Law enforcement eventually learned that in addition to BDSM, Rhoades was a swinger who regularly had sexual liaisons with other married people in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Mass Market Paperback - January 1, 1996. You were not under his control. "Do you remember what his cab looked like? 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. Berdella was conscious of his homosexuality. 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 . When I got to the part about the sudden switch in his behavior, she got excited. Piercings around the breasts, bruising, and other signs of torture were also frequently found. 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 had told her to "sit there and be a good girl." Rhoades received a second life sentence in the plea, in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty. I stayed there until I saw the truck pull onto the interstate. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. He was sentenced to death for the crime. Though his first confirmed murders didn't occur until 1990, one woman may have barely escaped with her life the year before. My whole body relaxed. The photos stayed in my head, though, and with them came questions: What if the man who pulled the knife on me really did murder the hitchhiker? There were seven within rangeIndiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, West Virginia, and New Yorkall less than a day's drive apart. He held Patricia captive in his makeshift torture room in the bed of his truck for over one week where he continuously raped and tortured the poor woman. I was on my own. 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 I thought about what she'd said"It would just be my word against his," which was clearly followed by the unvoiced thought: And who is going to believe me? He got over 900 matches. This was 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters just before she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Robert Ben Rhoades (defendant), pursuant to negotiations with the State, on September 11, 1992, pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to imprisonment for natural life. On the show, she talked of feeling a lot of guilt. She had a stocking down her throat, I think. Patricia and Douglas were later confirmed as victims of serial killer, Robert Ben Rhoades. Ex-Wife Of Serial Killer Robert Ben Rhoades Speaks Out | Evil Lives Here: After the Evil. This meant that several of the photos she was the subject of were taken during her last moments alive. Walters and Walsh had been held captive by Rhoades while he traveled the interstate highways in his truck. Today, Davis lives in College Station, Texas, and her kids, the product of a previous marriage, are grown. Sleeping by myself on the street made me a target, and having sex with some creepy old guy for a spot on a mattress also held little appeal. I remember driving around Ohio howling along with Bruce Springsteen and buzzed out of my brain on Diet Cokes and being sad that the ride ended because it was a safe one and I had almost been able to be myself for a second, but that second had passed. I was sure he would remember where he took me back then, so last spring I called him. First Name Robert. "Of course," Lee says, "Lisa was talking all sorts of crazy stuff. Robert Ben Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. "The defendant essentially agreed to stack the life sentences in Illinois, which means he'll never get out," Smith said. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. I knew in my body that it was over. I had not told him or anyone else how I felt about failing to go to the cops. I needed to find rides and usually couldn't get into the restaurant. A chipper recorded voice told me to press 1 for tas, press 2 for guns"all other callers stay on the line!" Robert was immediately arrested and charged with unlawful confinement, and sexual and aggravated assault. I asked her the same questions I was asking everybody: Did you ever hear about a hitchhiker in a Dumpster? The woods were blue in the gray light, which was either dusk or a coming storm. Even at the time, I'd wondered if my running was part of the game. "I just want you to know," he said, looking me squarely in the eye, "that what Rhoades did to women, he did to women. Even the guys who were trying to help had used it. Rhoades, for instance, used guns and ligature strangulation and probably knives, too. Robert remained a free man and continued to attack and kill more victims. What put him away for life, though, was the rape and murder of Regina Walters, a 14-year-old girl from Pasadena, Texas. To a teenager, though, someone pushing 40 is pretty old, and hair often looks darker in photos. Believing that the driver needed a hand, he climbed over the side of the rig and peered inside (via The Forensic Examiner). Watch with discovery+. Her own sister had been on the street, and she was overwhelmed by the woman at the door and didn't want to just walk away. It was clear Rhoades had been using the relative anonymity of the nation's highways to spread terror throughout the nation. Last Photo Taken of Regina before she was killed by Robert Ben Rhoades, dressed for a Halloween party, was an active member of the S&M scene in Houston. Sexual sadists in particular work off erotic maps established early on. He would then keep them alive, torturing and sexually assaulting them for weeks at a time before murdering them and disposing of their bodies. allowing the middle-aged husband and father to torment and abuse women as he crisscrossed the United States. Rhoades was a great lover of games. Condamn la prison vie pour une srie de meurtres, il en a confess un nouveau . On the table in front of Young was a snapshot of Regina Walters that I hadn't seen, taken not very long before she was abducted. Prosecutors say the trucker kept a mobile torture chamber in the cab of his long-haul rig. 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. Not even the FBI knew that he had already tortured, raped, and killed at least two people along his routes. Rhoades didn't live a double life as much as a shadowed one. I wrote him back and told him that journalistic standards wouldn't allow me to pay for interviews. Drew Peterson, former police sergeant, was sentenced to 38 years for the murder of his 3rd wife, Kathleen Savio. He turned her slowly toward the girl and pointed. Looks too much like a target.". Rhoades is currently serving life sentences in Illinois for three murders. the Murderpedia project stay alive. Most say she's a prostitute and that it's a "transaction gone bad." Although he was convicted of three murders, the police have always believed he was responsible for many more. Robert Benjamin Rhoades 19451122 - 32 1975199050 Robert is believed to have tortured, raped, and murdered over fifty women between 1975 and 1990 during truck stops, but because most of his victims were sex workers and hitchhikers it is difficult to confirm exactly who and how many people he has killed. Walsh was murdered, and her body was dumped in Utah. He was wrong. The more I learned about Rhoades, the more I saw parallels between us. 76 Year Old Criminal #4. He came around behind her and grabbed her shoulders. Rhoades liked to think of himself as an "expert," and now Rhoades suggested he be paid as one. She walked back out onto the road and hitchhiked south. In the 1990s, the Berkeley County sheriff's department's computer crashed and burned. 6min. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. I was accepted, and that provided a thin strip of pride on which to stand while I made contact with my family. A month after Robert brutally murdered Douglas and Patricia, he picked up his next victim, an eighteen-year-old transient who lived in Houston. On April 1, 1990, a state trooper made a shocking discovery when he stopped to investigate a semi-truck that was parked off Interstate 10 in the city of Casa Grande, Arizona. The birds went silent, and I didn't know what it meant. 1983. Everywhere I looked, evidence of these girls was disappearing. By then, though, I had been kicked out of two schools for absences and was cutting myself regularly. Wearing down from lack of sleep and trying to get a handle on my risk level, I began to work off a 1-to-5 scale of sexually aggressive behavior: You (the driver) kept your urges to yourself. Without fake ID, I couldn't stay in a shelter. Robert kept her for over a week, torturing and raping her repeatedly. I parked in front of the family travel plaza, then walked back past a sign that read TRUCKS ONLY. Keeping her captive, he repeatedly sexually assaulted and tortured the woman for days. Out of desperation I made one last attempt and swung by a smaller truck stop in Hancock, Maryland. The morning I left, I asked him to take me to the closest truck stop so I could get a ride going toward California. A remembrance before rape, torture and murder. Today Rhoades is a prisoner of the Illinois Department of Corrections. I remember thinking it could be me, since I was also a teenage hitchhiker. Going through the truck stops, I'd heard about women getting their throats slit or strangled. Like Regina, I also had a little journal and probably wrote something in it that night, because it was far too cold to sleep. Her statement was videotaped the night she was freed from Rhoades's truck. Rhoades later was extradited to Texas for the murder of Jones and another victim. I arrived at his door melting in the hundred-degree heat. It had the same neutral arrogance. Rhoades was first arrested when an Arizona state trooper found a screaming woman named Lisa Pennal* chained in the back of his cab. 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 women he may have hurt, since he traveled so much. Robert "Bob" Berdella (also known as known as The Kansas City Butcher and The Collector) was a serial killer and torturer who documented his sinister slayings in photographs. It brought her back to that terrifying night in 1985. At the bottom of the yellow legal paper, scrawled in all caps, he wrote, "IT WASN'T ME!!!" Her hair, long at the time of her abduction, had been clumsily cut short. I lived among artists in the Lower East Side squats. Rhoades kept Regina for at least two weeks. She walked out about a year and a half into their marriage, and months later, Robert was arrested for kidnapping a woman in Arizona. Suspected of killing and raping 100+ women while on the road in the 1980s and early 1990s. Just a few months after she left Robert, he was taken into custody for a kidnapping. Like me, she left home with her older boyfriend. He kept Walsh alive for an undisclosed amount of time, subjecting her to the same cruel treatment that he would later dole out to Walters. The two had a few drinks together and danced that night. After Evil: Master Manipulator. Smith said that should Rhoades ever be released from the Illinois prison for any unforeseen reason, he would be returned to a Texas prison. It doesn't matter what he says. One snowy night several months later, I was hitchhiking through Amherst, Massachusetts, and a carful of students from Hampshire College picked me up and let me stay with them. I was still in shock, so I walked back out to the same road and started hitching south. This spring a friend sent a news story link about a serial killer with the subject line "Is this your guy?" I have no fascination with serial killers, so I didn't realize that Rhoades was famous. We have many He will die in prison.". I'd always read that she got away because Rhoades forgot to chain her in, but I found out from Young that she'd not been shackled when she escaped. Several days later, though, heading south on I-95 through the Carolinas, I got picked up by another trucker who was not fine. If there are more murder confessions to make, there may be time yet for other families to find some semblance of closure and justice. Rhoades was born to his middle name sake, Ben and his mother, Betty Rhoades, on November 22, 1945 in Council Bluffs Iowa, and was reportedly raised by his mother for most of his childhood. 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