Robert Ben Rhoades
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| “ | The nation's long web of interstates provided the perfect hunting ground for a depraved predator. He prayed on hitchhikers wandering the road. He held them captive, then tortured and raped them. When that didn't satisfy his warped cravings, he killed them instead. | „ |
| ~ Intro to the FBI Files episode "Driven to Kill", which covered Rhoades' murders. |
Robert Ben Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer. He was convicted for three murders, and slated to be tried for two more before charges were dropped due to the wishes of victims' families. He is additionally suspected of torturing, raping, and killing more than 50 women between 1975 and 1990.
His victims were usually hitchhikers and roadside sex workers. He constructed his own personal torture chamber in his truck where he would torture and rape his victims before finally killing them and disposing of their bodies.
He was convicted in 1994 and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois.
Biography edit
Robert Ben Rhoades was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1945 but it is uncertain as to exactly where he was raised.
Rhoades was raised by his mother in the early years of his life, as his father was a soldier in the U.S. Army and was stationed in West Germany. Robert was attending elementary school, when his father returned from duty overseas. After his father was discharged from the military, he found work as a firefighter.
By all reliable accounts, his early life was relatively normal, aside from unspecified social problems in his formative years. He was an active participant in the extracurricular activities of his attended schools, and involved himself with various sports, and other programs, including gridiron football, wrestling, choir and French club.
Rhoades' criminal involvement during his high school years were only notable for an arrest at the age of 16, (in 1961) for tampering with a vehicle, along with an arrest for publicly fighting at the age of 17 in 1962. After graduating from Monticello High School in Monticello in 1964, he joined the Marine Corps. During the same year, his father was arrested for molesting a 12-year-old girl, and subsequently committed suicide while awaiting trial. A few years later, in 1967 or 1968, Rhoades was dishonorably discharged from the military for his involvement in a robbery.
After his dishonorable discharge from the Marines sometime in the late 1960s, he attended college but dropped out. He later attempted to join a law enforcement agency, but was likely rejected for his past dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Robert married 3 times, having a son with his first wife. Subsequently, he found work in stores, supermarkets, warehouses and restaurants. Eventually, he became a long haul trucker.
During the 1980s, Robert developed interests and hobbies, amongst which included involving himself in the BDSM scene. It was also during this time he allegedly verbally, physically and sexually abused his third wife, Deborah Rhoades.
Rhoades preyed on hitchhikers and truckstop sex workers, starting in the 1970s.
His first confirmed victims were Candace Walsh and her husband, Douglas Zyskowski, in January 1990. The couple was hitchhiking when Rhoades picked them up in his truck while on a long-haul journey. He immediately killed Zyskowski and dumped his body in Sutton County, Texas, where it was later found. He was not identified until 1992. Walsh he kept for over a week. During this time, he tortured and raped her multiple times before dumping her body in Millard County, Utah.
Almost a month after Walsh's death, he grabbed an 18-year-old victim, a drifter, who escaped and informed police. When Rhoades was detained, the victim declined to press charges, feeling that she would not be believed despite extensive evidence. In her statement to police she says that "I don't see any good in filing charges. It's just going to be my word against his. If there was any evidence, I would file. I would file charges and sue him." It was later asserted that she was fearful of Rhoades after enduring two weeks in his truck. Rhoades had converted the sleeper cab of his truck into his own personal torture chamber where he kept women, sometimes for weeks, torturing and raping them.
Days later, 14-year old Regina Kay Walters and her boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones, both runaway teenagers from the Houston suburb of Pasadena, Texas, disappeared. Like with Zyskowski, it is believed that after being picked up by Rhoades, Jones was killed and disposed of while Walters was kept. Photos seized during a search of Rhoades' home confirmed that he held Walters for a long time, based on the degree of hair growth and bruising. Jones' body was found on March 3, 1991, in Lamar County, Mississippi. He was not identified until July 2008. In Bond County, Illinois, Jones had been charged in absentia with Walters' murder.
In the early morning of April 1, 1990, officer Mike Miller of the Arizona Highway Patrol found a truck at the side of I-10 with its hazard lights on. When he investigated inside the cab, he discovered a nude woman, handcuffed and screaming. There was also a male present who identified himself as the driver of the truck. After failing to talk his way out of the situation, Rhoades was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, sexual assault, and unlawful imprisonment. After further investigation, the arresting detective, Rick Barnhart, was able to make a connection to the Houston case and noticed a pattern stretching over the course of at least five months.
In executing a search warrant for Rhoades' home, police found photos of a nude teenager who was later identified as Walters, whose body was found in September 1990. Also present were photos of Walsh, whose body was discovered that October.