What is the Highway of Tears?

For decades women have been abducted, murdered and forgotten along an isolated stretch of Canadian highway. Join the guys and special guest CarStuff's Scott Benjamin as they explore the terrifying history - and disturbing future - of Canada's serial killer hunting ground.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I'm Ben and we are joined as always by our
super producer, Noel, the high woman Brown and high fives

(00:24):
across the internet if you've got that reference. But today, Matt,
we're also joined by a special guest, a good friend
of the shows and a good friend of you and I,
both outside of outside of this whole stuff they want
you to know things, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you,
Mr Scott Benjamin. Well, thank you very much. Guys. I

(00:45):
appreciate the offer to be here on your show today.
Oh yeah, we uh, we appreciate it even more. But
let's not get in a contest about appreciation here, Scott,
because I am thrilled to have you on our show.
No longtime listeners, you may know that Scott and I
worked together on a different show called car Stuff. And
if you watch our stuff they don't want you to

(01:07):
know videos, then there's a chance that you caught Scott
on his first appearance with stuff they don't want you
to know, which was a video podcast you have a
very general episode about car conspiracies. All the Conspiracies. Feels
like that was a long time ago. It doesn't. I
think it was. Uh do you remember what we were

(01:27):
looking at, like pavement conspiracies, all the water car, I
believe the water powered car, which you can check out
for more check out our audio and our video for
more information on that. But today, Scott, we asked you
over to do the audio component of a video that
we also recently made, a lot of folks might not

(01:48):
know this, but uh, we're pretty big true crime fans,
like all all four of us actually, so Noel, Matt, Scott,
and myself and we we were looking into a listener
suggestion that we've received from several people, including Jimmy C
on Twitter, which was the Highway of Tears and Scott.

(02:11):
When we started looking into this, we knew we had
to get you on board if at all possible. Oh well,
I felt like it was. It was a right fit too,
because I have an interest in the case. Um have
not read anything prior to when you mentioned it to me,
but I've been digging into this deeply for the you know,
for the last few weeks, the interstate system and police
you know functions, and just I'm fascinated by the whole case.

(02:33):
I really am, and I can't wait to even get
even more information about this even after this podcast, as
we have, we have listeners who will no doubt be
writing into us and giving us even more little tidbits
that we will not cover in this episode. Canadian listeners, well,
let's let's start at the beginning. As the mad Hatter
said to Alice, I think it was the mad Hatter. Uh.

(02:54):
What is the Highway of Tears? The Highway of Tears
is a about a four dred and fifty section of
Highway sixteen that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert.
And it's in British Columbia Canada. Of course, that's like
the northern part I guess at British Columbia right Yellowhead
Highway sixteen for everybody else outside of what Myanmar, Namibia

(03:15):
and the US, that's seven kilometers and the stretch of
highway it passes through a lot of what are called
First Nation communities along this highway. So these are Aboriginal
people's who live on the land. There yeah about a
dozen small communities. And here's the thing that you may

(03:36):
get a picture of this in your head if you
haven't heard of the Highway of Tears before, and that
picture if you if you close your eyes and you
you imagine this, uh, if you're seeing a place that
is very rural, you are correct. There's not much in
the way of public transit right there are new bus systems,
there's not a train. And also historically there has been

(04:01):
a struggle with property in these communities, so a lot
of people don't own cars. Very small towns, very sparse,
very scattered, so long distances in between that are very desolate,
especially at night. You know these are dark, Um well,
I guess densely densely wooded areas that are easy to
to lose yourself on. You know, you're able to uh

(04:22):
to go just off the highway. And there's um I
think they said it's like four or five to one
the miles of roads, so mile paved ro there's like
five unpaved miles of road right next to it. Um,
there's there's logging communities everywhere. Um it's just logging camps,
I should say. But um, let's of course logging roads
go along with that. And a lot of those are
just again desolate, rugged roads that are way way off

(04:43):
the main stretch. So why are we here today to
talk about this rural road in British Columbia. I mean,
what's the deal their rural roads everywhere? Well, um, as
you may have guests already, there's been a series of
disappearances and murders that have happened along the highway. Now,
the number when when I tell you this number, it's
not going to be the big number because there's there's

(05:05):
a much bigger number. But police say that there have
been eighteen victims since nineteen sixty nine on the Highway
of Tiers. Now, you might think that's not a whole
lot really when you consider that that is about four
decades a time. But as we'll learn later, that's really
about how they're measuring, right from from how close to
the highway did these people disappear exactly? Yeah, there's some

(05:26):
there's some strict parameters that they put in place. And
we'll tell you about the team that decided who is
officially a victim of the highway tiers and then all
these other cases that are not officially highway tiers victims.
And that's that's kind of the interesting than the meat
of this whole story is. Then it's much much bigger
than anybody really thinks, right, And there are also allegations

(05:48):
of cover ups. Uh there is stuff they don't want
you to know in this case. Uh, there's endemic or
maybe I should say systemic racism that's involved. Let's start
with the first victim, lady named Gloria Moody, at the
young age of six, in nineteen sixty nine October, she

(06:08):
leaves a bar near Williams Lake, and her body when
it's discovered, is at a uh in the woods near
a cattle ranch right about UM ten kilometers away. We
should note at this time that this is in retrospect,
considered the first official highway of tears murder. However, at

(06:35):
the time it was not given Um. I think it's
fair to say it was not given adequate investigation or
tension of law enforcement because of the systemic racism we've
mentioned at the time, which just to get a picture
of this, U, Matt, that's something that really intrigued you, right, Yes,
systemic racism against the Aboriginal people. Uh, you know, in

(06:57):
some ways by the Canadian government. Because there are these
things these boarding schools called residential schools that children anywhere
from ages seven to fifteen, I believe it was, would
be sometimes taken away from their family, uh by force,
sent to these residential schools where they would be I
think the quote at least from this documentary that we

(07:19):
watched called the Highway of Tears, where they would kill
the Indian inside of them, so they would deprive them
from the culture of their family, from the culture of
their people. And you know, they wouldn't allow them, allow
them to dress certain ways, and they kind of just
devalued that part right to try and assimilate them into

(07:39):
the community. And this is a school that operated for
something like one hundred and fifty years. So you've got
generations of students going through this school. And I say
students loosely, it's a it's kids going through this that
are being isolated in their family, being isolated from their culture,
not really knowing who they are as they grow up. Right,
And how how does this tie into the Highway of Tears. Well,

(08:00):
because the the vast majority of victims up until I
think two thousand two is the date that was sited.
I know, we're jumping a little head there, but most
of them were Aboriginal women who were going missing. Sure, yeah,
and the reason is that you find that a lot
of these women are unable to afford vehicles, and it
comes back to public transportation and need the need to

(08:22):
get between those remote villages or those remote towns that
we talked about on this highway because that's the connecting
point and it's too far to walk in a reasonable distance.
You don't have a car. So you have one solution,
right guys, Well, well, two solutions. There's one that's not
so great. Greyhound Bus operates a line on the Highway sixteen,
but it's infrequent and it doesn't run as often as
they would like, and you have to be near a hub, right, Yeah,

(08:44):
they would like shuttles or something like that, but that's
not the case. So so then the other option is
the one you're talking about, which is what hitchhiking and
uh we actually did on car stuff a um we
call them mystery shows. We we did one recent on
hitchhiking that led to some unexpectedly uh moral or profound

(09:06):
discussions of morality. There's a bit of an uncomfortable podcast
to do. Really really, yeah, it sort of was because
of you know, the moral issues. I mean, you want
to say about help anybody that's in need, and you know,
no problem, but you've got that little bit of fear
that that still lives within you, that you know you've
been told all your life, don't pick up hitchhikers. Don't
pick up that guy on the side of the road

(09:27):
on the rainy night, you know, as you're driving past
in But but then again, you just saw a car
that was broken down half a mile behind, and you
know that guys probably coming from there still a gamble,
I mean, unless you've got some kind of segregated car
like a police cruiser or something where they can't access
your But but you know, we're on the other side
of this though. We're talking about you know, the ones

(09:48):
in danger are the ones that are the walkers, the
ones that are trying to get from town to town,
trying to see friends, trying to get to college campuses. UM.
A lot of times these victims will be portrayed as
as high risk. Victims will say that, you know, of course,
the the hitchhiking is high risk, but they will also
say that I kind of lump in with that that
you know, some of these are maybe runaway teens. Some
of them are uh, they might use the word prostitutes. Um.

(10:11):
You know that's not the case with every one of these, clearly, Um,
but I'm not to say I'm saying that might not
be the case with some of them. Um. There's also,
you know, the possibility that it's just people that have
been somehow socially marginalized, people that are homeless. And I
know in those communities it's probably very rare to actually
have a homeless person, but it's it's a possibility as well,
and that happens here in the United States. To We're

(10:33):
gonna tie all this together later, Yeah, yeah, we are,
we are. Because Okay, so first murder nineteen sixty nine. Uh,
murders are continuing or excuse me, disappearances, I guess if
we want to split some hairs about it. And these
are not getting any national attention, They're not getting any
real regional attention. So how many decades nineteen sixty nine,

(10:58):
seventy nine, eighty nine. It is not until two thousand
and two when a young lady named Nicole whore h
O a r. Goes missing. This is in two thousand two.
She is white, She is not a First Nations, uh member,
So this was the first highway of tears cases to

(11:21):
be covered in the papers of the time like Edmonton Journal,
Vancouver's Son, Globe and Mail. And uh, then the police
really started investigating these as not just quote unquote isolated incidents. Okay,
And she's not the very first white victim, however, there

(11:42):
have been others that were Caucasian that that that had
fallen victim to this, But this one did get a
tremendous amount of media coverage and there was some raised
eyebrows about that. Yeah, wait, you're right, you're right, because
thank you for clarifying too. She was the first person
to get national attention for the story. She is not
the first non First Nations. And and also, okay, little

(12:05):
caveat here that we have to add is that, um,
I think they said the majority of the women on
the list are Aboriginal, so uh, you know greater than
I haven't really gone through the numbers here and figured
out what percentage of these crimes are these cases rather,
but um, you know, the majority are Aboriginal women. Yeah,
and additionally, we always have to think about it in

(12:25):
these terms. Uh, these are just the people we know
about there could easily be more people that have disappeared. Uh,
not just on Highway sixteen, but on Highways nineteen seven
and five. UM. One, one of the things we did
in our recent videos, we talked about, uh, five things

(12:49):
you should know about the Highway of Tears, and that
was number one on our list. We don't know how
many people have been killed. We don't. We're gonna get
to Suspect X and leads and why the three of us,
well four of us including no believe that there's more
than one killer here, but no one, no one really

(13:13):
knows we are we are outnumbered by questions in this case. UM.
Just just briefly, while we're talking about the amount of people,
let's talk about this, UM, let's talk about why the
Native communities and the authorities, uh, the RCMP have a
different body count. I'll say that our CMP Royal Canadian

(13:33):
Mounted Police or amount and they have a different body
count because uh that they have identify Well, okay, let's
go back to the Epanic Force. So I guess we
have to talk about the panic. Okay. So um EPANA
is a task force that was formed in two thousands
six and it was used or UM rather implemented to
determine if there was a serial killer, and they only

(13:55):
knew about you know, they were thinking maybe one at
this point, if a serial killer was in fact working
the highway was using this as his hunting ground, and
they probably at the time, we're suspecting that, you know,
there's more than one, but couldn't really say anything. They
didn't have a number, a set number of cases in
in mind either. They knew that lots of women were
disappearing from this highway area, they didn't they couldn't put

(14:17):
it an exact number on it yet until they gave
it a sort of a set of parameters, something that
could kind of narrow down the focus of the PANA.
And so these three key points were and I think
we mentioned these in the video too, but um female
victims only. And then the next the next um characteristic
I guess would be that they were involved in a
high risk activity as we just talked about, hitchhiking or

(14:38):
prostitution or whatever it happens to be. And then there's also, Matt,
as you said, the one mile rule, and the one
mile rule is um what really angers a lot of
people in these communities because the PANA task force gets
all all the media focus, it gets the attention. It's
you know, when when it launched, it had a five
million dollar budget, it had seventy officers attached to It

(15:00):
was like, they're finally doing something. They're they're gonna they're
gonna really work this case. They're gonna find out what's
happening to um as the locals thought, you know, forty
or fifty cases or something like that, you know in
the area, because there's there's women missing all the time
from this area. Well, what EPANA did with this, uh this,
you know, these three characteristics are these three points? These

(15:20):
the three criteria that people had to or that these
cases had to meet. It narrowed it down so finally
that it only allowed for the eighteen cases that we're
talking about today to be counted as official Highway of
Tears disappearances, and that really caused a lot of friction
in the communities because they said, well, okay, that's eighteen

(15:41):
and they're important, but what about the other forty that
you're not talking about, Because as we said, this main
highway goes there, but then you've got dirt roads that
that go off of this road in all directions for
a long, long way. Then they meet roads that are
also parallel and perpendicular. Sure, that's what we mentioned the
logging camps because it's so easy to get more than

(16:03):
a mile off the road. Well, I mean it's difficult,
but it's more easy. Well, yeah, it's easy to do that.
And then and then to manage if you're trying to
lose a body, you know, dump a body somewhere, you're
gonna want to do that somewhere off of the main
highway typically, So the ones that were found on the
highway or disappeared from the highway. Um, that's a that's
a rare situation, right, I mean a relatively rare situation,

(16:25):
because I mean eighteen out of you know what locals
claimed to be fifty we're so right, Yeah, And again,
only the ones that people know about in this documentary
that we watched that we checked out together. Uh, there's
there's several, Um, there's several just horrifying moments where you'll

(16:47):
see someone in one of the communities along Highway sixteen say,
you know, my sister disappeared or was murdered and her
body wasn't found owned in the right place, or the
authorities just didn't treat it as related, and that has

(17:07):
to be so maddening. And I understand that, you know, uh,
a category for someone posthumously is not going to change
the fact that they are dead, but it does affect
this investigation because ladies and gentlemen even now, okay, this
string of murders that starts in nineteen sixty nine, I

(17:28):
think maybe beforehand to uh whatever this is, uh, something
about Highway sixteen has become kind of like a lake
in a savannah where predators flock and uh the so
so from nineteen sixty nine or whenever it actually begins,
all the way to the present day, of these eighteen cases,

(17:51):
how many years solved? Just one? Only one of those
cases is solved, and we'll say we can talk about
the you know, the one that they did saw of two.
But there's a few more numbers. I think that will
shock shock the listeners have UM. Five of those eighteen
cases are still officially listed as missing cases. There's nobody
that has been found yet, so uh, you know, even
though they're one of the official eighteen e panic cases, again,

(18:15):
five five of them are still considered as missing. UM
and in those missing dates go back to three so
anyone between nine that went missing in nine three had
been found. The missing ones begin around three upstill about
two thousand five. Um. Wit, there's so there's a lot,
you know, just the the amount of information that this case,

(18:38):
these cases, whether it has generated is enormous. I mean
it fills a warehouse for the UM, for the RCMP.
They have something like seven hundred and fifty boxes of
evidence just for those eighteen cases that we're talking about.
So they really are digging into this and getting a
lot of leads, a lot of information, a lot of interviews, um,
you know, gathering evidence whatever they can. Um. It's not

(18:59):
that they're not trying, it's just that it's such a
difficult thing to do because i mean, again we said
it's four d fifty miles of territory. Um, it is,
you know, just this densely wooded forest area. I mean
on either side of the road. It's it's it's desolate areas.
It's dark, it's it's damp, it's it's you know, of

(19:19):
course it's snows. Um. There's there's a lot going against
them in this case. There's deep lakes that are just
off the road. Um, it's just the terrain doesn't lend
itself to finding someone easily when they do go missing.
And uh, and I know I'm probably just going a
bunch of different directions here, but there's so much about
this case that just doesn't just doesn't feel right. I think,

(19:40):
I see what you're saying, Scott, But but what what
exactly would you say? Doesn't what's what's given you the
spider sentence? Yeah, I guess it's just the Okay, I
know it's being handled. I know that they're they are
looking into this and they have they have a vested
interest in making this work. Of course, they want their
their epanitast course to to be successful. They want to
do this for the community, for the people. But the

(20:01):
people are saying, you know, the locals, as you'll see
in that documentary or whatever you read, because I've read
a bunch about this case in the last few weeks,
you'll find that there's a great distrust of the police
force in that area. And I don't I can't quite
put my finger on exactly what it is, but it
goes back to the way that they're treated at these

(20:21):
residential schools, the way that they feel that they're they're
stuck in these in these impoverished regions, in these these
these communities, these UM it's almost like UM like Indian reservations.
Here in the United States, it's almost like it's an
island upon itself, and each each little community is like that. Yeah.
And additionally, now this is a very touchy subject. But

(20:41):
because we don't know how many killers are working in
this area, or how how many killers used as a
hunting ground, Uh, it's also possible that someone in authority
could have committed or been involved with the commitment the
commitment of some of the murders and disappearances. And when

(21:03):
I say that at this point, folks, I say that
purely on the hypothetical UM. On the hypothetical side of
the of the question of the concept, I don't have
and and I don't think any of us have found
any proof that there's anything other than, you know, a
history of negligence at worst on on law enforcement side.

(21:24):
And then in the past few decades there's never been
somebody caught UM as a member of the Mountain police
or anything. So it the true crime or the crime
novelist in me just sees that as a possibility. But
there's whether or not that that's possibility. It just it

(21:45):
needs to be said. Well, this goes right back to
I mean the Jack the Ripper days, when they suspected
that it could have been anyone from a surgeon to
royalty to an artist to a police officer. Of course
they're going to suspect the authorities. And because they have
the inner knowledge, the sorry, the inside knowledge um of
you know, where the patrols are gonna be at what time,
and um, they kind of have like a I hate

(22:09):
to say, like a backstage pass to what's going on
behind the scenes and seeing all that and knowing all right,
well here's my way around that. I can I can't
smart you. It's simple, right, like the Long Island serial
killers suspected to have some sort of knowledge of crime
scene investigations. Just to jump in really fast, guys with
an example of how perhaps the authority in this area

(22:29):
of views women of I mean, okay, this is in
no way blanket tema, but there is. This is an
example of the way the avirgin women are treated. So
this guy named Judge David William Ramsey, he is a judge.
So he was sexually exploiting young women in this community
four years in May of two thousand three. He played

(22:52):
guilty to five of ten charges. He was convicted of
one count of breach of trust, one count of sexual
assault causing bodily hone m, and three counts of buying
sex from a child. That is a bad dude, and
he's sitting on the bench. Yeah he is. He's the
guy the authority, and he was dealing with women who
were of that age. The way he got caught was

(23:12):
a he was going to see a woman about a
young woman about a custody case with her child, and
she recognized that this is the guy who was trying
to force himself upon her in a car and then
beat her, and she she recognized him and ran out
of the court. Now, I just want to be clear,
I'm not saying that I'm implicated, not trying to implicate

(23:34):
this man, Judge Ramsey in these cases of disappearance, of
just making a point about how these women were maybe
seen by some people in the authority. Good point. And
you know there's a few bad apples there, I guess
in the in the local lawtainly. Yeah that's where you hope, Yeah, yeah,
just a few. Just we can get rid of him quick. Um.
All right, So there's there's stuff like that going on.

(23:56):
There's a there's a lot happening all around this case that.
I mean, all these little bits and pieces that we're
telling you about, they all tie in together with with
you know, the original eighteen cases and and plus the
others that we you know, haven't really discussed or we
can't really discuss because we don't know the details. Those
of unfortunately kind of been lost to time almost really,
I mean, if they're not on the official e panel list,

(24:17):
they're not getting the attention that these cases are, which
all the honest I mean, it doesn't look like they're
even these are getting a lot because they've been budget
cuts at the EPAN office. I mean, I think I
said that they had a five million dollar budget back
in two thousand and six when they first reformed, or
late two thousand five. I believe, uh that has been
cut uh in the year it was cut down to

(24:40):
something like one point eight million, so a significant cut
in in their funding, and they went down from seventy
officers work in these cases, they went down to twelve
officers work in these cases with with support staff, um
so a much much smaller task force with the same
amount of cases really, because you know, when we said

(25:00):
that there was one arrest made in this whole thing,
so that leaves us with seventeen cases unsolved. We know
of a few people that were were involved in this.
Now the one, the one arrest, I guess maybe we
should talk about him, Yeah, because these are these could
be serial right, so this one arrest could be you know,
at least tied to the other ones. Well, yeah, it
could be tied to the other ones. Now they do

(25:21):
know that he is tied to two murders. This this person,
I'm gonna talk about it now. The arrest it was
made is a guy named Gary Taylor Handlon and he
was aged sixty seven or e is a just age
sixty seven. He was arrested for the murder of Monica Jack,
who was only twelve years old. That's horrific back in
nineteen seventy eight, and another girl who is not an

(25:42):
official victim of the Highway sixteen murder. But he was
also convicted of the murder of a girl named Catherine
Mary Herbert and again not an official Highway of Tears case.
But that doesn't mean and see that that shows you
that somebody that can be involved in a murder that
happens on that you know they can be related. I guess, um,

(26:02):
you know they could. They could commit one murder that
is an official one and one that's not, or ten
others that are not. I mean, that's just the way
this is going. So. Um, how so, how was it
you know, you know, finally arrested. I think there was
new DNA analysis that was finally available because in nineteen
it just wasn't there. So this is all the way
in four Yeah, and that's that's not long ago. And

(26:26):
the PANO has been around since two thousand and six.
Now that's not the very first break in the case. However,
there was one other break that came earlier on and
this is maybe a bigger lead. Now bigger I mean,
of course, you know, solve one or two murders here, fantastic,
that's great work. Um, that's the only officially officially solved
case on the whole list of eighteen. But there's another

(26:46):
guy that gets involved here in two thousand and twelve,
and again this is the first break, so it's like
six years after the task force was assigned. Um, they
finally matched DNA from an American serial killer. His name
is Bobby Act Fowler. Um, they found d n A
on the on the body of Colleen McMillan, who was
murdered in nineteen seventy four. So they hung on to

(27:09):
DNA evidence from nineteen seventy four. I mean, they didn't
know they were hanging onto DNA evidence. They had, they
had evidence, they didn't know what they could do with it.
But in two thousand twelve they were finally able to
match it up using um, you know the UH I
guess the systems where they can you know, the information
that automatically matches, you know, ties up in exactly right.

(27:29):
We can talk about those two because I think it
maybe the vi cap system that we're talking about for
for the match here. I think I think that's the one. Um.
And that's not the only murder he suspected it. No, No,
there's there's others that he We talked about this to
the off air ben this is it gets a little
bit complicated because, Um, this Bobby Jack Fowler guy, he's
a he's a bad dude, really he is. Okay. Um,

(27:53):
at the time when that break came, he had been
dead for six years. So we said that, you know,
you're thinking, well, why haven't the case has also been solved,
you know, So we're chipping away at the case load here.
They're not officially solved because no one was ever tried
for the murder. It's it's like it was. It was
an unsolved murder. They can they can put it to
rest and say we know who did this one, this one,
and this one, but you never try that person and

(28:16):
find them guilty officially. Especially for the families of these people,
there's there's never that feeling of we got somebody, yeah exactly,
and that that's well amplified by a hundred times. For
the ones that never find never find their family member,
that that's got to be the most little, the worst,
the most heart ranching part of this whole thing. And
you know that documentary that I watched, I guess say

(28:37):
I was tearing up a little bit when they were
talking about, you know, some of the families that they
don't have an answer, They never have an answer, and
it's never probably going to come. They're not going to
find them. Um So, I know it's a dismal way
to look at it, but it's not very likely at
this point. Um So, this Bobby Jack Fowler guy, can
we talk about them just for traveling word ruction, known

(29:01):
for uh, known throughout the land for being an absolute
horrible person. Yeah, I mean the way to described as
he's a he's an American rapist and serial killer. Alleged
serial killer because he didn't really do time for the
serial killing. Yeah. He traveled all across North America, Florida, Louisiana, Texas,
British Columbia. He was charged with murdering a couple in

(29:26):
nineteen sixty nine, Yeah, and got off on just a
firearms offense charge. So he Yeah, he murdered two people
in nineteen sixty nine in Texas, I believe, wasn't it
um Yeah, man and a woman in Texas, But he was.
He simply was let go after they gave him a
slap on the wrist basically for a firearms offense. And

(29:47):
I don't know why that would happen a wealthy guy. No, no, no, no,
this is a transient construction worker who who traveled all
over North America. Has ben said he was, and we
have to say alleged serial killer because he again never
was tried for that specifically, but we do know that
he was a murderer. And again, this guy I mean

(30:08):
that we could go on and on and on, and
I'll tell you a few more things. He's got an
extremely violent past, as you as you said, Um. He
was known as an alcoholic. He was an amphetamine user,
a meth amphetamine user. He had a long criminal record,
extensive criminal record. He'd like to drive around and that
this is anything bad, but he'd like to drive around
beat up bold cars. I like that to trolling for him. Yeah,
that's the thing. He's trolling ranch. He's putting lots of

(30:30):
miles on those old cars. You know, He's going back
and forth between these towns and all these communities. So
he sees it, um and a way, I guess, almost
like a sport. You know, he's he's going to town.
I hate to say it that way, but that's the
way these guys are. They're hunting and and he's going
from town to town and he can he can get
away with it. Because of the lifestyle that he's lived
his entire life, going into bars and hotels. Things start

(30:52):
to fall apart for Fowler. In the mid nineteen nineties,
He's arrested in Newport, Oregon because a woman that he
was trying to tie up, rape and kill Uh, jumps
out of the motel window. There's a rope that's tied
to her ankle. She survives, she gets thankfully, gets the

(31:13):
police and in nine and that leads to a nineteen
nine six conviction of kidnapping, attempted rape, sexual abuse, coursion, assault,
and menacing, which I did not know you could get
arrested menacing. Sure, Yeah, he's definitely a menacing character. So
all this is happening, right, He's got all this in
his background is past. And of course they find you know,

(31:34):
they find him in a very unusual situation with this
this woman who's jumped out of a second story window. Um,
clearly something devious is going on there that she's she's scared. Um.
They get a DNA sample from him at this point
because you know, now he's captured, he's he's he's in
the system. I guess. So he's he's captured and he
was in there. When did you say ben was a

(31:55):
June of nineteen I believe. So he's in prison of June.
There are more murders that happened on the Highway of
Tears after June of n when he is in prison already.
Now they do match his DNA with what we said
it was Colleen McMillan, I believe it was. Yeah, they
match that from the nineteen seventy four victims, So he

(32:17):
could have been active on that highway from nineteen seventy
four all the way through nineteen nine five when he
was picked up in June. Now, he was in Oregon
when we got picked up, so he wasn't it wasn't
in that area. But that's it's close enough for really,
I mean, take a look at a map. It's not
that far away. It's not that hard to to extrapolate
that he could have been there as late as nineteen Now.
I think they've only tied him to maybe a couple

(32:39):
of these. Now there's others. Yeah, there's the one, the
Colleen McMillan. That's well, that's uh no, that's not the one. Well,
that's the one that's attributed to him officially, but he
that it's not officially solved because he never was tried
for it. That like Gary Taylor um or Handling rather
um the ones that that uh Bobby Jack Fowler is

(33:03):
considered a prime suspect, and that's that's another thing. So
of course we know he's guilty of the Collie McMillan.
We got that nineteen four. But back in the nineteen
seventy three, there were a pair of murders, one in October,
one in November. And the October murder was gayl Ways
and the November murder was Pamela Darlington. And they both,
you know, the same thing, right off the highway. Both disappeared.

(33:24):
I don't know if they were hitchhiking. I think one
was hitchhiking. Both were actually hitchhiking trying to get to
a local bar I think it was. And um, again,
he's a strong, strong suspect in those And many say,
and I've heard this, there's a there's a number here.
Many say he's tied in with three other victims. You know,
there could be others that are, you know, sort of
their their tentative about saying that he's involved. Then others say, no,

(33:47):
it's more like ten. There's more like ten in this region.
And this gives you, gives you a glimpse of just
how bad this guy is, because they think that in
the United States, in the United States loaned he may
have as many as twenty victims, but they never caught
him any of them. So this guy got away with it,
and he lived in jail for what another ten years
I think, and then he died and died of lung
cancer when he was two thousand six sixty six. So,

(34:08):
you know, even though there's this glimmer of hope that
you know, we know what happened. We can piece it together.
We know that you know, in night the early eighteen
seventies and um possibly as late as the nineteen nineties,
he was active on this highway and involved with with
what's going on. We kind of know what's going on.
It gives families just a little bit of closure, but
not what they need for sure. And that's only one

(34:30):
of the killers on the Highway of Tears that we
know about. We're going to look at some more of
the killers, the ones who have been caught in other circumstances, right, uh,
the ones who are suspected. I mean, this is like
true detective style monster, right. This is the kind of
guy that you imagine when you imagine any horrible human beings.

(34:53):
I'm glad you put it that way, because that's a
that's a good visual visualization of this guy. Take a
look at his mug shot if you get a chance
just just do a Google search for Bobby Jack Fowler
and you will not be upset by what you see there.
It's gonna be exactly what you think he looks like.
I mean, it's it's awful. Before we go too deep
into the killer stuff, you guys, I do have one interesting,

(35:16):
maybe a little bit less grizzly trivia fect please, we
were talking, um, we we're talking off air before when
we were making the video about what epana stands for. Yes,
since the task Force, the task Force investigating the Highway
of Tears, uh, Epana actually comes from the name of

(35:36):
a god in Inuit mythology, which is Pana, and Panna
is a god who cares for souls in the underworld
after all, right, very nice before they are reincarnated. There's
a deep meaning behind the task force because I had
just kind of assumed that it would be an unnecessarily

(35:56):
long acronym. Maybe it's more of the US government that
does that stuff. Well, car companies. We know that benies
love to make up acronyms. So with that brief with
that brief reflective moment, I guess it's time to dive
back into some of the other murderers. Yeah, you know,
and we just kind of wrapped up with Bobby Jack

(36:18):
Fowler and how he couldn't have been involved with you
know this, I guess a specific set of murders that
happened after he was in prison, and they are careful
about laying that out in the in the cases year
when when you read about the eight team that are involved,
you know, the ones that were the official cases, they
make a special point to say that Follower was apprehended
for crimes in the USA in June of this year

(36:39):
and therefore couldn't have been involved with this murder from
this point on. So what they're what they're saying, is
everyone up prior to this one, you know, you never know.
I mean they're saying strong suspect in three, well two
of the you know, there's one that they knew he
was involved, Strong suspect and the other two, but then
others say we're we're kind of looking him for more

(37:00):
than just those two. Well, one of the issues would
be then tracing the timeline of that killer's travels, which
is going to be difficult given the time period there, well,
difficult given his character as well, because he's again he's
on the fringes of society, basically untraceable. I mean, really
as close to it as you can get. So we
have a couple other killers named we mentioned Gary Taylor Hanlin. Yeah,

(37:25):
we have some other people on the docket as well.
Cody Lejabakov. Cody Lejabakov if you are Canadian and adds,
are you have heard of this killer? Uh? Cody Lejabakov
um operating in British Columbia, born in Guy. He's a

(37:47):
young guy. And uh, I want to point this out,
none of these were officially high waved here as murders,
but it's it shows you that he's operating the same
area right near Prince George. Four victims and again he's
really close, but he's not officially involved in this whole thing.
So so this is the third one that we're talking
about here, and then we've got that whole other set

(38:08):
of victims that um, you know, the four that happened
after um Fowler was arrested. So that means that there's
at least one more operating. So so I didn't mean
to derail here right on Cody, but um, what have
you got about Cody, because um, he's also bad at
four or four murders and he's like twenty one or something. Yeah,
and uh. He was convicted on four counts of first

(38:30):
degree murder almost a year ago today, September eleventh, two
and fourteen. He maintains his innocence and said that he
was involved with the murders, but that a drug dealer
and to the drug dealer's friends were the actual murders.
And these kind of fanciful tales are often spunning courtrooms
by the disturbed. Is this the guy that they actually

(38:54):
they saw him pulling off of a logging road in
his truck. The officer pulled him over, asked him about
I don't know if it's like an equipment violation or something.
Something was wrong. He knew he shouldn't have been there,
so he talked to him, realized that he had blood
stains on his on his pants and on his shoes,
I think, and shirt and everything. So the officer goes
back down the road that he had just you know,

(39:15):
come off of the one that the truck had just
exited from, and he finds the remains of a woman
who had just been dumped, I mean just like and
had been murdered within hours of when when he found her.
So he caught him red handed leaving the crime scene,
and he is saying, I'm not involved in this is
somebody else his Yeah, his uh, original statement regarding the

(39:36):
blood on his pants when asked by the police was
that he was poaching and he had clubbed a deer
to death because quote, I'm a redneck. That's what we
do for fun. Yeah, and uh, I mean it doesn't
get much more clear than this that you know he
of course, this is this is him. He's got he's
got red handed, he's got you know, the uh, he's
got all the evidence on him around him. The truck

(39:57):
is the course seized, and you know that's loaded with
d n A. It's um, it's it's definitely him in
this case. Now there four women, I think, uh the
oldest one was like thirty five years old, which is
a bit out of the ordinary for this uh four
Highway of Tiers. Yeah, because at this point the the
ages range from twelve to thirty three. So the this
would have been the oldest person on the list had

(40:19):
they been included in the official Highway of Tiers list.
But they're not. These four are these four are separate
issue and this this goes to something else I want
to make a note here about the allegations of cover up,
because I neglected to mention this earlier. There has been
an actual cover up in that the Ministry of Transport

(40:40):
deleted emails regarding regarding the case UH. That report comes
from from employee there, Tim Duncan, and Tim Duncan said
that an aid deleted the learned assistant excuse me, deleted
the emails. So when you hear people talk about a
cover up, that's what they're talking about. It's alleged to

(41:04):
be about a dozen emails about meetings with a d
First Nation leaders along the Highway of Tears and one
of the community leaders about this, and one of the
community leaders Carriers Sakhani Tribal counselor Mavis Ericsson. She says

(41:25):
this is part of a continual UH cover up, that
the emails are kind of a tip of an Iceberg
thing because she did not hear about the meetings at
all in any shape or form, And she says, I'm
gonna read this quote there's a cover up going on,
and I think this just shows more of that fear
that we have that things are going on in the

(41:45):
government wants this whole story to go away. It's been
going on for years, and so the destruction of these
alleged emails is just more of the same. You know,
Ben who what was the officials name again, the one
that it's supposedly deleted the emails. Tim Duncan is the
one who reported it. He was an executive assistant. He
said he was told to delete emails requested under the

(42:06):
freedom of information at Okay, now, isn't there something a
little bit JANKI about this as well? Where he handed
the keyboard over to somebody else to actually officially delete
the emails unidentified with clear conscience say I never deleted
those emails, right, although it was under direct you know,
direct request of right and you can't say, but you

(42:27):
can say and then pass the test and says, you know,
I didn't officially delete those emails, and if any um,
I don't know. That letter versus the spirit of the
law kind of stuff is pretty sticky. But but while
we're while we're mentioning that that note, um, we should
also say that we're not sure why this cover up

(42:48):
has occurred. We're not sure why those emails are deleted
other than um, you know, often in politics, it's not
some grand over arching um plot so much as is
a bunch of people trying to look better for promotion.
Well sure, and you know this, this ties back into um,
i'lcohol it conspiracy, but it's not. I don't know if

(43:08):
it's really a conspiracy or not. People believe it is
that they're just not paying as much attention to these
cases because of the people that are involved in it.
They're saying, because it's Aboriginal woman, because it's First Nation women. Uh,
it's not. It's not as important as if you know,
the Canadian citizens, the Caucasian Canadian citizens, not the First
Nation people were being murdered at the same rate. If

(43:30):
if that was happening, Uh, there would you bet there
would be extra law enforcement here to take care of
this matter. They would be here, you know, in spades,
trying to make sure that they got this taken care
of and wrapped up quick. I can imagine if if
the murders were taking place on a highway between let's
say Vancouver and uh somewhere else, and the demographics were

(43:50):
very different of these victims. Yeah, I can see how
it would be a seen as a bigger problem given
a lot more attention, and so maybe this is what
the area attractive to predators. But the fifth and final
point that we mentioned in our podcasts are in our
video earlier, is this, And this is what I want

(44:12):
to explore towards the end of our show today. It's
not just Highway sixteen. It's not just Highway five or
Highway nineties seven or any other Canadian highway, because it's
not just Canada. We dug up some stats about the
FBI's search for serial killers on the US interstates, then,

(44:35):
yes we did. And you know what, I found this
fascinating when I dug this up because I I love
things like this where where it's not known to the
public for quite some time and then they reveal it. Right,
I'm sure that you're as well. So back in two
thousand four, there was a privately launched initiative by the
FBI here in the United States, and this was called
the Highway Serial Killings Initiative, and the idea was to

(44:57):
create a sort of repository for information about um serial
murders that were happening, not not just on one highway,
but really nationwide here in the United States. Now, if
you haven't heard about this, I mean, this is something
that really it should be a huge eye opener for
every listener that this happens along every highway in the

(45:20):
United States. I mean, you can take a look at
the map of the victims that they talk So we're
not limiting this to just one highway one you know,
one mile either way on either side of the highway.
We're talking about, you know, people that were last seen
on or we're dumped on the US interstate system. And
you can do the same thing for Canada. You can
do the same thing for Germany. You could do the
same thing in Africa. You can do the same thing

(45:40):
anymo wherever. It doesn't matter. This this happens worldwide. But
the numbers here in the United States, I mean the
numbers are something like that. They've identified like six hundred
victims and two hundred seventy suspects, you know, fairly quickly. Um.
That was that was in the first five years of
this initiative happening, you know, like with the first five
years of operation. And that is when they finally went public.

(46:03):
They announced in two thousand nine that they had this initiative.
They said, you know, here's what we found. It's terrifying,
but you need to know about this. They were tracing
some lea they found this first. The The initial inspiration
for this came when the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
and the Grapevine, Texas Police Department started working together as

(46:25):
they recognized a pattern of prostitutes who were found murdered
along the I forty corridor in the south and the Midwest.
So they started saying, let's profile who could this be?
And the answer was clearly a long haul trucker. Yeah, well, yeah,
there's a there's several that they've already caught. They've arrested

(46:45):
a few, they made a few arrests, and this is
what's interesting is they found a couple of truckers working together.
I guess that as a serial killer team on the highways,
which is terrifying. But um, one that stands out I
guess would be Robert ben Rhodes. And Robert ben Rhodes
is again another character along the lines of Fowler as
far as just how awful of a human being this

(47:06):
person is. Um he's a long haul trucker from Houston, Texas,
and he spent fifteen years torturing and killing women in
the cab of his truck as he traveled across the
United States. So this is this is a huge, huge problem.
I mean for many, many reasons. But so this is
like just a small fraction of what's happening well worldwide
of course, but also on the Highway of Tears. And

(47:28):
you can take that, you know, can extrapolate that to
what's happening on highways across the United States and across
all across Canada. The numbers are enormous. I think there's
something like twelve hundred missing or murdered Aboriginal women across
Canada from like I think it's like midnight up until
two thousand twelve or something like that. It's a big,
big number. UM here we've accounted for, you know, with

(47:48):
the FBI Task Force, something like six hundred. UM. I
think there's got there's got to be more than that.
I'm sure that there are. But the problem, you know,
these these these long haul truck drivers like um, like
Robert ben Rose. And there's another one. His name is
Bruce Mendenhall, who was an Illinois trucker. Um he was he.
I think he's finally busted after he murdered a murdered
a twenty five year old trucks dot prostitute in Tennessee,

(48:11):
and police found a sack of bloody clothing in his
truck cabin, you know, at the time he had just
committed this murder. Um later they found blood from five
additional women in the same cabin that truck. So that
means that, you know, that's six victims for him Rhodes.
I don't, I don't remember exactly at the top of
my head, but um, you know, DNA evidence in his
truck counted to you know, lead to many many of

(48:32):
these victims missing victims. Um, it's it's a huge problem
for law enforcement because it's like a mobile crime scene.
It's they're they're they're comfortable in their cab, in the cabin,
their truck, that's there, that's their their comfort zone. Yeah,
exactly right. And I read somewhere I think it was
a guy named Jack Levin. He's an author of a
book called Mass Murder America's Growing Menace way back in

(48:56):
and it's it's basically not not the first but one
of the first books about serial killers that was widely published,
widely read, and he kind of laid down some groundwork
or ground not ground rules, but yeah, elements of what
a highway killer might operate like or it might be like.

(49:16):
And he said that, you know, they tend to stick
to established comfort zones, and these well this is serial
killers in general. But these guys, their comfort zone is
the cabin their truck, and I think that's what's happening
on the Highway of Tears as well. But the comfort
zone is right there, and they stop at a truck stop,
they pick up a prostitute, you know, with the promise
to take her to the next town as well. She
gets in and that's the last anybody ever sees ever,

(49:37):
or just or just hitchhikers, because Rhodes would pick up
couples immediately kill the male and keep the female. Yeah,
see that I mean devious, but it's it's awful what happens.
But then they drive them into another jurisdiction, you know,
which could be a hundred miles away, could be five
hundred miles away, and dump the body and then they
see it as somebody that is possibly just a transy

(49:58):
because you know, we have no, um, we have no
recognition who this say is. We don't have any kind
of prints on file. Um, we don't know anything about
this victim. So that's the problem is that with such
great distance between all these cases happening, uh you know,
well the the disappearance and then the actual you know,
the turning up of the body. It's it's really a
difficult situation for them to solve. And even given systems

(50:21):
like you know, the the vi CAP system or Canadians
version of that, which is called the VI class system,
which is a violent criminal um you know, the system
that ties together people with DNA information and fingerprints and
photographs and uh, you know, the last known whereabouts and
all that. It's like it's an electronic evidence matcher. Yes,
exactly right, and that's been around since the nineteen eighties.

(50:42):
But there's a there's a problem with even with that.
So you can see all these hurdles that that they're
trying to uh overcome here and the problem with the
biggest problem with that vy CAP system. They're talking about again,
this is a violent criminal apprehension program. So you think
that this would be something that is mandatory. It's not
mandatory for law enforcement. For law enforcement in a situation

(51:03):
where there's a murder. Now, so this goes back to
the nineteen eighties again, they're trying to find patterns of
you know, these complex multi jurisdictional murders. So you think that,
you know, this would be a super effective tool, and
it can be. It can be very helpful. But the
problem is you have to have enforcement officers that that
do the due diligence to put the information in and

(51:23):
get the system to work the way that it should,
and then someone to analyze it and make sure that
it's there reading occurrect. Well, I see that, but I
also think that part of part of the problem we
should factor in isn't just manpower, it's ultimately expense. Yeah,
because it's a sixteen page form that they have to
fill out. Now, how long do you think it takes
an officer to fill out a sixteen page form with

(51:45):
detailed investigation information or you know, information about a particular
homicide and all the not all the law enforcement agencies
play nice together. No, exactly right, And that's that's the
other frustrating thing is it's like, you know, butting your
head against the wall because you can't get the other
guys to talk to you when you need them to.
And and not only that, there's things that they may

(52:08):
know that they don't know as part of that they
don't understand as part of this case and if they
were ever to talk, and sometimes that's what happens. They
accidentally stumble across some information that they say, wait a minute,
that you just struck a nerve with me. Hang out
a second. They go through their box of files and
find you know, whatever it is, or you know, probably
electronic information. But um, it's these chance occurrences that sometimes

(52:30):
lead to to solving these But if this, if this
system were to work the way that it should, I mean,
it's a well laid out system. The ViCAP system in
the bike class system in Canada and other places have
similar systems for violent criminals. But if they could just
get it all to work together, if they could get
somebody to analyze the information correctly, if they could you know,
there's a lot of ifs in this in the story,
but if they could do that, they might make some

(52:51):
headway on some of these cases. So here's the worst
thing for me. You have to get caught first, one
time for something in order to even be in that system. Right, true,
if you're like Bobby Fowler and you just haven't gotten
caught for a long time, then you don't It doesn't well,
he was repeatedly arrested. But unless he unless he's arrested

(53:13):
for something that would specifically put him in a violent
crime database right there. True, And what I was talking about,
that sixteen page form is for particular characteristics of a homicide,
and so you know, there's lesser there's lesser versions of that.
So like you may input him in the system and say,
this guy is an alcoholic who likes to fight at
the local bar. Um he got you know, busted for

(53:35):
breaking a bottle and stabbing somebody in the arm with it,
you know, But um, you know, I don't know what
charge that would come with. But that's what he's in
the system as not necessarily as I meane, we caught
this guy, he's suspected of, you know, being a serial killer.
So I guess it really depends on just you know,
how much effort they put into correctly categorizing these people
when they put them in the system. It's vital, however,

(53:56):
I mean, and sorry to bust in, I don't want
to interrupt what you guys are saying, but it's vital
for this sort of stuff to be done. At last count,
I think there was an investigation discovery piece on this
There are twenty five, twenty five former long haul truckers
currently in prison for serial murder. Well, that's a significant

(54:20):
it's a hell of a big number. That is a
big number. Now, I know that you're saying five, and
we're saying that's a that's a huge number, cause they're
responsible for more than one just by nature being serial killers. Yeah,
and that that's occurring over a period longer than a month,
So multiple victims longer than a month. That means these
guys are out there for a long time doing this.
Who knows how many. And of course we are required

(54:41):
to say, of course we're going to point this out.
The vast majority of people in the world, let alone truckers,
are honest, hard working people who are just trying to
get a buck. But we're talking about I think that
it's it's war fair to say that these people who

(55:02):
are using the veneer of being a trucker are not
actually trying their killers. Yeah, that's the and this is
this is the way that they get to do what
they do. And uh, and they find it. You know,
if they were to eliminate that from their life, you know,
the trucking part of their life, they wouldn't be able
to do this, and and they're never going to give
that up. So one of one last thing I guess

(55:23):
that I need to is that, you know, looking into
all these numbers, and we said have been you know,
convicted of being sirculars or that are known ser killers
that um, the FBI is is captured. They say that,
you know, there's the numbers are just enormous. You know
how many they believe are out there in the highways.
Now I've seen numbers that range, well, there's huge range.
So we'll say, you know, we we think that at

(55:45):
any given point there's sixty seven serial killers work in
the highway systems at any given time. Others may say
three hundred and everything in between. So it's a huge,
huge number. And I don't think a lot of people
really know that this is happening out on the highways.
And it's not just the US, it's not just Canada's
not just Europe. It's all over the world. It's it's
it's happening, So use some caution. Really, I mean, when

(56:07):
I started reading about all this stuff, it just it
really is an eye opener. Yeah, I mean, it makes
it makes you fear for anybody traveling, uh, you know,
you want to be very diligent about you know, checking
in and knowing where they're gonna be and when they're
gonna be there, and it's it definitely distorts my memories
now of running around you know, sometimes truck stops, sometimes

(56:29):
rest stations along the highway system in the US. Sure,
I used to sleep at rest stops in my car
because I had that, you know, I had my day
trip or road trip math about how far I could go,
and I would arrange that by you know, I would
arrange that by where I could stop at a park
or at a rest stop. And we haven't even talked

(56:50):
about disappearances in national parks, which may be a podcast
for another day. But the truth of the matter, listeners,
is that there exist more than one level of a culture.
The US, the world that most of us know if
we live here, is more like the top layer of

(57:13):
an onion. There are people who just travel from National
Park to national park. There are killers who just travel
up and down I forty and I know it sounds alarming,
and it is, But unlike some alarm ass things, this

(57:33):
is terrifying because it is true. Uh. Now, Matt earlier
off there, you said that you had you had one
more thing that we should end on. Is that correct?
I did? I was gonna wait, wait a second, are
you getting that too? Is it just my headphones? Are
you guys getting that? No? I hear it too, some
sort of almost like the sound of a truck rolling

(57:54):
through the distance, but also drums, but also drums. Here's
to what's going on? Hey everybody, ladies and gentlemen. It
is uh, super producer Noel Brown. That music always means,
of course, at this time for a moment with Noel,
Hey man, how are you doing? Ben Matt Scott? You're

(58:16):
making some serious eye contact with us as you were
saying her names. This is creepy. I'm well, thank you
for asking. Yeah, so did you did you catch what
we were talking about? I'm gonna have to be like
really honest with you. This is a one of the
rare situations where I've actually been jumping up and down
and going on the other studio and doing other things.
So I actually have no idea what this episode was about. Well, hey,

(58:37):
well you should check give us a clip it out. Well,
I will when I when I edited. I'm sure, Well,
we were you know we were talking. We started talking
about a thing called the Highway of Tears, and I'm
not gonna go to in depth in it, but let's
just recap the whole thing. We just did a show
on it. Noah, you guys, I heard snatches here. I

(58:58):
get that. Okay, we had, you know, we had to
ask Scott on because this this is something that is
related both to the automotive world and to the true
crime worlds. Scott's also kind of a stand up guy.
So yeah, shucks, yeah, no, no, you're I just had to, okay,

(59:21):
really fast, bring something up in apropo of nothing. I
have to say that every time I see the notes
that Scott Benjamin takes and the way that he takes
them and arrange them, every time I see it, I
am thoroughly impressed, not only that you function in that way,
but that there's so much detail going on here. There
there are okay, so it's this yellow I guess that's

(59:42):
notebook pad. Yes, that's a legal pad. And then there
are post it notes all over it with like pointing
to things to say, Okay, this is where we go
from here, this is how we get to hear I
love it. It's that's that's you know, I left over
from back of my days of like floor directing, you know,
for for video shoots and things, because you had to
walk your way through a complex script or something that

(01:00:03):
you know, you don't shoot in order, so you have
to map all that stuff out ahead of time. And
I find that's the way that I worked best. So
I just kind of carried it over into the podcasts. Well,
thank you, No, I have to. I'll see Scott just
standing at the window writing on the window canes with
a grease pencil, just red rum over and over again.

(01:00:24):
Uh so, um, I have to I have to ask them. No. Um,
we talked about this in this question for everybody. Uh
what like, does does this affect your earlier conversation or
the earlier conversations we've had about hitchhiking, This this whole
idea of well, this whole truth about the amount of

(01:00:47):
serial murderers getting away Scott free, no offense on on
the on the interstates. I mean, I didn't need anything
to affect my outlook on you know, picking up hitchhikers.
But sure pretty adamantant period. Yeah, I think the know,
a little bit of healthy paranoia is probably good for
the old self preservation game. I would say, that's just me.
Call me, you know, jadedn't but I'll get mad at

(01:01:11):
you if you call me jaded. That's never one. Definitely
not jaded a little bit, guys, But I don't know.
I would say optimistic. Uh, that's fair, that's fair, it's fair.
But what about you, Scott Definitely well, you know I
I've already kind of already kind of skittish about it anyways,
you know, um, should you? Should you not? But uh,

(01:01:31):
the cases that we're talking about, it's always that the
bad guy is the one that's picking up the hitchhiker.
It's not the other way around. It's not that the
hitchhiker is the bad person. And and those cases happen
as well, you pick up a bad dude on the
s road and something horrible happens, you know, to either
an individual or family or whatever. But this is like
the opposite of that. So it kind of gives me

(01:01:52):
like even more um, just information in my head to
swim it around like this is just a bad deal.
Don't don't pick up a hitchhiker. No, and don't hitchhike
in our earlier car stuff podcasts, which you can check
out listeners if you're interested on hearing more about hitchhiking. Uh.
In our earlier podcasts on this UH, we talked a

(01:02:12):
little bit about the rise of hitchhiking being associated with
counterculture in the sixties, right, and how the I think
it might have been the FBI, but government agencies propagated
this idea that, uh, you know, stones hippies were gonna
kill you because stoners are notoriously furious, impulsive go getters. Right, yeah,

(01:02:41):
and uh, and so how much of that is fear
culture and how much of it is healthy skepticism? Now,
of course, I I also think you have to exercise judgment.
My girlfriend, as I think I mentioned on car stuff,
has banned me from picking up hitchhikers. I just like
strangers meet too, but pen, there are other ways you

(01:03:04):
can meet strangers all over the place. Man, it's a
hazardous activity, that's what he's saying. I mean, everybody's kind
of a stranger. You don't really know someone, do you? Wait? Fully? Like,
scenes got a couple of times that's true. Welcome on
like every day. Well, let's end before we started accusing

(01:03:26):
each other various murders. Uh, guys. I know this was
a long podcast, but we hope that you I don't
know if enjoyed it is the right word, but we
hope that you found it interesting. Can I can I
just say something. I know that we say this every
time on car stuff, but we we try to put
out so much information, so many little bits and pieces here,
and we we try to tie together the best we can.

(01:03:46):
You know, we're using these complex notes that match. But um,
you'd be doing yourself a big favor if you were
to search it and and read about it yourself, because
that way it just kind of makes a little more sense.
It might be laid out in a way that makes
more sense to you. But hopefully we got to the
main points and at least open your eyes to a
problem that's happening, and and maybe even just kind of
give you that little bit of I guess maybe a

(01:04:09):
little bit of fear when you're out there in the highway,
that you know, just be cautious, be aware, and an awareness.
I think awareness is one of the biggest issues with
these things. Just if if more people knew that it existed,
I feel like it becomes a part of zeitgeist, and
then we can actually put you know, from enough people
care about something, it will get the presence that it needs,

(01:04:31):
the maybe even the funding that it needs. Sure, and
I fear I shouldn't have said fear may be awareness
is much is a much better way to step There's okay,
I feel like this is the most important point, and
so I held onto this for a while. But just
to be just to be absolutely clear for everyone listening

(01:04:51):
to this, whether you are involved in some way with
the Highway of Tears or whether this is a story
you've heard for the first time, our collective hearts go
out to the victims. There are more than eighteen, and
a bureaucratic division does not change that fact. And we
hope that the law enforcement folks who are often outnumbered

(01:05:14):
by problems UH and the set by red Tip, we
hope that UH they are like their work pays off
because these people are busting their humps, and UM, it
would it's time for these families to have closure if
at all possible. Agreed. So if you have any thoughts
on the Highway of Tears or anything else that we've

(01:05:36):
talked about in this podcast, you can find us on
Facebook and you can find us on Twitter. We are
conspiracy stuff at both of those. You can also find
us on there. All these places you can find us.
You can. We even have a SoundCloud account if you
want to listen to the stuff they don't want you
to know through. So that's over and over and over.
That's not real, is it. It's really it's the real
thing is SoundCloud? Yeah? SoundCloud? Come on, Well, it's a

(01:05:59):
cloud of sound it's beautiful stuff. I know I take
a lot of ribbon a right here for stuff like that,
but come on, SoundCloud. That's that's that thing. Look, it
was a great idea when it came out. It was
a way to upload your music so people could stream
it for free for indie artists. Okay, I gotta stand

(01:06:20):
up for SoundCloud. My favorite Scott Benjamin lines is the
time where I think I think he got a little
bit irritated with one of our co workers, Allison. We'll
not really irritated, but you were saying, you were saying,
she said, Scott, but you don't have any apps on
your phone, and he said, what an app man do
with an app? You you show me an app that

(01:06:40):
does something for me and I'll download it. Oh nice? Yeah,
how often do you tweet. By the way, Ben takes
care of the tweet. Yeah. Well well look, if you
send things, you can also send things to car stuff
is it at car stuff hs W? Yeah, and on
Twitter and you can also find them on Facebook. That's

(01:07:01):
where you're gonna find Scott. Any other places that they
should look forward to our website. I guess car Stuff
show dot com excellent? What's is that same deal with stuff?
And I want you to know you're gonna find audio podcasts,
some videos, blogs, all that stuff. All that stuff, and
of course, if you have any topic that you would
like us to check out in the future, please feel

(01:07:22):
free to reach out to us directly. Our best ideas
come from you. And if you have those ideas and
you don't like the social media to Scott, you can
send us an email. We are conspiracy at how stuff
works dot com for more on this topic and other
unexplained and on the non visit YouTube dot com slash

(01:07:45):
conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter
at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.