July 5, 2023 • 54 mins
We recruit a former FBI profiler to create a new profile of the Freeway Phantom. And we look at the systemic issues that led to the Phantom's success.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to The Freeway Phanom, a production of iHeartRadio,
Tenderfoot TV, and Black bar Mitzvah. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, Black bar Mitzvah, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter that may
(00:23):
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He wanted to show off, and this is something that
he will do in his real life all the time
because of his.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Poor self image.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
He feels the need to prove his greatness and whether
that's in his vocabulary that he uses or in the
quote conquests that he makes, he wants to prove how
much of a man he is. And this letter, especially
when he has used these multi syllabic words to show
(01:03):
off and he gets one of them wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So I think I should just launch into the profile.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
The homicide detectives termed the cases the Little Girl cases.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
I wouldn't go no way. I would call up my house.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Those first five murders should have been a huge warning
bell for the police.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
This person must have saw that they were thinking that
maybe it's just one person, and he says, they need
to know.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
This is me.
Speaker 7 (01:46):
I thought that they would catch him.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I thought it was just a.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
Matter of time.
Speaker 8 (01:51):
I'm Celeste Headley and this is Freeway Phantom. In the
last episode, we talked about the original, outdated psychological profile
for the Freeway Phantom, and we revealed that we commissioned
a new profile from the former FBI Special Agent Jim Clemente.
(02:12):
So now we'll jump right into Jim Clemente's new profile
of the Freeway Phantom, and that starts with a little
bit of scene setting.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So the first thing that we have to understand is
the victim availability factor was higher back then.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
In the seventies.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You didn't have the Internet, which gave people access immediately
to everything that happens around the country every day twenty
four seven, three sixty five. So generally smaller communities were
they felt insulated. If nothing happened in your community, then
you weren't really concerned about certain.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Things like child abductions.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The fact is that in the United States of America,
approximately one hundred and sixty to two hundred times a
year a child is abducted by a non family member
for a long period of time, one hundred and sixty
times to two hundred times a year. Now you match
that against Nick Mick's reports of missing kids over eight
(03:15):
hundred thousand a year, but only one sixty to two
hundred of them are actually non familiar long term abductions.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So what does that tell you. It's a very rare event.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But with the Internet, you now know about every single
one of them, well at least every one of them
that is a blond haired, blue eyed, white girl.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
But you hear about many.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Of them that occur much more than you would have before.
So people started locking their doors more often, restricting the
freedoms of their kids, not letting them just ride their
bikes down the street alone or walk to the store alone.
And so that is a very important thing. This guy,
(04:02):
although he was able to abduct six seven girls, they.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Were much more available to him.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So this is not a criminal sophistication level that is
extremely high. It is more a product of the times.
So that's the first part of the profile. He chooses
victims of opportunity, but they must meet his.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Physical and gender requirements.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And so I think that they're all black, they're all female,
they're all petite, they're all alone, and they're all on foot.
So there are certainly offenders who will follow a woman
in a car down a secluded route and bump into
the car pull them over as a fake cop. There
(04:49):
are people who are sophisticated enough to do that.
Speaker 7 (04:51):
He is not.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
He's looking for children, he's not looking to go into
their home and risk their family members. He's very cost
All these things are going to be evinced in his
actual life.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
When you say sophisticated, is that the same as intelligence.
Are we talking about someone who's of lower intelligence.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No, criminal sophistication is based on experience committing these kinds
of crimes. Generally, in these offenses we see precursor crimes
that lead up to the abduction, like peeping or breaking
into a house, stealing somebody's underwear, you know, doing things
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But in this case, I do not believe he broke
into anybody's house.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I believe he doesn't have the guts to do it
or the physical skills to do it. And that could
be because he's overly heavy, or it could be because he's.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Just not confident.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I believe that he's likely short himself, although he has
very powerful hands, probably due to the kind of work
he does.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I believe he's not scary.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
He's able to get close enough to these victims to
not scare.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Them away before he can control them.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So I believe he controls them with a knife or
a gun, and he very quickly binds them and or
throws them in a trunk of a car. Speaking of that,
I think he either has a van, a panel van,
which is much more common in the seventies, or a
(06:32):
station wagon like one of those green, metallic woody station wagons,
where he can open the back, toss them in and
close it and they're not going to be seen by anybody.
So he fits into the community. He's a blackmail or
mixed race, and everyone sees right through him. He's invisible
(06:52):
to the neighborhood because he is just one of the guys.
He probably doesn't come off as being gruff or an asshole.
He probably comes off as being meek, but he does
try to show off any opportunity he gets.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Next, Clemente talked about the kind of work the killer
likely did, which would also explain how he got around
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
He either trolls via his work.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
For example, he could be a tow truck driver or
a traveling repair person, someone who picks up junk or
hauls away trash for people, something that gives him the
opportunity to drive any place at any hour of the
day or night, or he has just has the freedom
(07:41):
to do that. He works for himself and he doesn't
have to clock in anywhere in particular. Also, if he's
in a living relationship, it could be with a parent,
or it could be with a paramore. However, he definitely
does not have to answer to another person in terms
(08:01):
of where he is at what hour, because he's been
able to do this at any hour at any time.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
He grew up in a very religious family, one.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That would have condemned the thoughts and desires that he knew.
By the time he hit puberty, he knew that he
was sexually attracted to children.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
He knew that this was wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He may have acted on it and been scolded and
punished extremely.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
By his mother.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This would have gone on throughout his entire childhood that
he would have been very severely physically punished and also demeaned,
and the demeaning part was probably even more damaging than
the physical punishment. He has a foot or shoe fetish,
(08:53):
and that's why he keeps the shoes as souvenirs. And
there's a difference between souvenirs and trophies. Souvenirs is something
that he keeps privately to himself to remind himself and
encourage the fantasies that he will have as he's reliving
these experiences these offenses.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Trophies are something that you show off.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
For example, trophy might be a necklace that you take
from a victim and give to somebody in your life
so you can see it every day.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's much more insidious.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So, as I said before, I believe that most likely
through his work he's developed very strong hands, powerful hands
and arms, and this is something that he probably deliberately
did as a line of work because he's small and
he feels powerless and he wants to feel more powerful.
(09:47):
He feels like he doesn't measure up, and that again
was something that was drilled into him as a kid,
and especially if they found out about his deviant sexual
behavior and desires. So he feels very diminished. He's get
an extremely poor sense of self. He knew since he
(10:10):
was a child that these dirty, evil thoughts were wrong
and that he was not normal, and he's fixated on
petite probably just pubescent children. This may have been the
first sexual experience that he.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Had was with a girl of that age.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Whether he was that age or older, I don't know,
but probably either a younger relative or somebody that he
had access to through the family was the first person
that he molested. And he may have gotten caught, and
that's why when he started this particular killing series, he
(10:55):
actually killed his victims because he didn't want to ever
get caught again.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Would he have been able to stop for any reason
other than being caught or something else happening, Would he've
had the come out of control.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
He would have needed to stop, absolutely, because every single
one of them can stop. And the proof of that
is that they don't do it in front of everybody else.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
They hide it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They do it only when they can get away with it,
and that is the ultimate control. They know that it's wrong,
they know that it's illegally, they know they will get
arrested and maybe spend the rest of their life in
jail or get the death penalty, and they avoid it
by operating only when they can get away with it.
That's all the proof I need that they're in control.
(11:41):
The people who are criminally insane don't realize that what
they're doing is wrong, so they don't make any attempt
to hide it.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And so this guy is.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Not like that, not at all.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So one particular victim really stands out to me, and
that's Brenda Woodard. And she was eighteen years old, so
she was the oldest victim that we know of, and
yet she was very petite as well and fit all
of the other desirability factors. He probably didn't know that
she was eighteen. She probably looked younger to him. That
(12:19):
may mean that he had to follow her at a
great distance, or that he didn't have much time to
make a decision with respect to her.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But this offense really affected him.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
As I said earlier, she was stabbed repeatedly, but when
her body was placed, a coat was placed over a
chest where where she was stabbed, and that's an aspect
of undoing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So he lost his cool. He was enraged by her behavior.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
She didn't follow the script he had in his mind,
and therefore he punished her for that, but he felt
bad about it, and that's the reason why I believe
he was brought up in a very religious family, a
very strict religious family that basically chastised him and said
he was going to be punished for his sins, and
(13:08):
so that was an outward manifestation of this enforced remorse
basically for what he did. The extent to which Brenda
fought back really bothered him and it undermined his confidence
for quite a while, and that's why he didn't operate
for so long. He may have also been walking around
(13:30):
with physical manifestations of that, scratches on his face, bruised eyes, whatever.
It is something that made him feel like he was
ultimately vulnerable because of what she did. So post defense behavior,
I would say after each of the murders, he hunkered
down and sort of repented outwardly, but inwardly, what he
(13:55):
was doing was he was reliving the fantasy of what
he done over and over again, probably trying to correct
the things that went wrong. And this is one of
the things that drives them to do it over and
over again because it never goes exactly as they fantasize,
and they want to do it right, and they want
it to be right so they can have this amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Fulfilled fantasy.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
This guy has a rich inner fantasy life, and I
think that led him to read a lot and engage
in fantasy type behavior. Today's version of that would be
playing certain fantasy games, but back in the seventies that
wasn't really there. But he may have engaged in that
kind of behavior on the side for his hobby.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
He likes to show off how smart he is.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Is probably annoys the hell out of anybody that he
knows or people that he comes in contact with. His
fantasies are all about young girls, and he may have
from time to time slipped up and let somebody know like, oh,
isn't she hot or something like that, making comments. Wants
to feel powerful and having this power over these girls
(15:04):
makes him feel powerful.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
When I heard this, it reminded me of Brenda Crockett,
the ten year old who the Freeway Phantom allowed to
call home a few times. I asked Clemente if he
thought that was one of the killers displays of power.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, well, this is one of the things the mother
was out looking for. I think that he saw the mother,
and he wanted to make sure that she didn't see him.
That's why he had her tell her mother, I'm in
a house with a white man in Virginia. That tells
me they were not in Virginia, and he was not
(15:41):
a white man, and so he expected that if the
mother had seen him with her.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
She would have said, but who was that black man.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I saw you with?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
But she didn't say that, right, So I think that
was a test to see and that's why he had
her call back twice.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
Next, Jim Clemente talked about the killer's likely living situation.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
He has a private house or garage or shed where
he keeps these girls where he has total privacy and control.
It's in the Beltway area, but it's not in Virginia.
He excluded that by using Virginia in that call. So
somewhere in Maryland or DC he grew up there or
(16:26):
works in that area. And I believe that in nineteen
seventy one he was probably mid twenties to mid thirties.
I believe this was the beginning of his offending career,
and I think something significant happened right after this that
could have been he moved went into the military, was arrested,
(16:49):
but some significant event happened which changed his offending behavior
stopped it at this point, at least in this area.
And that could also have been that he got married,
he got into a relationship, that he found someone who
empowered him and that he was not.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Afraid to be with.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
But it could also have been somebody who completely dominates
and controls him, like his mother did. But that's the
only two types of relationships that I believe he would
have been in.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
What about the washing.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
He seems to have washed at least some of them,
if not all of them.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, well, part of that could be he washed the
feet because he has a foot fetish, so for him,
interacting with their feet is a sexual behavior. It's also
possible that that's a level of forensic sophistication. So yes,
there were green fibers found on several of the bodies.
(17:52):
That shows a lack of forensic sophistication in that area.
But he may have washed any evidence of sexual contact
with these girls. Clearly, they were able to determine that
they were raped in most of the cases, so he
wasn't able to undo that, but he did at least
(18:13):
make an effort and I think that it's either part
of his ritual. So there's MO aspects to every crime.
Those are modus operandi, the action's necessary to commit to
crime and escape undetected.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
But there's also ritual aspects.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And although MO is learned and that you get better
and better over time, that's where you developed criminal sophistication.
I'm not saying that he isn't criminally sophisticated. I'm saying
that his criminal sophistication level does not rise to the
level that will give him the ability to break into
somebody's protected home and take them from their own environment.
(18:52):
That is a criminal sophistication level that is much higher
than someone who takes someone who's on foot on.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The street, so he has a car, they don't have
a car.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
The problem with taking somebody who has a car on foot,
you know when they get out of their car, is
that you leave the car there, so everybody knows where
they were taken from, and the window of opportunity can
be seriously limited by that. So he's taking people who
are on foot who you know won't be expected back
home immediately, right, so there's more of a time delay.
(19:26):
The alarm doesn't go off right away, gives them a
chance to get.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Away to his secure location.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That's what I meant by saying he wasn't as criminally
sophisticated as somebody who would do in home abductions. So
he could have a history, and his history would have
been sexually victimizing children, one in his family or somehow
(19:53):
that he got access to in his teens or early twenties,
because that is what was available to him.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
But eventually he figure.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Out a way to get out and hunt, and he
probably hunted a little bit away from where he lived
and then took them to this place that is secure,
then dumped them a little ways away from where he
lived or where he did this because he didn't want
(20:24):
to point people in the direction of where he lived.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
But I know in one case.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
The victim was left right by where her mother takes
the bus every day. Her shoes were placed very neatly
by the side of her body. That's a ritualistic kind
of behavior, and so that could mean that there's some
kind of connection between them. I don't know, but it's
a very risky thing to do too.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
You said that his behavior would have always been towards
young girls, and you said pretty clearly that that that's
what motivates him. So this is probably not someone who
would have changed the opposite.
Speaker 9 (21:06):
This is not.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Somebody who raped twenty five year olds at one point
and then for this period of time preyed on young girls.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Absolutely, no, that's not who it is.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, if he can successfully break into homes and rape
twenty five year olds or get them while they're on
the street, no he's not doing that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
No, his sexual fantasies are about children.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
That concludes Jim Clemente's profile of the Freeway phantom, and
there's a lot to break down here, so we asked
someone else to sit down with us and provide their
thoughts on this new profile. Jim Clementi's profile is striking
(22:05):
for a number of reasons. It suggests the killer was
a local person, someone with limited resources and a lower
level of sophistication than previously believed. It also suggests they
were primarily motivated by fetishes, in turn demonstrating a level
of psychopathy before unconsidered. We wanted to analyze Clemente's profile
(22:27):
with a professional investigator, so we decided to run all
of this by Detective Jim Trainam. We showed him Clemente's
new profile, and here were his thoughts.
Speaker 7 (22:38):
One of the things that he said that really made
sense to me is the fact that he believes that
this person fantasized about this, especially with the first victim,
and planned it, and that's why he was able to
keep her as long as he did, because he had
everything set up and ready to go. What I'm wondering
is is how many false starts he may have had
(22:59):
before that with other children. And one thing that I
did want to bring up, I don't look if you
consider this is he was talking about the time between
the abduction and the body was found. But we know
that with the first victim, she was abducted kept somewhere
because when she was found, the medical examiner was able
(23:19):
to say she had been there only like two or
three days, and so she was alive for several days
before then. But with the other victims, we don't really
know exactly when they were killed, so it may have
been a much shorter time period. He may have abducted them,
killed them, and then dumped them.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
They were found some time later. But what's interesting is
is that does that mean that he singled out this
first victim and did he know her, And with the
other victims, like the second victim, we always kind of
theorized that says they were from the same neighborhood, disappeared
the same way that he may have known her too.
(23:55):
But the other ones, were they actually ones that he
identified before forehand? Because I got the impression that that's
what Jim was saying. I may be wrong that he
identified his victims beforehand and then planned it and then
abducted them. And is it that or were they just
was he driving around and having victims of opportunity that
(24:17):
kind of fit the type of person that he was
looking for, somebody who was small, somebody who was vulnerable,
somebody who was isolated for a short period of time
so that he could go up and make his play.
That would be one question. I don't remember seeing anything
in any of the investigative reports about them trying to
find out, especially at first, how many other times had
(24:41):
girls been approached by strangers or someone they knew. So
that was my first observation, where each of these victims
identified beforehand, or was it just the first one and
the rest were part of his hunting pattern and you
just happened to cross them at the right date and
the right time.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Trainum also says he found Clemente's analysis of the time
period to be very interesting as well.
Speaker 9 (25:08):
You know, this was a time period where people did hitchhike.
I mean, back in nineteen seventy one, I was hitchhiking,
you know, I was in high school, and that's how
we got around. And children were out on the street,
and they were much more freer, I think, and less
fearful than we are these days. And I think that
a lot of child sex abeziers like he was talking
(25:30):
about very easily could in some cases have lured them
into the car without any kind of threat of violence,
and then used a knife to keep them under control
of that sort of thing.
Speaker 8 (25:42):
We asked train Um what he thought about some of
the geographical analysis.
Speaker 9 (25:47):
If you go and look at all the other abduction sites,
I mean, all of them are pretty much on the
side of an open road, and traffic wasn't as heavy
then as it is now, and you could drive up
and stop your car there and you really wouldn't look suspicious.
And it doesn't take that long just to haul something
out if you have a clear area. But let's say
(26:08):
that you haul the body out, laid it down and
suddenly a police car comes up behind you. What is
your story. I was driving down the road and I
saw something over here, so I pulled over to check
on it. But when he dropped off Brenda Woodard, he
had to get off the interstate go around this you know,
(26:28):
much narrower exit stop where there was no place to stop.
There was no place to pull off. He had to
be out in the road in order to put her
body where he put it. So I think he had
a much higher chance of being spotted as being seen
as somebody doing something suspicious, and so you know why
(26:49):
he chose that spot always puzzled me. I've heard this.
I've never been able to really find any documentation in
my memory about how her mother actually worked at the
hospital right next to where the body was found and
all of that. Could it be because he had some
kind of exchange with her and knew that her mother
worked at the hospital there.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
Trenham says he's also curious about the type of sexual
assaults that the killer committed.
Speaker 9 (27:15):
There was evidence that they were strangled not only manually,
but with the ligature as well. But with Brenda, she
was strangled with the literature. It stabbed, Like Jim said,
you probably she had written the letter and she knew that,
you know, the shit was up, and she'd try to
protect herself because she had already been sexually assaulted, her
clothes and put back on, and when she was stabbed,
(27:38):
her clothes were inside out, her shirt was inside out,
and the knife holes in the shirt matched up to
the knife entries there. I was wondering if he was possibly,
as part of his control and sexual fantasy, strangling them
during sex and letting them pass out and come to
I mean, because Brenda was probably not killed by strangulation
(28:00):
of a knife injuries, So I'm thinking that the strangulation
came first. I think that the most logical or the
theory that fits those facts is that the clothes were removed,
she was sexually assaulted, she was redressed like the other victims,
and then maybe during the writing out of the notes
something happened and that's what she stabbed. I thought the
(28:26):
point about the first one having the most planning is
really the most interesting thing myself, because even with the
third victim, Crockett, I mean, he had to have had
a place to take her to make that phone call.
I really was wondering, you know, if he knew the mother,
or if the mother actually saw him at some point.
(28:47):
That's always been a question in my mind. Would he
have aborted, would he have tried to cover up what
he was doing, maybe by bringing her back and saying
that he found her.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Honestly, I think that if she had said, you know,
mama saw you, or in some way provided that information
that you know, she might be alive, because he would
have felt that he could not carry through without further
risk to himself.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
And lastly, Trainam had a lot to say about the
new profiles take on the handwritten note, which included the
Moniker Freeway phantom.
Speaker 9 (29:24):
Yeah, the name was coined by I believe a reporter
for WTP at the time, Pat Collins. But one thing
that was proposed at one point was that he was
pissed off because the police were at that point we're
still saying, oh no, there's no serial killer, no comment.
They were really downplaying it. And so yeah, we had
(29:45):
always kind of thought that he's now proud of himself.
He wants to show the world that you know, this
is my handiwork, and I'm smarter than the cops are.
And so he's actually bragging about that. But the fact
that Brenda wentz South arum. We always felt that that
was the reason for that ten months delay between victims
(30:07):
right there.
Speaker 8 (30:09):
My take on all of this is that the profile
suggests the killer could have stopped killing, but his tendencies
to want to show off his skill or ability would
have remained the same. He would have followed the freeway
phantom cases and basked in that moniker, enjoying that he
outsmarted law enforcement. But that over confidence made him vulnerable
(30:31):
because anyone near him could witness his behavior and his
enjoyment of the coverage and then report him to the police.
That's still possible even today. But if the killer was
less sophisticated than we initially thought, then why was it
so difficult to capture him? As we've talked about on
this podcast, The answer is complicated, but it ultimately boils
(30:54):
down to a blend of primitive investigative technology, racism and
apathy in the police force, a lack of willingness in
the community to come forward, and pure luck on behalf
of the killer. The thing is, many of those issues
remain true today. According to DC Witness. That's a nonprofit
that collects and analyzes violent crime data in the nation's capital.
(31:19):
The homicide rate is consistently rising here and the closure
rate is dropping. In twenty twenty two, only forty two
percent of homicide cases were closed nationwide. Black girls and
women are at a significantly higher risk of being the
victims of violent crime, and a twenty twenty DC Witness
study showed that the rate of homicide among black girls
(31:41):
and women rose thirty three percent that year in comparison
to fifteen percent among their white counterparts. So why why
are black girls still at risk and why aren't these
cases getting solved?
Speaker 10 (31:56):
A lot of variables playing into closure rate. It's not
always just a racial thing, and sometimes it is a
racial thing. It would be irresponsible of me to say
that the closure rate is solely dependent on color. I
will say that they're variables.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
We live and die. Some people by the street code.
Speaker 10 (32:16):
Some people out there they know who murdered this person,
they know who committed this.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Armed robbery, but they won't come forward. I could just
(32:47):
tell you, you.
Speaker 10 (32:48):
Know, there's some of the variables and some of the
reasons why there's lack of resistance within the communities to crime.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Robbery.
Speaker 10 (32:56):
There's a millisecond away from a homicide whenever you draw
a fire on and those same people who are committing
these homicides will snatch your baby out your living room
and should be a missing person. All of this is
all in the same vein, and that's why it's so important.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
To bring closure to the community.
Speaker 10 (33:19):
It's so important to solve these cases and the whole
folks accountable.
Speaker 8 (33:27):
This is Henderson long, CEO of DC's Missing Voice. Henderson
is dedicated to building trust between DC's black community and
the police with the goal of bettering the homicide solve rate.
He also played a key role in helping us in
the early stages of our Freeway Phantom investigation.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
I augment the Metropolitan Police Department in the private sector
to assist with trace investigations, to locate missing persons and
some of the similar work that needs.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
To be done in the community.
Speaker 10 (34:00):
I do a lot of that work in terms of outreach,
in terms of investigating cases, in terms of whatever these
detectives may need.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
We promote cases.
Speaker 10 (34:12):
We developed a big platform when we stay in close
contact with the lead detectives and stuff is so important.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
Henderson says, this type of work is personally very significant
to him.
Speaker 10 (34:25):
I'm an eight time homicide loser and my aunt was
missing and found murder. She was missing for twenty years,
and through the technology a DNA match, we found out
about her whereabouts and it was confirmed. My partner, John Andrews,
one of the guys I've worked with over the Missing
(34:45):
Persons unit who does cold cases, got the family to
submit their DNA and trust the police, and we put
it in the database. We compare it against the set
of bones and there it is. You know, I mean
after twenty years. Her body had been recovered a year later,
but by us being uneducated, by it being some fear
(35:09):
within our family about putting up your group was just
talking about DNA giving my DNA jam me up on that.
Maybe that homicide I committed last year, or maybe I
mean people just apprehensive.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
About DNA social security numbers. No.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
Henderson says one of the biggest issues in cases like
the Freeway phantom or any of the other dozen cases
he works on is that many of DC's black communities
simply don't trust law enforcement. When a murder occurs, it's
usually likely that someone in the neighborhood knows something, but
they won't tell the cops. Henderson's goal is to act
as a neutral ambassador and hopefully convince those witnesses to
(35:51):
come forward. How do you convince because I mean you
probably are aware that trust in polices at an all
time lovel So how do you convince people to.
Speaker 11 (36:04):
Work with the police.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You get out in the community.
Speaker 10 (36:07):
We may set up and feed people hot dogs one
day and just hand out resources and educate them, let them.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Know we were here for you. When they see me
with the commander.
Speaker 10 (36:18):
I have creds in the street as being just an
honest person. You can have a keilo or cocaine. I'm
not here for the kilo. I'm here for the missing person.
So if you want your block to run, you need
to tell them you help with this missing This is
some of the things how you persuade because it's a
language within the street and you have to kind of
know the language, kind of know the area you in.
(36:40):
You know, before you go to a neighborhood and you
start jibber jabbing, you do a static drive too.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
You look at the neighborhood, you call one.
Speaker 10 (36:47):
Of the people up, the guys from the neighborhood, and
you ask him what's popping? Can you walk with me?
They see you with him. These are ways you do
it in a safe manner. It's a lot of different
ways to acquire information through computer databases to face to
face interviews. You have the DNA, the forensic technology. All
(37:11):
these things are at your disposal. You know, you have
business associates you may go interview, you have credit card information,
you have video surveillance you can use. Somebody may call
me and say we saw a little girl over in southeast.
I'll get with the detective and he'll go and pull
the video and there she is. So now we got
(37:31):
her schedule. We know she kind of coming here at
a certain time. So these are all investigated.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Like how you work.
Speaker 10 (37:39):
You understand the person's where they like to go, where
do they frequent, what.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Time of day do they go there? You know, having
that good physical description.
Speaker 10 (37:48):
If you'd be surprised how many families don't have an
up to date photo.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Even while they're carrying their phone their camera with them
all the time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10 (37:57):
Like let's say if you had a child, and a
lot of kids now they're too cool to take pictures,
so you might have an old picture and I'm just
gonna say this kind of like in some of the
inner city communities, we don't really take a lot of pictures,
so I.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Get a picture that's old.
Speaker 10 (38:11):
But my point is having a good physical description, having
a good photo, having fingerprints on file. These are tools.
These are all investigative tools. Having their medical data, knowing
about it, like some people may be on medication and
they wander off. So having all these things on file,
(38:35):
having a community to understand this is in your custody,
meaning you can have a child ID kit in your
custody with all this stuff in it. The National Center
Missing Spool Kids, they send me a thousand child out
the kids and I.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Get out in the community and we try to get
into the schools.
Speaker 11 (38:52):
I have a completed one of my son's fingerprints sitting
in my sav at home.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Yeah, and the medical data.
Speaker 10 (38:58):
When someone goes missing, this actually a child is chaos.
You don't know how to put your left shoe on
from the right. Use some things you think you will remember,
you won't remember. But if you got it in the kid,
you just hand them a kid that's their full physical description.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
These are things important.
Speaker 11 (39:16):
It's interesting because on one side you're talking about things
like forensic and CCTV, which they didn't have in the
nineteen seventies when the freeway phantom was preying on children.
On the other side, you're talking about stuff like talking
to community members and getting people to speak with you.
That absolutely was available back in the nineteen seventies. But
(39:37):
when I look at the photos, the crime scene photos,
I'm looking at photos of about twenty five white dudes
in a black community investigating a black girl's death, and
I have to ask wonder to myself how successful were
these white cops in nineteen seventy one at getting the community.
(40:00):
You're shaking your head already.
Speaker 10 (40:02):
Well, you know, he was elusive, he was something to
deal with.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
This was some monster guy.
Speaker 10 (40:10):
The way the curate is some suspicion about some type
of maybe law enforcement training or some kind of military
training to understand how to dispose of the bodies and
how to mess with their head the police because he was, oh,
he was doing some damage and he was getting away.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
He was he didn't leave very much.
Speaker 10 (40:33):
And at the time, as you spoke about, they didn't
have But what they have now. I'm just fortunate to
have talked to the older detectives who taught me about
how to shake the bushes and just how to move
in the street. You have to know how to move
in the street. You have to know how to what
(40:53):
areas to go in and what areas.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
You cannot go in. They don't care who you are.
Speaker 10 (40:59):
No police, he's working with no police. Bush you open,
you gotta know, or if you know, somebody knows them
and they got some cribs, you can go in the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
And this is how I mainly how I work. I
always have If.
Speaker 10 (41:14):
I'm going into a really rough neighborhood, I'm always unarmed.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
I'm always unarmed. I don't I don't carry a pistol.
I don't.
Speaker 10 (41:23):
Why not, Because I got my patrol units, and I
have people that's not far away on speed dial.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I got a sergeant that's rarely available, you know.
Speaker 10 (41:33):
And and I go in there, and and and I
go in there on the strength of credibility, on the
strength of knowing somebody, because that's what take care of
the gun is not somebody get to drop on me.
I can have a gun all I want, and I
still could lose my life.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Somebody get the drop.
Speaker 10 (41:52):
Well, you gotta have that credibility, you have to have
those relationships.
Speaker 8 (41:58):
On a recent trip to DC, my producer Jamie and
I did a ride along with Henderson, following him on
his usual route through the neighborhood as he checked in
with folks throughout the region, and he brings up a
recent case that we'll talk about later.
Speaker 10 (42:12):
What we gonna do is we gra to go to
an area where two month old Kayan Jones, who was
a missing person in Washington, DC, went missing. His case,
his remains have not been recovered, so he's still a
missing person. The mom had confessed on public television that
she through the baby in the dumpster.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
She actually confessed right in front of me. We just
gonna go to the neighborhood.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
We're gonna talk a little bit in general about just
some general things about the case and how unfortunate the
case was, and just get a visual of the atmosphere
where the mother lived at, you know, the environment, cause.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
That plays a part in you know, why these cases
are occurring.
Speaker 10 (43:02):
The missing person's event in the first place, is the
the conditions, the living conditions, and you know, all of
that stuff plays in. So we just gonna ride there
and you know, you guys can take a look. This
is every day what you gonna see every single day,
sun up to sundown. This is what's going on in
the community, and it's perpetuating our most severe cases.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
So yup, it's right up the street.
Speaker 10 (43:32):
So when you were.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Walk like, if you were to walk over there and
get out flyers, what would you say? What would I
say to him?
Speaker 10 (43:40):
I would just tell him that, you know, the the
child is missing m and the child is missing in
this area. You know, I'm her uncle, you know, can
you help me this, this, that and the other. You know,
I know her mom and we all trying to look
for her. Laws. Some people recognize me by face and
they automatically start talking to me about it, and some
people don't, you know, but you y you know, I
(44:02):
know the area. I know this area pretty well. I
frequent this area, so I really don't stick stand out
to any of them.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
They seen me before. Most of 'em.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
If they see me coming, they already know what I'm
coming for. So I usually, you know, just give 'em
a spill.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I mean, I just tell 'em.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
If I don't know 'em, I'll tell them anything, you know,
to get 'em to possibly help.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
Or tell me something. You know, there's no standing script.
Speaker 10 (44:28):
You know, you you say whatever you feel in your
heart at the time. You know, most people are a
little more sympathetic when it's your niece or a family member.
Then if you tell them you're an investigator, you working
with the police or whatever, usually they.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Shut down on you.
Speaker 10 (44:44):
So, uh, I usually give them some story, you know,
I give 'em a little story, a lie. Be honest
with you, Jamie, you would do better out here investigating
than I would.
Speaker 7 (44:55):
Why is God?
Speaker 10 (44:57):
Because I mean, for one, you're a woman, if you're
a good looking d y, you not any kind of
threat to them. They don't say anything to try to
have a conversation with you. And that's like if you
got you your interviewing somebody and it's a male, sometimes
you do better interviewing them than another f another male interviewer.
(45:19):
So sometimes when you get out and you're dealing with men,
you can you know, you can charm 'em a little bit,
you can. That's these are things you can use when
you are you be wondering what do you say? Sometimes
your persona and your your your overall how they perceive
you when you first walk up. You know what you say,
really don't matter. You you can just tell them you
looking for the missing person, you're a family member.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
But all these things weigh in.
Speaker 10 (45:44):
When you trying to persuade people, You trying to get
people to give you information, Cause that's the whole business
of investigative work. You just gathering all the pertinent information.
That's all you You y'all trying to get something that
you don't already have, and that's information. So whatever you
can use, you use.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
It, you know, you know.
Speaker 8 (46:08):
On our ride along, Henderson mentioned the missing person's case
of two month old Kaion Jones. Kyon was reported missing
by his mother in May of twenty twenty one. DC
Police were investigating his case when Henderson spoke to his mother,
Ladonia Boggs. Ladonia confessed to Henderson and CBS nine News
that she rolled over on Kaion and he stopped breathing.
(46:30):
She said she discarded him in a trash dumpster. Sadly,
Kayan's remains were never found, but Henderson is determined to
find out the truth and find Kayon's remains. Unfortunately, Henderson
admits there wasn't a trace investigator like him in the
nineteen seventies. During the freeway phantom case, the level of
(46:53):
trust between officers and community was likely lower than with
no middleman present to mitigate. Had that been different, maybe
the freeway phantom cases would have been solved. The silver
lining here is that things have the potential to be
better today. With the rise of social media. We saw
increased attention on the issue in twenty sixteen when the
(47:15):
hashtag DC missing Girls went.
Speaker 12 (47:17):
Viral when the Washington DC Police Department tried to raise
awareness about missing children and teenagers by posting their images
on social media. The campaign backfired, sparking some national outrage
and fears of an epidemic of missing children of color.
Speaker 8 (47:36):
As we mentioned in episode one, the initial Twitter post
claimed young black girls were going missing at an alarming
rate in DC, and that post spread like wildfire. It
was retweeted by a whole host of celebrities and high
profile figures. But then it came to light that the
numbers were highly inflated and so the post was somewhat misleading.
Speaker 11 (47:58):
I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
What happened with the viral hashtag of DC missing girls
and how they could get it so wrong. What did
you think about that.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I knew the truth.
Speaker 10 (48:11):
I knew that they were advertising it on Twitter. Every
case was getting advertised, So you saw a heavy volume
of kids.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
That you didn't see before.
Speaker 10 (48:21):
There wasn't a spike, but they were advertising it. Every
case got advertised.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
At one point the watch commander.
Speaker 10 (48:28):
Had discretion to decide which ones went out on their
Twitter feed. Now, every missing person, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, you,
whatever you are, all that you're going to get a
missing person's report that go out on Twitter from MPD.
And so they saw this and somebody took and hashtagged
(48:53):
that fourteen girls were going missing. Maxwell saw it, Shanaiah
Lathen saw it. El cool j he sent it out
once they tweeted out. Now it's the law, and it
really wasn't. Fourteen girls and went missing. And a part
of our education is getting the community to understand the
criteria for the amblert because there was some concern of
(49:15):
why has an amblert went on and black kids don't
get the ambuler. Where's the criteria and that's strictly for
in case of some form of abduction.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
They used the amb alert. It was a good thing overall.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
Why do you say that because all of the media
attention we got now. MPD developed a website which is
strictly for missing persons. I know you saw it, where
you can go in and you can get information. It's
not real time, but it's much better than it was.
Every missing person gets their information sent out, and you
(49:51):
eliminate the question of race because now everybody is getting
a press release to every media outlet.
Speaker 8 (50:02):
In many ways, that increased visibility was a good thing.
Despite what the hashtag got wrong, it highlighted a very
real issue that had gone ignored for far too long.
But even now, six years later, cases of missing and
murdered black girls still get less media attention than the
cases involving their white counterparts, and the closure rate has
(50:24):
had little to no improvement, And so we have to
ask have things actually gotten better since the nineteen seventies.
When we talked to Henderson about the Freeway phantom case,
he said many of these same issues from back then
can be found in cases today. Henderson brought up one
case with very different circumstances, but which serves as an
(50:45):
example of how black girls today are as at risk
of victimization as they were in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 10 (50:53):
Well, you know militia, right, that's the case that its
shatsh you. You know, I probably take my last breath
still working in some form of fashion, if it's not
training somebody else or another young person. But these cases,
I'll never stop working until it's closed. And if I die,
I'm gonna lay out this is all here we're documenting.
(51:15):
This is a part of DC history, this is national history.
If you open up Relicia Rudd's case and you look,
first of all, the headline is an eight year old child,
and next to it you got murder to her legacy,
you got deception, people pointing the finger, nobody's saying nothing.
(51:36):
Then you got suicide, and then you got some drug abuse,
you got the foster care system, got the you got.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
A whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 10 (51:44):
And at the end, when you got all that, all
these dynamics, that's what you get. You get something that
you got to scratch your head and say, did that
really happen?
Speaker 4 (51:54):
Did she just vanish?
Speaker 8 (52:04):
Next time on freeway Phantom.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
We were very alarmed, but we were very determined to
find Relicia.
Speaker 10 (52:12):
This is an age progression photo of what relasia would
look like today.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
In cases such as that, the response of the very
first responding officers of utmost importance.
Speaker 6 (52:24):
Each year, there are over six hundred thousand people reported
missing in the United States and close to forty percent
of persons of coloring.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
And I've always been trying to figure out a way
to get the hurd off of me.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
After all these years, I don't know if it's important anymore.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
I just know that if.
Speaker 8 (52:46):
You do wrong, wrong would come back on you.
Speaker 9 (52:49):
If I can bring resolution to these cases, I will
do it.
Speaker 7 (52:53):
I'm going to try my best to do it.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Freeway FANOM is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV, and.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
Black bar MITZVAH.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Our host is CELESE.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright, and CELESE.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Executive producers on behalf of iHeart Radio include Matt Frederick
and Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers
on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on
behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay Ellis and
(53:31):
Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Fools. Lead researcher is Jamie Albright.
Artwork by Mister Soul two one six, original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set Special thanks to a teammate, Uta
Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV
and iHeartMedia, as well as Black Bar Mitzvah, have increased
(53:52):
the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction
of the person or persons responsible for their Freeway Fanom murders.
The previous reward of up to one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan Police Department has been matched.
A new total reward of up to three hundred thousand
dollars is now being offered. If you have any information
(54:12):
relating to these unsolved crimes, contact the Metropolitan Police Department
at area code two zero two seven two seven nine
zero ninety nine. For more information, please visit Freeway Dashfanom
dot com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(54:33):
to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to The Freeway Phanom, a production of iHeartRadio,
Tenderfoot TV, and Black bar Mitzvah. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, Black bar Mitzvah, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter that may
(00:23):
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
He wanted to show off, and this is something that
he will do in his real life all the time
because of his.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Poor self image.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
He feels the need to prove his greatness and whether
that's in his vocabulary that he uses or in the
quote conquests that he makes, he wants to prove how
much of a man he is. And this letter, especially
when he has used these multi syllabic words to show
(01:03):
off and he gets one of them wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So I think I should just launch into the profile.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
The homicide detectives termed the cases the Little Girl cases.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
I wouldn't go no way. I would call up my house.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Those first five murders should have been a huge warning
bell for the police.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
This person must have saw that they were thinking that
maybe it's just one person, and he says, they need
to know.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
This is me.
Speaker 7 (01:46):
I thought that they would catch him.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I thought it was just a.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
Matter of time.
Speaker 8 (01:51):
I'm Celeste Headley and this is Freeway Phantom. In the
last episode, we talked about the original, outdated psychological profile
for the Freeway Phantom, and we revealed that we commissioned
a new profile from the former FBI Special Agent Jim Clemente.
(02:12):
So now we'll jump right into Jim Clemente's new profile
of the Freeway Phantom, and that starts with a little
bit of scene setting.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So the first thing that we have to understand is
the victim availability factor was higher back then.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
In the seventies.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You didn't have the Internet, which gave people access immediately
to everything that happens around the country every day twenty
four seven, three sixty five. So generally smaller communities were
they felt insulated. If nothing happened in your community, then
you weren't really concerned about certain.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Things like child abductions.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The fact is that in the United States of America,
approximately one hundred and sixty to two hundred times a
year a child is abducted by a non family member
for a long period of time, one hundred and sixty
times to two hundred times a year. Now you match
that against Nick Mick's reports of missing kids over eight
(03:15):
hundred thousand a year, but only one sixty to two
hundred of them are actually non familiar long term abductions.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So what does that tell you. It's a very rare event.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But with the Internet, you now know about every single
one of them, well at least every one of them
that is a blond haired, blue eyed, white girl.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
But you hear about many.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Of them that occur much more than you would have before.
So people started locking their doors more often, restricting the
freedoms of their kids, not letting them just ride their
bikes down the street alone or walk to the store alone.
And so that is a very important thing. This guy,
(04:02):
although he was able to abduct six seven girls, they.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Were much more available to him.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So this is not a criminal sophistication level that is
extremely high. It is more a product of the times.
So that's the first part of the profile. He chooses
victims of opportunity, but they must meet his.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Physical and gender requirements.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And so I think that they're all black, they're all female,
they're all petite, they're all alone, and they're all on foot.
So there are certainly offenders who will follow a woman
in a car down a secluded route and bump into
the car pull them over as a fake cop. There
(04:49):
are people who are sophisticated enough to do that.
Speaker 7 (04:51):
He is not.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
He's looking for children, he's not looking to go into
their home and risk their family members. He's very cost
All these things are going to be evinced in his
actual life.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
When you say sophisticated, is that the same as intelligence.
Are we talking about someone who's of lower intelligence.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No, criminal sophistication is based on experience committing these kinds
of crimes. Generally, in these offenses we see precursor crimes
that lead up to the abduction, like peeping or breaking
into a house, stealing somebody's underwear, you know, doing things
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But in this case, I do not believe he broke
into anybody's house.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I believe he doesn't have the guts to do it
or the physical skills to do it. And that could
be because he's overly heavy, or it could be because he's.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Just not confident.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I believe that he's likely short himself, although he has
very powerful hands, probably due to the kind of work
he does.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I believe he's not scary.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
He's able to get close enough to these victims to
not scare.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Them away before he can control them.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So I believe he controls them with a knife or
a gun, and he very quickly binds them and or
throws them in a trunk of a car. Speaking of that,
I think he either has a van, a panel van,
which is much more common in the seventies, or a
(06:32):
station wagon like one of those green, metallic woody station wagons,
where he can open the back, toss them in and
close it and they're not going to be seen by anybody.
So he fits into the community. He's a blackmail or
mixed race, and everyone sees right through him. He's invisible
(06:52):
to the neighborhood because he is just one of the guys.
He probably doesn't come off as being gruff or an asshole.
He probably comes off as being meek, but he does
try to show off any opportunity he gets.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Next, Clemente talked about the kind of work the killer
likely did, which would also explain how he got around
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
He either trolls via his work.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
For example, he could be a tow truck driver or
a traveling repair person, someone who picks up junk or
hauls away trash for people, something that gives him the
opportunity to drive any place at any hour of the
day or night, or he has just has the freedom
(07:41):
to do that. He works for himself and he doesn't
have to clock in anywhere in particular. Also, if he's
in a living relationship, it could be with a parent,
or it could be with a paramore. However, he definitely
does not have to answer to another person in terms
(08:01):
of where he is at what hour, because he's been
able to do this at any hour at any time.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
He grew up in a very religious family, one.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That would have condemned the thoughts and desires that he knew.
By the time he hit puberty, he knew that he
was sexually attracted to children.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
He knew that this was wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He may have acted on it and been scolded and
punished extremely.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
By his mother.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This would have gone on throughout his entire childhood that
he would have been very severely physically punished and also demeaned,
and the demeaning part was probably even more damaging than
the physical punishment. He has a foot or shoe fetish,
(08:53):
and that's why he keeps the shoes as souvenirs. And
there's a difference between souvenirs and trophies. Souvenirs is something
that he keeps privately to himself to remind himself and
encourage the fantasies that he will have as he's reliving
these experiences these offenses.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Trophies are something that you show off.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
For example, trophy might be a necklace that you take
from a victim and give to somebody in your life
so you can see it every day.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's much more insidious.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So, as I said before, I believe that most likely
through his work he's developed very strong hands, powerful hands
and arms, and this is something that he probably deliberately
did as a line of work because he's small and
he feels powerless and he wants to feel more powerful.
(09:47):
He feels like he doesn't measure up, and that again
was something that was drilled into him as a kid,
and especially if they found out about his deviant sexual
behavior and desires. So he feels very diminished. He's get
an extremely poor sense of self. He knew since he
(10:10):
was a child that these dirty, evil thoughts were wrong
and that he was not normal, and he's fixated on
petite probably just pubescent children. This may have been the
first sexual experience that he.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Had was with a girl of that age.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Whether he was that age or older, I don't know,
but probably either a younger relative or somebody that he
had access to through the family was the first person
that he molested. And he may have gotten caught, and
that's why when he started this particular killing series, he
(10:55):
actually killed his victims because he didn't want to ever
get caught again.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Would he have been able to stop for any reason
other than being caught or something else happening, Would he've
had the come out of control.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
He would have needed to stop, absolutely, because every single
one of them can stop. And the proof of that
is that they don't do it in front of everybody else.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
They hide it.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
They do it only when they can get away with it,
and that is the ultimate control. They know that it's wrong,
they know that it's illegally, they know they will get
arrested and maybe spend the rest of their life in
jail or get the death penalty, and they avoid it
by operating only when they can get away with it.
That's all the proof I need that they're in control.
(11:41):
The people who are criminally insane don't realize that what
they're doing is wrong, so they don't make any attempt
to hide it.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And so this guy is.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Not like that, not at all.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So one particular victim really stands out to me, and
that's Brenda Woodard. And she was eighteen years old, so
she was the oldest victim that we know of, and
yet she was very petite as well and fit all
of the other desirability factors. He probably didn't know that
she was eighteen. She probably looked younger to him. That
(12:19):
may mean that he had to follow her at a
great distance, or that he didn't have much time to
make a decision with respect to her.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But this offense really affected him.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
As I said earlier, she was stabbed repeatedly, but when
her body was placed, a coat was placed over a
chest where where she was stabbed, and that's an aspect
of undoing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So he lost his cool. He was enraged by her behavior.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
She didn't follow the script he had in his mind,
and therefore he punished her for that, but he felt
bad about it, and that's the reason why I believe
he was brought up in a very religious family, a
very strict religious family that basically chastised him and said
he was going to be punished for his sins, and
(13:08):
so that was an outward manifestation of this enforced remorse
basically for what he did. The extent to which Brenda
fought back really bothered him and it undermined his confidence
for quite a while, and that's why he didn't operate
for so long. He may have also been walking around
(13:30):
with physical manifestations of that, scratches on his face, bruised eyes, whatever.
It is something that made him feel like he was
ultimately vulnerable because of what she did. So post defense behavior,
I would say after each of the murders, he hunkered
down and sort of repented outwardly, but inwardly, what he
(13:55):
was doing was he was reliving the fantasy of what
he done over and over again, probably trying to correct
the things that went wrong. And this is one of
the things that drives them to do it over and
over again because it never goes exactly as they fantasize,
and they want to do it right, and they want
it to be right so they can have this amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Fulfilled fantasy.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
This guy has a rich inner fantasy life, and I
think that led him to read a lot and engage
in fantasy type behavior. Today's version of that would be
playing certain fantasy games, but back in the seventies that
wasn't really there. But he may have engaged in that
kind of behavior on the side for his hobby.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
He likes to show off how smart he is.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Is probably annoys the hell out of anybody that he
knows or people that he comes in contact with. His
fantasies are all about young girls, and he may have
from time to time slipped up and let somebody know like, oh,
isn't she hot or something like that, making comments. Wants
to feel powerful and having this power over these girls
(15:04):
makes him feel powerful.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
When I heard this, it reminded me of Brenda Crockett,
the ten year old who the Freeway Phantom allowed to
call home a few times. I asked Clemente if he
thought that was one of the killers displays of power.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, well, this is one of the things the mother
was out looking for. I think that he saw the mother,
and he wanted to make sure that she didn't see him.
That's why he had her tell her mother, I'm in
a house with a white man in Virginia. That tells
me they were not in Virginia, and he was not
(15:41):
a white man, and so he expected that if the
mother had seen him with her.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
She would have said, but who was that black man.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I saw you with?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
But she didn't say that, right, So I think that
was a test to see and that's why he had
her call back twice.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
Next, Jim Clemente talked about the killer's likely living situation.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
He has a private house or garage or shed where
he keeps these girls where he has total privacy and control.
It's in the Beltway area, but it's not in Virginia.
He excluded that by using Virginia in that call. So
somewhere in Maryland or DC he grew up there or
(16:26):
works in that area. And I believe that in nineteen
seventy one he was probably mid twenties to mid thirties.
I believe this was the beginning of his offending career,
and I think something significant happened right after this that
could have been he moved went into the military, was arrested,
(16:49):
but some significant event happened which changed his offending behavior
stopped it at this point, at least in this area.
And that could also have been that he got married,
he got into a relationship, that he found someone who
empowered him and that he was not.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Afraid to be with.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
But it could also have been somebody who completely dominates
and controls him, like his mother did. But that's the
only two types of relationships that I believe he would
have been in.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
What about the washing.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
He seems to have washed at least some of them,
if not all of them.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, well, part of that could be he washed the
feet because he has a foot fetish, so for him,
interacting with their feet is a sexual behavior. It's also
possible that that's a level of forensic sophistication. So yes,
there were green fibers found on several of the bodies.
(17:52):
That shows a lack of forensic sophistication in that area.
But he may have washed any evidence of sexual contact
with these girls. Clearly, they were able to determine that
they were raped in most of the cases, so he
wasn't able to undo that, but he did at least
(18:13):
make an effort and I think that it's either part
of his ritual. So there's MO aspects to every crime.
Those are modus operandi, the action's necessary to commit to
crime and escape undetected.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
But there's also ritual aspects.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And although MO is learned and that you get better
and better over time, that's where you developed criminal sophistication.
I'm not saying that he isn't criminally sophisticated. I'm saying
that his criminal sophistication level does not rise to the
level that will give him the ability to break into
somebody's protected home and take them from their own environment.
(18:52):
That is a criminal sophistication level that is much higher
than someone who takes someone who's on foot on.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The street, so he has a car, they don't have
a car.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
The problem with taking somebody who has a car on foot,
you know when they get out of their car, is
that you leave the car there, so everybody knows where
they were taken from, and the window of opportunity can
be seriously limited by that. So he's taking people who
are on foot who you know won't be expected back
home immediately, right, so there's more of a time delay.
(19:26):
The alarm doesn't go off right away, gives them a
chance to get.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Away to his secure location.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That's what I meant by saying he wasn't as criminally
sophisticated as somebody who would do in home abductions. So
he could have a history, and his history would have
been sexually victimizing children, one in his family or somehow
(19:53):
that he got access to in his teens or early twenties,
because that is what was available to him.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
But eventually he figure.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Out a way to get out and hunt, and he
probably hunted a little bit away from where he lived
and then took them to this place that is secure,
then dumped them a little ways away from where he
lived or where he did this because he didn't want
(20:24):
to point people in the direction of where he lived.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
But I know in one case.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
The victim was left right by where her mother takes
the bus every day. Her shoes were placed very neatly
by the side of her body. That's a ritualistic kind
of behavior, and so that could mean that there's some
kind of connection between them. I don't know, but it's
a very risky thing to do too.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
You said that his behavior would have always been towards
young girls, and you said pretty clearly that that that's
what motivates him. So this is probably not someone who
would have changed the opposite.
Speaker 9 (21:06):
This is not.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Somebody who raped twenty five year olds at one point
and then for this period of time preyed on young girls.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Absolutely, no, that's not who it is.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, if he can successfully break into homes and rape
twenty five year olds or get them while they're on
the street, no he's not doing that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
No, his sexual fantasies are about children.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
That concludes Jim Clemente's profile of the Freeway phantom, and
there's a lot to break down here, so we asked
someone else to sit down with us and provide their
thoughts on this new profile. Jim Clementi's profile is striking
(22:05):
for a number of reasons. It suggests the killer was
a local person, someone with limited resources and a lower
level of sophistication than previously believed. It also suggests they
were primarily motivated by fetishes, in turn demonstrating a level
of psychopathy before unconsidered. We wanted to analyze Clemente's profile
(22:27):
with a professional investigator, so we decided to run all
of this by Detective Jim Trainam. We showed him Clemente's
new profile, and here were his thoughts.
Speaker 7 (22:38):
One of the things that he said that really made
sense to me is the fact that he believes that
this person fantasized about this, especially with the first victim,
and planned it, and that's why he was able to
keep her as long as he did, because he had
everything set up and ready to go. What I'm wondering
is is how many false starts he may have had
(22:59):
before that with other children. And one thing that I
did want to bring up, I don't look if you
consider this is he was talking about the time between
the abduction and the body was found. But we know
that with the first victim, she was abducted kept somewhere
because when she was found, the medical examiner was able
(23:19):
to say she had been there only like two or
three days, and so she was alive for several days
before then. But with the other victims, we don't really
know exactly when they were killed, so it may have
been a much shorter time period. He may have abducted them,
killed them, and then dumped them.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
They were found some time later. But what's interesting is
is that does that mean that he singled out this
first victim and did he know her, And with the
other victims, like the second victim, we always kind of
theorized that says they were from the same neighborhood, disappeared
the same way that he may have known her too.
(23:55):
But the other ones, were they actually ones that he
identified before forehand? Because I got the impression that that's
what Jim was saying. I may be wrong that he
identified his victims beforehand and then planned it and then
abducted them. And is it that or were they just
was he driving around and having victims of opportunity that
(24:17):
kind of fit the type of person that he was
looking for, somebody who was small, somebody who was vulnerable,
somebody who was isolated for a short period of time
so that he could go up and make his play.
That would be one question. I don't remember seeing anything
in any of the investigative reports about them trying to
find out, especially at first, how many other times had
(24:41):
girls been approached by strangers or someone they knew. So
that was my first observation, where each of these victims
identified beforehand, or was it just the first one and
the rest were part of his hunting pattern and you
just happened to cross them at the right date and
the right time.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
Trainum also says he found Clemente's analysis of the time
period to be very interesting as well.
Speaker 9 (25:08):
You know, this was a time period where people did hitchhike.
I mean, back in nineteen seventy one, I was hitchhiking,
you know, I was in high school, and that's how
we got around. And children were out on the street,
and they were much more freer, I think, and less
fearful than we are these days. And I think that
a lot of child sex abeziers like he was talking
(25:30):
about very easily could in some cases have lured them
into the car without any kind of threat of violence,
and then used a knife to keep them under control
of that sort of thing.
Speaker 8 (25:42):
We asked train Um what he thought about some of
the geographical analysis.
Speaker 9 (25:47):
If you go and look at all the other abduction sites,
I mean, all of them are pretty much on the
side of an open road, and traffic wasn't as heavy
then as it is now, and you could drive up
and stop your car there and you really wouldn't look suspicious.
And it doesn't take that long just to haul something
out if you have a clear area. But let's say
(26:08):
that you haul the body out, laid it down and
suddenly a police car comes up behind you. What is
your story. I was driving down the road and I
saw something over here, so I pulled over to check
on it. But when he dropped off Brenda Woodard, he
had to get off the interstate go around this you know,
(26:28):
much narrower exit stop where there was no place to stop.
There was no place to pull off. He had to
be out in the road in order to put her
body where he put it. So I think he had
a much higher chance of being spotted as being seen
as somebody doing something suspicious, and so you know why
(26:49):
he chose that spot always puzzled me. I've heard this.
I've never been able to really find any documentation in
my memory about how her mother actually worked at the
hospital right next to where the body was found and
all of that. Could it be because he had some
kind of exchange with her and knew that her mother
worked at the hospital there.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
Trenham says he's also curious about the type of sexual
assaults that the killer committed.
Speaker 9 (27:15):
There was evidence that they were strangled not only manually,
but with the ligature as well. But with Brenda, she
was strangled with the literature. It stabbed, Like Jim said,
you probably she had written the letter and she knew that,
you know, the shit was up, and she'd try to
protect herself because she had already been sexually assaulted, her
clothes and put back on, and when she was stabbed,
(27:38):
her clothes were inside out, her shirt was inside out,
and the knife holes in the shirt matched up to
the knife entries there. I was wondering if he was possibly,
as part of his control and sexual fantasy, strangling them
during sex and letting them pass out and come to
I mean, because Brenda was probably not killed by strangulation
(28:00):
of a knife injuries, So I'm thinking that the strangulation
came first. I think that the most logical or the
theory that fits those facts is that the clothes were removed,
she was sexually assaulted, she was redressed like the other victims,
and then maybe during the writing out of the notes
something happened and that's what she stabbed. I thought the
(28:26):
point about the first one having the most planning is
really the most interesting thing myself, because even with the
third victim, Crockett, I mean, he had to have had
a place to take her to make that phone call.
I really was wondering, you know, if he knew the mother,
or if the mother actually saw him at some point.
(28:47):
That's always been a question in my mind. Would he
have aborted, would he have tried to cover up what
he was doing, maybe by bringing her back and saying
that he found her.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Honestly, I think that if she had said, you know,
mama saw you, or in some way provided that information
that you know, she might be alive, because he would
have felt that he could not carry through without further
risk to himself.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
And lastly, Trainam had a lot to say about the
new profiles take on the handwritten note, which included the
Moniker Freeway phantom.
Speaker 9 (29:24):
Yeah, the name was coined by I believe a reporter
for WTP at the time, Pat Collins. But one thing
that was proposed at one point was that he was
pissed off because the police were at that point we're
still saying, oh no, there's no serial killer, no comment.
They were really downplaying it. And so yeah, we had
(29:45):
always kind of thought that he's now proud of himself.
He wants to show the world that you know, this
is my handiwork, and I'm smarter than the cops are.
And so he's actually bragging about that. But the fact
that Brenda wentz South arum. We always felt that that
was the reason for that ten months delay between victims
(30:07):
right there.
Speaker 8 (30:09):
My take on all of this is that the profile
suggests the killer could have stopped killing, but his tendencies
to want to show off his skill or ability would
have remained the same. He would have followed the freeway
phantom cases and basked in that moniker, enjoying that he
outsmarted law enforcement. But that over confidence made him vulnerable
(30:31):
because anyone near him could witness his behavior and his
enjoyment of the coverage and then report him to the police.
That's still possible even today. But if the killer was
less sophisticated than we initially thought, then why was it
so difficult to capture him? As we've talked about on
this podcast, The answer is complicated, but it ultimately boils
(30:54):
down to a blend of primitive investigative technology, racism and
apathy in the police force, a lack of willingness in
the community to come forward, and pure luck on behalf
of the killer. The thing is, many of those issues
remain true today. According to DC Witness. That's a nonprofit
that collects and analyzes violent crime data in the nation's capital.
(31:19):
The homicide rate is consistently rising here and the closure
rate is dropping. In twenty twenty two, only forty two
percent of homicide cases were closed nationwide. Black girls and
women are at a significantly higher risk of being the
victims of violent crime, and a twenty twenty DC Witness
study showed that the rate of homicide among black girls
(31:41):
and women rose thirty three percent that year in comparison
to fifteen percent among their white counterparts. So why why
are black girls still at risk and why aren't these
cases getting solved?
Speaker 10 (31:56):
A lot of variables playing into closure rate. It's not
always just a racial thing, and sometimes it is a
racial thing. It would be irresponsible of me to say
that the closure rate is solely dependent on color. I
will say that they're variables.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
We live and die. Some people by the street code.
Speaker 10 (32:16):
Some people out there they know who murdered this person,
they know who committed this.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Armed robbery, but they won't come forward. I could just
(32:47):
tell you, you.
Speaker 10 (32:48):
Know, there's some of the variables and some of the
reasons why there's lack of resistance within the communities to crime.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Robbery.
Speaker 10 (32:56):
There's a millisecond away from a homicide whenever you draw
a fire on and those same people who are committing
these homicides will snatch your baby out your living room
and should be a missing person. All of this is
all in the same vein, and that's why it's so important.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
To bring closure to the community.
Speaker 10 (33:19):
It's so important to solve these cases and the whole
folks accountable.
Speaker 8 (33:27):
This is Henderson long, CEO of DC's Missing Voice. Henderson
is dedicated to building trust between DC's black community and
the police with the goal of bettering the homicide solve rate.
He also played a key role in helping us in
the early stages of our Freeway Phantom investigation.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
I augment the Metropolitan Police Department in the private sector
to assist with trace investigations, to locate missing persons and
some of the similar work that needs.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
To be done in the community.
Speaker 10 (34:00):
I do a lot of that work in terms of outreach,
in terms of investigating cases, in terms of whatever these
detectives may need.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
We promote cases.
Speaker 10 (34:12):
We developed a big platform when we stay in close
contact with the lead detectives and stuff is so important.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
Henderson says, this type of work is personally very significant
to him.
Speaker 10 (34:25):
I'm an eight time homicide loser and my aunt was
missing and found murder. She was missing for twenty years,
and through the technology a DNA match, we found out
about her whereabouts and it was confirmed. My partner, John Andrews,
one of the guys I've worked with over the Missing
(34:45):
Persons unit who does cold cases, got the family to
submit their DNA and trust the police, and we put
it in the database. We compare it against the set
of bones and there it is. You know, I mean
after twenty years. Her body had been recovered a year later,
but by us being uneducated, by it being some fear
(35:09):
within our family about putting up your group was just
talking about DNA giving my DNA jam me up on that.
Maybe that homicide I committed last year, or maybe I
mean people just apprehensive.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
About DNA social security numbers. No.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
Henderson says one of the biggest issues in cases like
the Freeway phantom or any of the other dozen cases
he works on is that many of DC's black communities
simply don't trust law enforcement. When a murder occurs, it's
usually likely that someone in the neighborhood knows something, but
they won't tell the cops. Henderson's goal is to act
as a neutral ambassador and hopefully convince those witnesses to
(35:51):
come forward. How do you convince because I mean you
probably are aware that trust in polices at an all
time lovel So how do you convince people to.
Speaker 11 (36:04):
Work with the police.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You get out in the community.
Speaker 10 (36:07):
We may set up and feed people hot dogs one
day and just hand out resources and educate them, let them.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Know we were here for you. When they see me
with the commander.
Speaker 10 (36:18):
I have creds in the street as being just an
honest person. You can have a keilo or cocaine. I'm
not here for the kilo. I'm here for the missing person.
So if you want your block to run, you need
to tell them you help with this missing This is
some of the things how you persuade because it's a
language within the street and you have to kind of
know the language, kind of know the area you in.
(36:40):
You know, before you go to a neighborhood and you
start jibber jabbing, you do a static drive too.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
You look at the neighborhood, you call one.
Speaker 10 (36:47):
Of the people up, the guys from the neighborhood, and
you ask him what's popping? Can you walk with me?
They see you with him. These are ways you do
it in a safe manner. It's a lot of different
ways to acquire information through computer databases to face to
face interviews. You have the DNA, the forensic technology. All
(37:11):
these things are at your disposal. You know, you have
business associates you may go interview, you have credit card information,
you have video surveillance you can use. Somebody may call
me and say we saw a little girl over in southeast.
I'll get with the detective and he'll go and pull
the video and there she is. So now we got
(37:31):
her schedule. We know she kind of coming here at
a certain time. So these are all investigated.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Like how you work.
Speaker 10 (37:39):
You understand the person's where they like to go, where
do they frequent, what.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Time of day do they go there? You know, having
that good physical description.
Speaker 10 (37:48):
If you'd be surprised how many families don't have an
up to date photo.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Even while they're carrying their phone their camera with them
all the time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10 (37:57):
Like let's say if you had a child, and a
lot of kids now they're too cool to take pictures,
so you might have an old picture and I'm just
gonna say this kind of like in some of the
inner city communities, we don't really take a lot of pictures,
so I.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Get a picture that's old.
Speaker 10 (38:11):
But my point is having a good physical description, having
a good photo, having fingerprints on file. These are tools.
These are all investigative tools. Having their medical data, knowing
about it, like some people may be on medication and
they wander off. So having all these things on file,
(38:35):
having a community to understand this is in your custody,
meaning you can have a child ID kit in your
custody with all this stuff in it. The National Center
Missing Spool Kids, they send me a thousand child out
the kids and I.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Get out in the community and we try to get
into the schools.
Speaker 11 (38:52):
I have a completed one of my son's fingerprints sitting
in my sav at home.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Yeah, and the medical data.
Speaker 10 (38:58):
When someone goes missing, this actually a child is chaos.
You don't know how to put your left shoe on
from the right. Use some things you think you will remember,
you won't remember. But if you got it in the kid,
you just hand them a kid that's their full physical description.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
These are things important.
Speaker 11 (39:16):
It's interesting because on one side you're talking about things
like forensic and CCTV, which they didn't have in the
nineteen seventies when the freeway phantom was preying on children.
On the other side, you're talking about stuff like talking
to community members and getting people to speak with you.
That absolutely was available back in the nineteen seventies. But
(39:37):
when I look at the photos, the crime scene photos,
I'm looking at photos of about twenty five white dudes
in a black community investigating a black girl's death, and
I have to ask wonder to myself how successful were
these white cops in nineteen seventy one at getting the community.
(40:00):
You're shaking your head already.
Speaker 10 (40:02):
Well, you know, he was elusive, he was something to
deal with.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
This was some monster guy.
Speaker 10 (40:10):
The way the curate is some suspicion about some type
of maybe law enforcement training or some kind of military
training to understand how to dispose of the bodies and
how to mess with their head the police because he was, oh,
he was doing some damage and he was getting away.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
He was he didn't leave very much.
Speaker 10 (40:33):
And at the time, as you spoke about, they didn't
have But what they have now. I'm just fortunate to
have talked to the older detectives who taught me about
how to shake the bushes and just how to move
in the street. You have to know how to move
in the street. You have to know how to what
(40:53):
areas to go in and what areas.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
You cannot go in. They don't care who you are.
Speaker 10 (40:59):
No police, he's working with no police. Bush you open,
you gotta know, or if you know, somebody knows them
and they got some cribs, you can go in the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
And this is how I mainly how I work. I
always have If.
Speaker 10 (41:14):
I'm going into a really rough neighborhood, I'm always unarmed.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
I'm always unarmed. I don't I don't carry a pistol.
I don't.
Speaker 10 (41:23):
Why not, Because I got my patrol units, and I
have people that's not far away on speed dial.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I got a sergeant that's rarely available, you know.
Speaker 10 (41:33):
And and I go in there, and and and I
go in there on the strength of credibility, on the
strength of knowing somebody, because that's what take care of
the gun is not somebody get to drop on me.
I can have a gun all I want, and I
still could lose my life.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Somebody get the drop.
Speaker 10 (41:52):
Well, you gotta have that credibility, you have to have
those relationships.
Speaker 8 (41:58):
On a recent trip to DC, my producer Jamie and
I did a ride along with Henderson, following him on
his usual route through the neighborhood as he checked in
with folks throughout the region, and he brings up a
recent case that we'll talk about later.
Speaker 10 (42:12):
What we gonna do is we gra to go to
an area where two month old Kayan Jones, who was
a missing person in Washington, DC, went missing. His case,
his remains have not been recovered, so he's still a
missing person. The mom had confessed on public television that
she through the baby in the dumpster.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
She actually confessed right in front of me. We just
gonna go to the neighborhood.
Speaker 10 (42:37):
We're gonna talk a little bit in general about just
some general things about the case and how unfortunate the
case was, and just get a visual of the atmosphere
where the mother lived at, you know, the environment, cause.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
That plays a part in you know, why these cases
are occurring.
Speaker 10 (43:02):
The missing person's event in the first place, is the
the conditions, the living conditions, and you know, all of
that stuff plays in. So we just gonna ride there
and you know, you guys can take a look. This
is every day what you gonna see every single day,
sun up to sundown. This is what's going on in
the community, and it's perpetuating our most severe cases.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
So yup, it's right up the street.
Speaker 10 (43:32):
So when you were.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Walk like, if you were to walk over there and
get out flyers, what would you say? What would I
say to him?
Speaker 10 (43:40):
I would just tell him that, you know, the the
child is missing m and the child is missing in
this area. You know, I'm her uncle, you know, can
you help me this, this, that and the other. You know,
I know her mom and we all trying to look
for her. Laws. Some people recognize me by face and
they automatically start talking to me about it, and some
people don't, you know, but you y you know, I
(44:02):
know the area. I know this area pretty well. I
frequent this area, so I really don't stick stand out
to any of them.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
They seen me before. Most of 'em.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
If they see me coming, they already know what I'm
coming for. So I usually, you know, just give 'em
a spill.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I mean, I just tell 'em.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
If I don't know 'em, I'll tell them anything, you know,
to get 'em to possibly help.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
Or tell me something. You know, there's no standing script.
Speaker 10 (44:28):
You know, you you say whatever you feel in your
heart at the time. You know, most people are a
little more sympathetic when it's your niece or a family member.
Then if you tell them you're an investigator, you working
with the police or whatever, usually they.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Shut down on you.
Speaker 10 (44:44):
So, uh, I usually give them some story, you know,
I give 'em a little story, a lie. Be honest
with you, Jamie, you would do better out here investigating
than I would.
Speaker 7 (44:55):
Why is God?
Speaker 10 (44:57):
Because I mean, for one, you're a woman, if you're
a good looking d y, you not any kind of
threat to them. They don't say anything to try to
have a conversation with you. And that's like if you
got you your interviewing somebody and it's a male, sometimes
you do better interviewing them than another f another male interviewer.
(45:19):
So sometimes when you get out and you're dealing with men,
you can you know, you can charm 'em a little bit,
you can. That's these are things you can use when
you are you be wondering what do you say? Sometimes
your persona and your your your overall how they perceive
you when you first walk up. You know what you say,
really don't matter. You you can just tell them you
looking for the missing person, you're a family member.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
But all these things weigh in.
Speaker 10 (45:44):
When you trying to persuade people, You trying to get
people to give you information, Cause that's the whole business
of investigative work. You just gathering all the pertinent information.
That's all you You y'all trying to get something that
you don't already have, and that's information. So whatever you
can use, you use.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
It, you know, you know.
Speaker 8 (46:08):
On our ride along, Henderson mentioned the missing person's case
of two month old Kaion Jones. Kyon was reported missing
by his mother in May of twenty twenty one. DC
Police were investigating his case when Henderson spoke to his mother,
Ladonia Boggs. Ladonia confessed to Henderson and CBS nine News
that she rolled over on Kaion and he stopped breathing.
(46:30):
She said she discarded him in a trash dumpster. Sadly,
Kayan's remains were never found, but Henderson is determined to
find out the truth and find Kayon's remains. Unfortunately, Henderson
admits there wasn't a trace investigator like him in the
nineteen seventies. During the freeway phantom case, the level of
(46:53):
trust between officers and community was likely lower than with
no middleman present to mitigate. Had that been different, maybe
the freeway phantom cases would have been solved. The silver
lining here is that things have the potential to be
better today. With the rise of social media. We saw
increased attention on the issue in twenty sixteen when the
(47:15):
hashtag DC missing Girls went.
Speaker 12 (47:17):
Viral when the Washington DC Police Department tried to raise
awareness about missing children and teenagers by posting their images
on social media. The campaign backfired, sparking some national outrage
and fears of an epidemic of missing children of color.
Speaker 8 (47:36):
As we mentioned in episode one, the initial Twitter post
claimed young black girls were going missing at an alarming
rate in DC, and that post spread like wildfire. It
was retweeted by a whole host of celebrities and high
profile figures. But then it came to light that the
numbers were highly inflated and so the post was somewhat misleading.
Speaker 11 (47:58):
I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
What happened with the viral hashtag of DC missing girls
and how they could get it so wrong. What did
you think about that.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I knew the truth.
Speaker 10 (48:11):
I knew that they were advertising it on Twitter. Every
case was getting advertised, So you saw a heavy volume
of kids.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
That you didn't see before.
Speaker 10 (48:21):
There wasn't a spike, but they were advertising it. Every
case got advertised.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
At one point the watch commander.
Speaker 10 (48:28):
Had discretion to decide which ones went out on their
Twitter feed. Now, every missing person, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, you,
whatever you are, all that you're going to get a
missing person's report that go out on Twitter from MPD.
And so they saw this and somebody took and hashtagged
(48:53):
that fourteen girls were going missing. Maxwell saw it, Shanaiah
Lathen saw it. El cool j he sent it out
once they tweeted out. Now it's the law, and it
really wasn't. Fourteen girls and went missing. And a part
of our education is getting the community to understand the
criteria for the amblert because there was some concern of
(49:15):
why has an amblert went on and black kids don't
get the ambuler. Where's the criteria and that's strictly for
in case of some form of abduction.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
They used the amb alert. It was a good thing overall.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
Why do you say that because all of the media
attention we got now. MPD developed a website which is
strictly for missing persons. I know you saw it, where
you can go in and you can get information. It's
not real time, but it's much better than it was.
Every missing person gets their information sent out, and you
(49:51):
eliminate the question of race because now everybody is getting
a press release to every media outlet.
Speaker 8 (50:02):
In many ways, that increased visibility was a good thing.
Despite what the hashtag got wrong, it highlighted a very
real issue that had gone ignored for far too long.
But even now, six years later, cases of missing and
murdered black girls still get less media attention than the
cases involving their white counterparts, and the closure rate has
(50:24):
had little to no improvement, And so we have to
ask have things actually gotten better since the nineteen seventies.
When we talked to Henderson about the Freeway phantom case,
he said many of these same issues from back then
can be found in cases today. Henderson brought up one
case with very different circumstances, but which serves as an
(50:45):
example of how black girls today are as at risk
of victimization as they were in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 10 (50:53):
Well, you know militia, right, that's the case that its
shatsh you. You know, I probably take my last breath
still working in some form of fashion, if it's not
training somebody else or another young person. But these cases,
I'll never stop working until it's closed. And if I die,
I'm gonna lay out this is all here we're documenting.
(51:15):
This is a part of DC history, this is national history.
If you open up Relicia Rudd's case and you look,
first of all, the headline is an eight year old child,
and next to it you got murder to her legacy,
you got deception, people pointing the finger, nobody's saying nothing.
(51:36):
Then you got suicide, and then you got some drug abuse,
you got the foster care system, got the you got.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
A whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 10 (51:44):
And at the end, when you got all that, all
these dynamics, that's what you get. You get something that
you got to scratch your head and say, did that
really happen?
Speaker 4 (51:54):
Did she just vanish?
Speaker 8 (52:04):
Next time on freeway Phantom.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
We were very alarmed, but we were very determined to
find Relicia.
Speaker 10 (52:12):
This is an age progression photo of what relasia would
look like today.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
In cases such as that, the response of the very
first responding officers of utmost importance.
Speaker 6 (52:24):
Each year, there are over six hundred thousand people reported
missing in the United States and close to forty percent
of persons of coloring.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
And I've always been trying to figure out a way
to get the hurd off of me.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
After all these years, I don't know if it's important anymore.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
I just know that if.
Speaker 8 (52:46):
You do wrong, wrong would come back on you.
Speaker 9 (52:49):
If I can bring resolution to these cases, I will
do it.
Speaker 7 (52:53):
I'm going to try my best to do it.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Freeway FANOM is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV, and.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
Black bar MITZVAH.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Our host is CELESE.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright, and CELESE.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Executive producers on behalf of iHeart Radio include Matt Frederick
and Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers
on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on
behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay Ellis and
(53:31):
Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Fools. Lead researcher is Jamie Albright.
Artwork by Mister Soul two one six, original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set Special thanks to a teammate, Uta
Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV
and iHeartMedia, as well as Black Bar Mitzvah, have increased
(53:52):
the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction
of the person or persons responsible for their Freeway Fanom murders.
The previous reward of up to one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan Police Department has been matched.
A new total reward of up to three hundred thousand
dollars is now being offered. If you have any information
(54:12):
relating to these unsolved crimes, contact the Metropolitan Police Department
at area code two zero two seven two seven nine
zero ninety nine. For more information, please visit Freeway Dashfanom
dot com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(54:33):
to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
Host
Celeste Headlee
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