raped for weeks. They get more nuanced and elaborate, but the basic topography remains the same. "We laugh at death," he told me. He then forced her to wear heels and a black dress before taking several photos of her, strangling her with baling wire, and leaving her body to decompose in the barn. Rhoades. His truck is said to have contained a homemade torture chamber. Behind the tragic elements of Regina's story, like some kind of pentimento, I saw my own. I needed to find rides and usually couldn't get into the restaurant. I spoke to a woman who had worked there a long time and told her about the dead hitchhiker while she fingered the gold cross on her neck and listened. Rhoades had told her to "sit there and be a good girl." "Wait a minute. Instead, police suspect he held the teenager captive for at least two weeks, subjecting her to sickening acts of torture and rape, before he strangled her to death with a garrote and dumped her corpse in an abandoned barn in Illinois. Robert Ben Rhoades. ", Vanessa Veselka is the author of Zazen (Red Lemonade), which won the 2012 PEN/ Bingham Prize for fiction, Apply Bed Bath and Beyond Coupon and save 25% Off your entire purchase, Target Circle: up to 50% Off with Target promo code, With Asos Promo Code you take 70% OFF Select styles, Michael Kors Promo Code: sign up for KORSVIP + Get 10% Off on First Order, 2023 Cond Nast. He then tried to join the police force but was ultimately denied due to his robbery conviction. Investigation Discovery's ' Evil Lives Here: Deadly Fetish' has serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades' ex-wife, Debra Davis, talk about when she met Robert and how their relationship ended eventually. Modes of operation change. His ex-wives described him as verbally, physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive; one stated he would become sexually aroused when she was suffering from the pain of lupus, an autoimmune disease. Roadside Prey. And I remember being in the woods off I-95. "The hairs on my arm stand up right now talking about it.". Robert Ben Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. Rhoades was a sexual sadist. Believing that the driver needed a hand, he climbed over the side of the rig and peered inside (via The Forensic Examiner). So I told him the truth, which I had not told othersthat I didn't say anything because I didn't think anyone would believe me. Young was a profiler for the bureau as well as a field agent. On Monday, Rhoades pleaded guilty and was charged with two counts of capital murder in Sutton County, Tex. He was married. However, she fell asleep shortly after climbing into the vehicle, and when she awoke, she found Rhoades had placed restraints around her wrists and ankles. He was wrong. I asked about the knife. Neither of us said anything about the dead girl. Silence fell over the Sacramento County courtroom as Judge Loyd H. Mulkey . It made sense. Rhoades kept Regina for at least two weeks. Several days later, though, heading south on I-95 through the Carolinas, I got picked up by another trucker who was not fine. One night on I-95, she hitched a ride from a stranger and endured the most terrifying moments of her life. We have many This spring a friend sent a news story link about a serial killer with the subject line "Is this your guy?" Six weeks later, though, we parted ways. Robert Ben Rhoades, 59, was linked by DNA in 2003 to the murder of 24-year-old Patricia Candice Walsh. Robert was pulled over on the I-90 with his hazard lights flashing when a state trooper drove by and decided to check if the driver needed help. She had existed enough for me to call my dad all those years ago and warn him about what he would read. Sagittarius. Rhoades saw what Debra was looking at. 202202. Years later, Veselka read a news story about a serial killer who had been a long haul trucker named Robert Ben Rhoades. "So was the trucker I met a true psychopath?" Police photo. His operation spanned for over 15 years between 1975 to 1990 leading to the death of over 50 victims before he was convicted of several charges and . When they found her, there was shouting. He stopped responding to my questions. It would appear that crime was in Roberts blood. Robert Ben Rhoades is suspected of raping and murdering more than 50 women over a 15-year period in the 70's and 80's as he road his semi-truck up and down the highways trolling for victims. "Of course," Lee says, "Lisa was talking all sorts of crazy stuff. Anyone want to party?". Five years ago, the truck stop was demolished along with its restaurant. Similarly, Rhoades' hometown newspaper also noted that he was suspected of the torture, rape, and . He shows it and asks what they think is going on. Holes in the ozone layer. The more I learned about Rhoades, the more I saw parallels between us. She passed through that world as if she were invisible. Movie Actress. The light in my memory is strange, too. Games People Play was a bible for Rhoades. Walsh was murdered, and her body was dumped in Utah. "We don't have any records," she told me. I said he could do it in a few minutes. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Last Photo Taken of Regina before she was killed by Robert Ben Over time, I learned safer ways of getting rides by having truckers navigate the CB radio for me. . Like me, she left home with her older boyfriend. Rhoades is currently serving life sentences in Illinois for three murders. There was a Martinsburg truck stop somewhere in my story, and there was a dead 17-year-old hitchhiker. She had been missing from the Houston area since early 1990 after running off with her boyfriend. Rather, he would force them to accompany him all along his long-haul trucker route, killing them perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles from where they were last seen alive. She walked out about a year and a half into their marriage, and months later, Robert was arrested for kidnapping a woman in Arizona. "He's 67. I was still in shock, so I walked back out to the same road and started hitching south. I parked in front of the family travel plaza, then walked back past a sign that read TRUCKS ONLY. I was accepted, and that provided a thin strip of pride on which to stand while I made contact with my family. When it turned, when it downshifted, when it drifted toward the shoulderI woke. This kit included numerous sex toys, chains, whips, fishhooks, pins, and other items used to inflict on his captives. However, before he killed the 14-year-old, Rhoades took several haunting images of Walters that the authorities eventually recovered from his home. He talked about it frequently and applied its ideas. To keep creating She occasionally speaks on domestic violence at conferences and in classrooms at AM. While passing through various states, he thought he could pick up a hitchhiker here or a sex worker there and no one would notice if they disappeared. Your IP: The young girl ran out of Roberts truck and into the woods. I ran my story past her. She was a prostitute. Criminals. He narrowly avoided the death penalty, accepting a second life sentence. In 1985 my biggest problem was sleep. I did a search on towns named Martinsburg. I began talking, saying the same things over and over. Davis mentioned the case of Colleen Stan, a 21-year-old hitchhiker who had been kidnapped in 1977 by a couple who tortured her and kept her as a sex slave for seven years while she slept in a box under their bed. He sent me a text just as I was leaving Texas saying that "Debbie" was ready to talk. 'Truck Stop Killer' Robert Ben Rhoades is thought to have tortured, raped and killed more than 50 women during a reign of terror lasting from 1975 to 1990. After receiving my friend's e-mail, I left messages with the FBI but was relieved when they were not returned. I'd seen the page from Regina's little notebook on which Rhoades had drawn a picture of a gun and a huge dagger dripping blood next to the words RICKY IS A DEAD MAN. But Rhoades held desires went well beyond the limits of consensual sexual activity. Eventually she was left unbound. How could she lack evidence? I remember being in the woods off I-95. Ex-Wife Of Serial Killer Robert Ben Rhoades Speaks Out | Evil Lives Here: After the Evil. When they visited his home, they uncovered a number of disturbing photographs, taken right before he murdered one of his teenage victims- photos that are perhaps even more disturbing than Rhoades's mobile torture chamber. Sadly, while the remains of both Zyskowski and Walsh were discovered shortly after they were murdered, it took years for both of them to be identified and returned to their families. When I first saw his apartment, I thought I'd walked into the showroom of a furniture store. This obviously doesn't recommend the waitress's judgment, but at least some of the credit has to go to Rhoades. I could rest but not dream. Keeping her captive, he repeatedly sexually assaulted and tortured the woman for days. When I got to the part about the sudden switch in his behavior, she got excited. Debra said she looked about 18 or 19 and desperate. The interior of the truck's cab contained a hidden compartment that could only be seen if you were between the seats. Young, a six-foot-four Texan and third-generation lawman, opened his laptop and pulled up a picture of a woman named Shana Holts. Sure, serial killers ~killed~ people, but what did they actually do? In Robert Ben Rhoades's truck, authorities recovered a briefcase filled with sex toys and torture devices which the hitchhiker said the trucker had used to abuse her over the course of several hours. By now papers and photographs were spread out all over the table, and Young was waiting for me to tell my story. The trucker went to pay for gas, and my boyfriend and I went to use the bathroom. These are narratives we know. Her statement was videotaped the night she was freed from Rhoades's truck. He will die in prison.". Robert Ben Rhoades, 66, is already serving a life sentence without parole for the 1990 murder of 14-year-old runaway Regina Walters in Illinois. She's shown sitting in Rhoades's truck wearing a gray hoodie. Davis asked quietly. And if it happened, she could be found. I was 15. Walters, however, did not have such a quick and painless death. He also wanted $500. This former trucker is believed to have killed over 20 people spanning from 1975 to 1990. The couple were traveling from Georgia to Seattle when they allegedly crossed paths with Rhoades, a long-haul trucker suspected of a decade of rape . ", Inside the briefcase, officers found dildos, alligator clips, handcuffs, leashes, and whips. I began by Googling things like "dead girl truck stop Martinsburg." Robert remained a free man and continued to attack and kill more victims. In the end, Debra was able to escape Roberts fury and worked on moving on. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Despite the initial deception, Debra wanted to give the relationship a shot and continued to date him. I hitchhiked in Europe and settled in Vienna for a few years. Original. Eventually, law enforcement discovered Robert Ben Rhoades was a serial killer, in addition to being a sexual sadist who enjoyed torturing women and girls. It wasn't the early '70s, it was 1987, and the woman killed was 19-year-old Lamonica Cole. Rhoades had been arrested in early 1990 for a similar kidnapping in Houston, in which he kept an 18-year-old girl in the cab of his truck for two weeks, shaving her pubic hair . Arizona state trooper Mike Miller was cruising along I-10 one April morning in 1990 when he noticed a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway. She had been missing from the Houston area since early 1990 after running off with her boyfriend. To at least one of my questionswas Rhoades my guy?I'd have a clear answer, a simple yes or no. Most say she's a prostitute and that it's a "transaction gone bad." Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. It is glossy black and long. Robert Ben Rhoades known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. They were heading west on I-10 and stopped somewhere in Arizona at a busy truck stop. Regina Walters had been seen in Chicago standing freely outside his truck in a public place. That first ride was a preview of how it would often go for me with truckersdodging sex and getting strandedbut I had learned one crucial lesson: When a truck slows down, you get up. Candace however was not so lucky. I had not told him or anyone else how I felt about failing to go to the cops. Inside Robert Ben Rhoades' Traveling Torture Chamber, Illinois Department of Corrections/Wikimedia Commons. Prosecutors believe Rhoades may have put many other women through the cycle of "kidnap, torture, and kill," but Smith said they do not know how many, since he traveled so much. She maintained that the trucker repeatedly sexually assaulted her while inflicting her with various forms of torture. Candace Walsh and her husband Douglas Zyskowski were hitchhiking when Rhoades' picked them up in a truck stop. I only saw the man with the knife. It said there had been a string of prostitute murders in truck stops in the area beginning in June of 1985, which was right on the edge of my time frame. I had to jump when you slowed down because you were going to rape me. From reading about Rhoades, I knew that he preferred hitchhikers to prostitutes and specifically targeted runaways. Among the photographs recovered from Rhoades' home while he was jailed was several of Walters. Young pulled out one last picture and slid it across to me. Friend, 43, says she wants "California voters to know what kind of offenders are on death row," men like Robert Boyd Rhoades, who sodomized, tortured and killed 8-year-old Michael Lyons two . Rhoades was a long-haul trucker, in jail since 1990, who had recently been convicted of a couple of new "cold cases." I didn't recognize him. ", I was in the one place where I knew for certain women had been found, one less than a hundred yards away from where she was standing. plans and enthusiasm Debra wanted to give her money or do something. He would then keep them alive, torturing and sexually assaulting them for weeks at a time before murdering them and disposing of their bodies. Sometimes, as with Shana Holts, the girl who had escaped in the brewery, the sense of not being credible was internalized. Rhoades allegedly dumped the body of Walsh's husband, Douglas Scott Zyskowski, 28, in Texas. Robert Ben Rhoades used his job as a long haul truck to satisfy his sexually sadistic needs. Rhoades immediately exited the cab of his truck and attempted to give a hasty explanation of what the patrolman was seeing. Without looking back, I ran into the woods and hid. Rhoades, in exchange for dropping the death penalty, pleaded guilty to their deaths . Patricia and Douglas were later confirmed as victims of serial killer, Robert Ben Rhoades. Inside the cab of the truck was a woman, chained to the wall and screaming, with only a pair of slippers on her feet. Unbeknownst to Regina Walters or Ricky Jones, the man behind the wheel was Robert Ben Rhoades, also known as the Truck Stop Killer. Knowing the capacity of his sadism made this unbearable. It's more like a set of still photos. While I was hitchhiking, he was driving. It was a raw moment. "That's him! I had been a drifter. One story Debra Davis told still haunts me. Robert took Regina to an abandoned farmhouse. Her remains were found in September 1990. Around the same time that Robert joined the military, his father was arrested for molesting a twelve-year-old girl and ultimately committed suicide while awaiting trial. Though his first confirmed murders didn't occur until 1990, one woman may have barely escaped with her life the year before. 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