48 Hours - Highway of Tears

Episode Date: May 29, 2016

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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Real people. Real crimes. Real life drama. The The road's called Highway 16.

It's part of the Trans-Canadian Highway System. There are places in this road where you will see more bears than you will see cars. The road can take on kind of a sinister aspect to it. It's a place that can be a sinister aspect to it. It's a place that can be a good friend to evil. The locals know it as the Highway of Tears. And it's called that because there's been a series of disappearances and murders of women and girls

that date back four decades and a large number of them are still unsolved. People know that their sisters and daughters are at risk if they go near this highway and perhaps wind up hitchhiking for an emergency reason. The number of victims varies with who you talk to. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force says that there's 18 victims. But if you talk to the local people, they believe the number is 33, 43, perhaps even more. And just this week, the Highway of Tears made front page news again. Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, more than 30 million dollars

to a new national investigation into missing and murdered women. I believe that there is a need for a national public inquiry to bring justice for the victims, healing for the families and to put an end to this tragedy. This is our storage room where we keep all our box files. They're the toughest cases that you can imagine. Girls that are last seen sticking their thumb out on the highway and never to be seen again. Potentially there is a serial killer. This area we're coming into right now, we have two victims from this remote community.

Yes, we have one murdered young girl and one missing young lady. Pretty staggering, isn't it? It is, yeah. And we'd like to bring them all home. Is it possible that Maddie Scott's case could end up on the Highway of Tears list? Anything's possible. How's it going? Madison Scott, Maddie as's case could end up on the Highway of Tears list. Anything's possible.

How's it going? Madison Scott, Maddie as we know her, is a 21-year-old woman from Vanderhoof, British Columbia, that was camping out at Hogsback Lake. She went missing on May 28, 2011. And her disappearance is a mystery. in her disappearance as a mystery. The RCMP amassed over 170 personnel to conduct searches by land, by water, by air.

There was no sign of Madison at the lake. We as a team are dedicated to find out what happened to Madison Scott. Once you start thinking about what has happened in this place, it starts to get inside your head. Our investigators have been working these files for over five years. It was very emotional for all of us. We want wins. We want victories. Thankfully, that's just around the corner for us,

and it involves an American. He's clearly a monster. I'm Peter Van Sant. Tonight on 48 Hours, Highway of Tears. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on

them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now.

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us

about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, it's just an awful feeling to know that she disappeared from just a few feet away. It's just, that's devastating. Devastating, and yet, Don and Eldon Scott keep coming back to the place where their 20-year-old daughter, Maddie, was last seen alive. It's really unsettling, you know, knowing that she disappeared from here and nobody has seen her since.

It was here at Hogsback Lake in northern British Columbia, Canada, where Maddie camped out after partying with friends on the night of May 27, 2011. It's a beautiful little spot. It's close to town. So it was just a group of kids going for a birthday party? Yeah. They were going out camping for the night.

The next day, Maddie has not come home. Did you call her on her cell phone? Hi, you've reached Maddie Scott. I did try to call her, and it went right to her voicemail. Leave me a message, and I'll call you back. Thanks. Still, Dawn wasn't worried. Cell service at the lake was always spotty. I thought, gee, like, she's 20 years old. She went to the lake.

The weather was beautiful. She was with friends. If something was up, she would call us. But Maddie never called. It just didn't seem right. And that was Sunday morning. So Eldon and I hopped in the vehicle and we drove out there. Hogsback Lake is only a 15-minute drive from the Scots home in Vanderhoof, a tiny town along Canada's infamous Highway 16. Locals call it the Highway of Tears for a reason. Since 1969, at least 18 women have gone missing or have been murdered in this very same area, just like Maddie. Here again is a girl from one of these small towns along this highway who has disappeared without a trace. Bob Friel, an investigative reporter for Outside Magazine

and a CBS News consultant, has written about this haunted highway and the Maddie Scott case. Madison Scott fits the same pattern as some of these cases that are on the official list. She disappeared from a place very close to the highway. But on that Sunday morning in 2011, Maddie's parents were not thinking about the nearby highway's reputation.

They just wanted to find their daughter. You arrive here at Hogsback. What do you see? Her old pickup was parked here. Just as it is now, this is her pickup truck? This is her pickup, yes. And what do you do? We walked over to the truck and looked in it. Dawn and Eldon found Maddie's purse and backpack inside her locked truck.

But her phone was missing. She doesn't go anywhere without her purse or her, you know, personal belongings. At what point does panic start to set in? Immediately. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, rushed to the scene. But there was no trace of Maddie.

Something happened to Maddie. Maddie's disappeared. She didn't get taken by a flying saucer. Somebody knows something. Sergeant Ken Floyd and Constable Tom Whamsteker of the RCMP are the lead investigators. They begin by developing a profile of Maddie. She was close to her brother Ben and sister Georgia. After graduating high school, Maddie began working with her father in the logging industry.

Everyone speaks highly of Madison Scott. She was well loved and liked in the community. She was an avid outdoors person. She was into dirt biking, and she loved sports. Is Maddie a real competitor? Yes. Yes, very much so. Amanda Fitzpatrick and Jasmine Klassen are Maddie's close friends. What thoughts come to mind when you think of Maddie? She always shared. I don't know, She was really thoughtful. The girls cannot think about their close friend without remembering all the videos they made together. Tell me about her movie making. She liked to take charge. Everyone would have their own ideas and she would just kind of take over.

charge. Everyone would have their own ideas and she would just kind of take over. I'm really scared right now. I'm just, weird things keep happening and it just seems like someone's following me. In an eerie twist, Maddie co-wrote and starred in a suspense movie called The Stalker. Neither Jasmine nor Amanda was at the birthday party the night Maddie went missing. But about 50 others were, and investigators began going at them hard. You spoke to every single person who had been at that party? We have. It remains ongoing. We haven't identified anyone that would have a grudge or had any reason to harm or cause Madison's disappearance. But investigators did uncover one troubling detail.

That fateful night, Maddie's friends had left her at the lake completely alone. As far as she knew going there, there were other people that were going to be staying out at the lake that night. But one by one, everyone packed up and left, including Geordi Bull Duke, who had promised Maddie that she'd stay with her. I just can't believe that it's... it's just so wrong. People still think that I am a horrible person

because I left my best friend out there. And people, like, yell at me and, like, write on Facebook that I've killed her. And I left her and I'm stupid. Did the police question you? Oh, yeah. And they asked me the question several times. Did you kill Maddie? Were you there when Maddie was killed.

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Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For Dawn and Eldon Scott, the disappearance of their 20-year-old daughter Maddie... Hey, what's up? ...is almost incomprehensible. I think it was just so surreal to everyone. Like this can't really be happening. You just kept expecting her to show up. Finding her in this vast Canadian wilderness that

surrounds the Highway of Tears, where so many women have gone missing, feels nearly impossible. It's like a needle in a haystack. It's just amazing. You know, there's water, there's forest, where so many women have gone missing, feels nearly impossible. It's like a needle in a haystack. It's just amazing. You know, there's water, there's forest, there's rugged terrain. It's staggering.

That's why the possibilities, like, they're endless. Frustrated and heartbroken, Dawn and Eldon began their own investigation, separate from the official police version of events. This is a board that our team has put together. It's a list of the people that were at the party, when they arrived, when they left, who they arrived with, who they left with. This makeshift investigation went up on the Scott's basement wall, just feet from Maddie's now empty bedroom. We needed a place to put up a board to keep track of, lay it out, like what went on.

They retraced Maddie's trail throughout the day as she visited a liquor store and later bought snacks. That's Maddie on a security camera recorded just hours before she vanished. You have a category, questions. Right. What kind of questions do you have, even today? Why was she left there on her own? Why did everybody leave?

And if there is one person who can answer some of those questions, it's Jordy Bullduke, Maddie's friend who had promised to camp out with her. Tell me about the party that night. Well, it was just supposed to be the people that we knew, and then it turned into, like, this, like, big party. Word had spread online. It was posted on Facebook, so that's how everybody found out and went out to Hogsback. Big party.

Were there strangers at this party? I know most of them, but the people that came at the very end of the party, I did not know. I had no idea who they were. At one point, the party got a bit rough. People got up and started a fight behind me, and I bounced into the fire. Jordi was injured, so her boyfriend carried her to his truck and told Maddie they were leaving. What did she say to you? She was just like shocked. She's like, really, you're going? And I was like, yeah, I'm going. And she kind of begged me. And then I was just like, well,

you can come with us. And she said no. And she wanted to stay there with her tent for it to be safe. Did she tell you she thought it would be safe? Yeah, she said that she'd be fine. What time did you leave the party? I left around 1 o'clock. By 10 the following morning, Jordi was feeling guilty about leaving Maddie alone. She returned to the lake to help her pack up. I got there, and there was no Maddie. And I looked around,

checked the place. I was like, oh, maybe she's in her truck. No. Jordi noticed that the tent was a mess. And the door was wide open. The blankets and everything were pushed to the side. Her rings were outside. She never takes off her rings. And there were like three rings on the ground and earrings, like wooden earrings on the ground. It was just like, where's Maddie? Investigators have focused a lot of attention on Jordi and the last people to leave the party. Common sense dictates that Jordi was a suspect.

I mean, she was one of the last people. We spoke with Maddie. I was probably talked to every single day for three months. I went in for, like, I think it was two polygraphs. And the result? They said I aced it. I aced the polygraph. Jordi is no longer a suspect.

The investigation spread outward, and Sergeant Ken Floyd says he learned that a 28-year-old logger and single father of two, Fribian Bjornsson, was telling friends that he knew what had happened to Maddie. Fribian Bjornsson is a Vanderhoof resident. He was a friend of Madison's. They'd spent time together socializing. I couldn't even believe that they were seeing each other

because he's bad news. He's bad news. Bjornsson, better known as Frib, led a troubled life and abused drugs, a fact confirmed by police. But his mother insists her son was turning his life around. From our perspective, Fribian, again, like others, was a suspect. There was talk in town that Frib owed drug dealers money and that they had abducted Maddie to teach him a lesson.

It's a theory investigated by police. We don't leave any stone unturned where Maddie's concerned, and we would be irresponsible by not following up with the suggestion that there was a revenge or some connection between Frib and Madison. Bjornsson voluntarily took a lie detector test and passed. He wanted to clear his name and he wanted people to know that he had no involvement in what happened to Maddie. Based largely on that polygraph test, the RCMP cleared him.

But two days later, Bjornsson disappeared. Two weeks later, investigators made a shocking discovery. They found Bjornsson's severed head in an abandoned house in a nearby town. And they're still looking for the rest of his body. Frib's mother told 48 Hours that she believes her son was killed for a paycheck he cashed the rest of his body. Fribbs' mother told 48 Hours that she believes her son was killed for a paycheck he cashed the night he went missing. Four suspects were charged in connection with Bjornsson's murder. Maddie's case remains unsolved. There is no connection between Madison's disappearance and Fribbs' murder. On this very night, five years ago, May 28, 2011,

Madison disappeared. She remains missing. You do believe she'll be found? I do. Yes, I do. I said that from the very first day that we'll find her and we'll bring her home.

We need them to come forward. She was last seen The Scots have issued public requests for help. And soon, like now, would be a good time. And there is a $100,000 reward for information. When you take even a simple drive, Maddie's looking back at you. You see her on the side of the road on one of these signs.

What is that like for you? Oh, it kills you every time. Again, why am I sitting here, you know, not out looking somewhere? It's your child, you know. Yeah, it's devastating. It's just gut-wrenching. You see all these posters on vehicles, and it's just staggering. You know, you just can't believe that it's your child.

And Maddie's parents are not alone. Just six months earlier, in the same town, another daughter disappeared. Every day I wake up thinking about Lauren. Every night I go to sleep thinking about Lauren. It's going to be the same forever. Six months before Maddie Scott disappeared, Doug Leslie, who also lives in this remote region of Canada, received an ominous late-night phone call. It was November 27, 2010.

Midnight, I get a call from the cops saying that, asking if Lauren was there. And I said, what's going on? He said, well, if Lauren's home, somebody's using her ID. So I thought that was kind of strange. What does that mean, someone was using her ID? Well, they found her ID in a vehicle. Doug's 15-year-old daughter, Lauren, was not at home. And he couldn't reach her.

But you were worried. Oh, yeah, I was worried. I didn't know what was going on, whether she was in trouble or whether she was, you know, I didn't have any idea. What he did know was that he wanted to find his daughter. wanted to find his daughter. So when police promised but failed to call him back, he headed out along a dark road that feeds into the

notorious Highway of Tears. So, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I figured I'm going to drive till they're fine cops. Doug had no idea that hours earlier, an alert cop had made a traffic stop on that road. Investigative reporter Bob Friel.

An RCMP constable was driving down the road simply on regular police business. And out of one of these logging roads, these skid roads, a black pickup truck comes out. There's a kid inside, 20-year-old kid. He questions him, IDs him, doesn't quite like how the kid's acting. The kid was suspected of poaching. He was held at the scene while a game warden was summoned and followed fresh tire tracks back through the snow.

Takes his flashlight, expecting to find a moose or an elk. Instead, he finds the body of a 15-year-old girl who had just been killed and dumped there. It was at that moment that Doug Leslie came upon the scene. And the game warden was standing there, and he was white as a ghost. And I told him who I was, and I didn't want to hear any bulls**t. I wanted to know what was going on. And they said all they could tell me was they were investigating a homicide.

So I knew right away. Because you knew that homicide investigation was Lauren. Yep. Police told Doug they were having trouble identifying the victim's face. So Doug told them to check for a unique tattoo on his daughter's wrist. It says, Grip Fast. It's our family motto.

It just means hang on tight. Police found the tattoo, and Doug's worst fears were proven true. The victim was his daughter, Lauren. fears were proven true. The victim was his daughter Lauren. She was molested, beat over the head with a pipe wrench,

and her throat was cut. Just awful. Who could do such a thing? Not a human, for sure. 20-year-old Cody Ledjabokov, whose pickup truck was first pulled over on that routine stop, was now a suspect in the murder of Lauren Leslie. She was very mature for her age, very caring.

She was a joyful kid. She was a great swimmer, great athlete. She excelled in karate. All the more remarkable, considering Lauren had a genetic eye condition that left her nearly blind since birth. Close friends like Charlene Lang barely noticed. She never let on to it. You would never know meeting her.

She did everything everybody else could do. She did it better. With the help of thick eyeglasses, Lauren was spending hours each night online. And Charlene believes that's how Lauren met Cody Ledger-Bokoff. Cody Ledger-Bokoff was very active in social media. He used Facebook. He used online dating sites. His handle, his name online that he used a lot was One Country Boy.

And so when she met someone online, she'd begin a conversation with them. She'd establish a relationship. She's very trusting. They could combine in her. with him. She'd established a relationship. She's very trusting. They could combine in her. Perhaps too trusting. Lauren's mother, Donna, would worry about her daughter's trips along the Highway of Tears from her hometown of Vanderhoof to the crime-ridden city of Prince George. She would enlist anybody to take her to Prince George because she had a network of friends there. And it really concerned me because I didn't know who these people were. And I tried to convince her how dangerous it was. But Cody Ledjabokov, a local high school graduate, seemed like the all-Canadian boy next door.

graduate seemed like the all-Canadian boy next door. He worked at this Ford dealership in Prince George and lived in this house with three roommates, all women. Garrett Anatole was on his soccer team. When my friend told me it was Cody, our friend and stuff, and I couldn't believe it either. I was like, oh my god, that was Cody, because it's from your own town, right? He was popular, he got a, he was, you know, graduated, he got along with everybody, fun, joke around, you know, party and stuff like that. But as investigators dug into Ledjabokov's past, they were able to tie him to three other murders near the Highway of Tears.

A year after Lauren's death, the RCMP declared they had captured a homegrown serial killer. We can announce today that three counts of first-degree murder have been laid against 21-year-old Cody Allen Ledjabokov. The three other murder victims had disappeared in 2009 and 2010. Other murder victims had disappeared in 2009 and 2010. This is someone who, if the charges are proven, was a 19-year-old serial killer. That's extremely young for a serial killer to start his career. Police would not talk to 48 Hours about how they connected Ledjabokov to these victims. But they believe there may be more.

to these victims, but they believe there may be more. We believe there are others out there that may have been in contact with Ledjabokov or these victims and possess information that can assist our ongoing investigation. Lauren's friend Charlene says she had once met Ledjabokov and did not like what she saw. I did not like his eyes. They just looked angry. They don't look soft and innocent. They looked angry. And you felt this way long before he was in the news? Long before. With Cody Ledjabokov under arrest in the murders of Lauren Leslie and three others, townspeople along the Highway of Tears felt some relief. But it was clear Ledjabokov was far too young to have committed murders that stretched back to 1969.

Other killers still were roaming that highway, and it was Sergeant Wayne Clary's job to catch them. They're cruising out there, picking up these girls that are very, very vulnerable. Cody Lejabokov was under arrest, but that did not solve the Maddie Scott disappearance. He'd been in custody months before Maddie had gone missing. And his arrest also brought little peace to the families of the women killed along the Highway of Tears. The cases that Sergeant Wayne Clary is determined to solve. Is the guy we're looking for in these boxes. Every report since the first murder in 1969 is in this room.

How many boxes are we talking about in here? Over 750. So thousands of pages of documents. Thousands, yeah. Clary took over the special unit assigned to the Highway of Tears cases in 2012. There will be transcribed statements in here. There will be forensic reports. There will be lab reports.

Witness interviews. More than 60,000 people have been interviewed. How many persons of interest have there been in this investigation? The last I looked, about 1,400. 1,400? And we've uncovered men who drive vans with the door handles removed from the inside, duct tape, plastic wrist restraints, trap doors. It's incredible to me how many men are capable of doing this.

this. The seemingly endless wilderness where these attacks have occurred is staggering. So I think our first stop along the way from up here will be Vanderhoof. To show us the challenges his people face, Clary took us into the air to fly the nearly 500 miles of the Highway of Tears, from the interior all the way to the sea. Where are we? Right now we're just flying over Prince George, which is the hub of the North, and it's the start of our investigation into our missing and murdered women.

It's been said that the Highway of Tears is a perfect killing ground for someone because they can't hide their victims. And I would add to what you just said, a perfect dumping ground. The landscape is beautiful, but it's a terrible beauty considering the context. As one is looking out, it's just hard to imagine what the victims have been suffering down there over the years. Some victims have been found alongside this lonely highway, others discovered by hikers. Wayne, give me a sense, where are you right now? Right now we're flying over Prince Rupert,

and this is the end of Highway 16, or the Highway of Tears. Our sad aerial journey ends on the West Coast, just 25 miles from the Alaskan border. It was time to come back to Earth and drive the Highway of Tears. Who were the women murdered along this road? We're in the town of Smithers along Highway 16, and we have two girls we're investigating. 15-year-old Delphine Nakai disappeared while hitchhiking in 1990.

Lana Derrick was a 19-year-old college student back in 1995. Very close to here, 19 years earlier, we covered the body of Monica Ignis. Monica Ignis was just 14. She went missing on December 14, 1974. If we're all quiet, we can hear cars going down Highway 16 right now. It's that close. I can hear them in the distance. Yep.

We're less than a mile, probably about a half a mile from the highway. And Monica Ignis isn't the youngest victim. That would be 12-year-old Monica Jack, who disappeared in 1978 while riding her bike. The highway has become so notorious, warning signs are everywhere. We're now in Smithers, British Columbia, and we were driving off of Highway 16, which is just over this ridge. We've driven about a mile down a dirt road.

And again, we're in total isolation. Wayne, what happened here? Well, in April of 1995, there was a couple of gentlemen moose hunting. And they were perhaps 20, 25 feet off into the bush here and they discovered the remains of Ramona Wilson. And who is Ramona? Ramona Wilson's a girl who went missing from Smithers in 1994. Her picture's right here. It's been

18 years and it's getting quite old. No one remembers Ramona Wilson more than her mother, Matilda. Last year I was here for her birthday was February 15th. And on June 11th, the day she was murdered. Matilda took us into the woods. Look how long, how far he had carried her. To where her daughter's body was found.

There's a bunch of trees all around like that, and they put her underneath the tree right there. That's where her body was found, right over there. Yeah. We continued our journey, eventually meeting up with fisherman Tom Chipman. It's pretty painful. I mean, it dredges up memories every time I see a picture.

Chipman's daughter, 22-year-old Tamara, disappeared in 2005 from Prince Rupert while hitchhiking. She left behind a three-year-old son. The worst part is her body was never retrieved, and not knowing what happened to her and where she ended up. Chipman spent weeks searching the endless logging roads. There was nothing ever found of her. She just disappeared.

Yeah, she just vanished. Vanished. Just like Colleen McMillan, a sweet 16-year-old redhead, who, back in 1974, asked her little brother Sean to be a stand-up brother. She just said, don't tell Mom I'm hitchhiking. And she walked away. What happens? She didn't arrive. Just didn't get there. What happens?

She didn't arrive. Just didn't get there. Her body was found a month later, not 30 miles from the family home. Colleen's brother, Kevin. It's a lifelong disaster is what it is. It was sad the day it happened, and we're sad today, and we'll be sad the day we die. But then, nearly 40 years after Colleen's disappearance... It has been a long wait for answers.

A dramatic development. We've had a major break in the case, and surprisingly it's an American. In 2012, 38 years after Colleen McMillan disappeared, Thank you for coming. I'm Inspector Gary Shunkeric. the RCMP announces a stunning break. The break has to do with the 1974 disappearance and murder of 16-year-old Colleen McMillan. disappearance and murder of 16-year-old Colleen McMillan. Using new enhanced DNA technology, the Highway of Tears Task Force matched male DNA recovered from Colleen's clothing to this man,

Bobby Jack Fowler, a Texas native who had worked as a roofer in Prince George. Colleen's brothers, Sean and Kevin. I couldn't comprehend what was going on here. They found the guy. And I couldn't wait to phone everybody. We had all been waiting 38 years. Finally,

one of the cold cases along the Highway of Tears is at last solved. It's gratification. In the States, we call this a CSI moment. You've just had your Canadian CSI moment with this case, haven't you? Ours took longer, but we've had it. It just reaffirms to us why we do our jobs.

The task force strongly believes Bobby Jack Fowler killed these young women as well. Gail Ways and Pamela Darlington, both 19 years old and missing since 1973. And Fowler may be responsible for six other Highway of Tears murders. A violent man, sexual assaults, kidnapping, firearms, in and out of jail. He's clearly a monster. Fowler was married twice and has four children,

but his work life was nomadic. He'd drive from motel to motel, picking up women in bars and girls hitchhiking along the highway. He believed that the majority, the vast majority of women that he met in those places not only desired to be sexually assaulted, but desired to be violently sexually assaulted. Fowler lived in 11 states, from Texas to Oregon. Newport, Oregon investigator Ron Benson is looking into Fowler's past

and thinks he may have left another highway of tears here in the U.S. We have a similar situation where two girls left Beverly Beach State Park in the middle of the night and probably came out on the highway. We know Bobby Jack Fowler was in Oregon off and on for decades. When these girls' bodies were found five months later out in the woods, they were found in a condition similar to the cases in British Columbia. Benson believes

Fowler may have committed as many as seven murders in Oregon. But it was one notorious case involving a woman at this motel in 1995 that finally led to the end of Fowler's rampage. Bobby Jack Fowler tried to kill her here. He tried to tie her up and to escape him, she jumped naked out of a second story window with a rope tied around her leg. The woman agreed to speak with us on the phone. He was just weird. He just got weird. And then he put the rope around my foot. He was like, he told me he was going to put me in the ocean.

I just was trying to scream. And he just covered my mouth. But somehow, she did manage to get to the window and jump out alive. No one deserves this. If people are out there, you don't know who they are. I'm just glad that I got away. When the first officer arrived, he was packing. He was putting his belongings in the car.

Fowler was arrested and convicted of kidnapping and assaulting her. If he'd had 15 more seconds, he would have driven away into obscurity, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would not have had that opportunity to make that DNA connection. The McMillans now know who killed their sister, but will never get the satisfaction of seeing him pay for her murder. Fowler died in prison in 2006. I just,

I'm just, I'm glad that it's kind of over for the family of Maddie Scott. She disappeared long after Fowler died. So far, the RCMP has identified two alleged serial killers. But that does little for the families of Tamara Chipman, Ramona Wilson, Lana Derrick, Monica Ignis, and more. They are still waiting for closure, hoping that the haunted beauty of this highway

will one day reveal all its secrets. It's one of the most beautiful, most spectacular roads that you'll ever travel on. So you can be there on the most beautiful day of the entire year, and suddenly you see one of these signs, and you feel this foreboding on the road. It's a place that definitely has a personality personality and a lot of times that's dark. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police later charged Gary Handlin as the killer of 12-year-old Monica Jack, the youngest victim on the Highway of Tears. Cody Lejabokov was convicted of first-degree murder for killing teenager Lauren Leslie and three other women.

He was sentenced to life in prison, but just this Wednesday was in court asking that his convictions be overturned. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.