Criminology - Danger Lurks on Interstate 80

Episode Date: April 11, 2021

In Nevada, Interstate 80 runs through stretches of desert. The desert can be a very unforgiving place with temperature swings and dangers that await those who venture through it. There have been a large number of unexplained disappearances and deaths along a certain stretch of I-80. Pumpernickel Valley's Exit 205 is extremely interesting because it leads to nowhere. But, there have been some very mysterious disappearances that appear to have occurred at this exit. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss a number of mysterious deaths and disappearances. The details of these cases are as fascinating as they are mysterious. In many of them no body was ever found, although one was ruled a suicide. Did these cases involve a predator along I-80 or even multiple predators, or, were these cases where individuals ventured into the desert, got disoriented, and succumbed to the elements. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 154 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mike Morford, what is going on with you, brother? Not too much, just hanging out, having fun when I can and working the rest of the time. How about you? No, same here. The weather up north where I'm at is turning. and everybody's excited about that.

I see a lot of people out walking their dogs and walking themselves. So, you know, that's encouraging. Yeah, I think this is going to be a time coming up once the weather is nice, especially with everything people have been dealing with to get out of the house and do stuff. They're just going to be happy to do that. Oh, my gosh. Everybody's itching, right, to get out and just kind of live a little. Morph, let's give our Patreon shoutouts.

We continue to see some great support. from Angel Lee, Megan Griffin, Gina Oldendorf, Deborah Wales, Aaron Newbold, Yana Knudson, Terry Timlet,

and Kylie Wright. So again, a lot of new Patreon support. And it's amazing and it goes a long way. You and I talk about it a lot. But it really does kind of keep us afloat, especially during times where we don't have a lot of advertising. It's awesome what people have been willing to do to help the show grow, and we can't thank them enough.

And you mentioned some of the new people we've got. We've also got some returning Patreon people I recognize. So thank you for that continued support. If anyone out there is considering supporting the show, they can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Yeah, and you mentioned returning Patreon supporters, and that's awesome. You know, people, they jump on for a while and then they jump off. some come back and it's all good. More if I think most people know, but just a reminder, all of our episodes are now out

on the regular feed. So, you know, if you joined us later, which a lot of people did, make sure you go back and check out some of those older episodes. There's some really good stuff in there. Yeah, I've actually been going back when I have a little bit of spare time where I'm doing some housework and listening with some of our older episodes. Of course, those Zodiac season, the Golden State Killer seasons. And then some of my favorite cases, I don't know, some of your favorites.

I really like the Pocatello babysitter murders. And some of those older creepy cases, they're interesting. And I like re-listening to them. Yeah, I'm right with you. Definitely. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode? Yeah, let's do it. We are talking about a dangerous stretch of Interstate 80,

where a lot of people over the years have either gone missing or been found debt. And this is a stretch that kind of runs through the desert, which adds an interesting element and definitely plays a factor. I believe in some of these cases, you know, deserts are unique places filled with interesting wildlife and memorable views. People are called to the desert for adventure, tranquility, solitude. Solitude can be sought for mental health and recharging. You know, Sometimes you just have to try to find yourself, decompress. But the desert is also a place where you can practice quite a bit of secrecy. One of the main reasons you can find tranquility in the desert is because there's no one around.

No industrial noises. There's no traffic. But the desert is not for everyone. Scorpions, snakes, and other dangers lurk. And dehydration can set in before you know you're even thirsty. The temperatures are blazing during the day and very cold at night. It can be incredibly easy to get disoriented and lost in the desert. But besides the natural dangers, this peaceful and quiet setting also provides the perfect cover for people to commit or cover up crimes.

And often, there are no witnesses to see or hear anything. High winds mean that footprints can disappear quickly. the heat means that evidence will degrade quickly. Scavengers can easily contaminate a crime scene and further degrade any leftover evidence, including a body. One road that flows through a lot of desert territory is Interstate 80, and this highway has its share of mysteries. I-80 runs from San Francisco, California, east to T-neck, New Jersey.

From Chicago to Ohio, it's a toll road. but in the western United States, it's a wide-open freeway. In Nevada, it slices through the northern part of the state, connecting large swaths of empty desert to bigger cities like Sparks and Reno. Pumpernickel Valley's exit 205 in Nevada is an interesting one. It's an exit that really has no purpose other than to allow you to stop and take in the scenery. There's nothing else there.

This kind of emptiness is almost incomprehensible if you've never experienced it before. When you're on I-80, it's clear that exit 205 doesn't lead to anything. It's simply a rust stop with no services and enough room to turn around and get back on the highway. It's truly an exit to nowhere. It's at this exit that our first case is centered. 86-year-old Patrick Carnes was just passing through this rural area of Nevada in April 2011. He was driving home to Reno, Nevada, coming back from a family visit in Toledo, Ohio. It was just Patrick and his faithful sidekick, his eight-year-old dog Lucky, in his green Subaru Forrester.

On April 13th, around 9 p.m., Patrick was driving west towards Wells, Nevada, just about five hours northeast of Reno. He didn't move into the furthest lane when he passed an officer with the Nevada Highway Patrol, who was in the middle of conducting a traffic stop. in Nevada, like in a lot of other states, when an authority is on the side of the road with lights or sirens on, you're not supposed to drive in that lane right next to them. But I think more if a lot of us have, either not knowing the law or not being able to get over, police don't usually stop you for doing so unless they're at the very end of their call or there are multiple officers. and one of them is able to leave the call.

And that's what happened in this case. The officer got back into his car and went after Patrick, pulling him over to warn him of the moving violation he had committed. In the dash cam video, it appears that a semi was also pulled over in front of Patrick a little further ahead. It almost looks as if it is waiting for Patrick up the road. Lucky is seen in the dash cam. from that night, he's happy. He's wagging his tail in the backseat of the Subaru. Patrick explained to the

officer that he was following a semi-truck because the driver was going to Elko, Nevada, which was about 45 minutes further west into the journey. Patrick told the officer that he didn't see well at night. And at the end of their conversation, he said that he would never drive at night again. Although Patrick was 86 years old, he was pretty sharp. But even when someone is as sharp as a tack, their age can make them tired more easily when they're driving than when they were younger. And as they age, their eyesight might become less effective. Even younger drivers experience highway hypnosis and drive along from miles in a trance with no recollection of their drive, when they finally snap out of it.

And I know this has happened to me before, where you just drive along and all of a sudden you're out of place and and don't even remember driving. And probably this has happened to a lot of other people. And this happens more often on long drives and straight roads. It would be easy for any of these factors to have caused Patrick to drive a bit sloppily. Although Patrick had clearly expressed he had some sort of difficulty with driving at night, the highway patrol officer let him continue on his way with Lucky, still wagging his tail in the back seat.

Less than nine hours later, on April 14th, Patrick's Green Subaru Forrester, was found off exit 205 in Pumpernickle Valley about 100 miles away from Wells, Nevada. He would have still had about three hours on his drive back to Reno at that point in the trip. The car had been pulled off the road and not been parked neatly. It was actually stuck in the brush and looked as though it had been parked that way intentionally. It wasn't out of gas and was still in drivable condition. but Patrick and Lucky were nowhere to be found. Some of Patrick's things were still inside the car,

including his checkbook and his map. And there was one set of footprints leading away from the car. The car was positioned as if Patrick had been driving east. But that was the wrong direction. Patrick's drive was to the southwest. The map inside Patrick's car had different rest stops along his route circled. But Pumpernickel Valley. and exit 205 were not noted anywhere in his plans.

A deputy looked up the registration, and a Humboldt County Sheriff's Office dispatch tried to call Patrick's number, but no one answered. There was no clear sign that anyone had been heard or any sign of foul play had occurred, so the deputy left the area. On April 17th, the car was still there. Again, there was no sign of Patrick or Lucky. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office asked the Reno Sheriff's Department

to perform a welfare check at Patrick's apartment. And the officers who arrived there ran into Patrick's two sons, who also there checking on their dad because they hadn't heard from him. One logical reason that Patrick would pull over at a location he didn't plan for or circle on his map is that either he or lucky needed a bathroom break. And that makes perfect sense to me, Morif. I mean, I don't care how well you plan out a trip. you can say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

But when nature calls, you know, that can throw your plans out the window very quickly. And that also goes for your companion, your pet. So whether he pulled over every now and then to give Lucky the chance to stretch his legs or go potty or Lucky was indicating that he needed to get out of the car, Patrick would have wanted to attend to his loyal companion's needs. Lucky was a 100-pound Labrador and Akita mix. Patrick never went anywhere without Lucky, who he considered a lifelong companion, three days after Patrick's car was found. There was one siding of a dog that looked similar to Lucky about 20 miles west of exit 205. The dog was seen running along a fence north of Interstate 80 and appeared lost.

going back and forth. The trucker who called in the sighting did so after seeing Patrick's story on the news. He was positive. It was Lucky who he had seen. It's unclear if Lucky was seen by the trucker three days after Patrick's car was originally found or three days after police found the car the second time. Lucky had a surgically implanted microchip. So if anyone found him and assumed,

he had been dumped in the desert, the chip, when scanned at any vet, would have shown Patrick's information. But if someone had tried calling Patrick's number, he would not have been there to answer. Patrick Carnes actually used to be a trucker, so it would make sense that he would know where to meet and mingle with a fellow truck driver and know how to get certain information from them about their route in order to be able to follow them. It's common for people who realize their vision is fouling at night to follow larger vehicles with bright lights on the highway to keep them in the lines. But Patrick actually stated that he knew where the trucker was headed to and that he wasn't simply following him to help stay oriented. The trucker that Patrick was following hasn't been

identified. It's also still unknown exactly how Patrick knew the trucker was headed to Elko. There has been no mention of any surveillance video from rest stops, convenience stores, or gas stations where Patrick may have been able to meet and talk to the trucker. It's possible that Patrick was making an excuse to the officer and that he had never talked to the driver, but that would be a pretty odd lie. The truck seen on police dash cam, just ahead of Patrick's car, had some type of insignia on the back of it, but police have never been able to identify it. And I think that's a big key.

to aid in identifying the driver. This idea that Patrick was following a trucker is very interesting because Patrick and the trucker would have had to part ways in Elko, Nevada, if that's where they were headed, and Patrick would have had about four hours still to drive to make it home to Reno. But Patrick made it about an hour and 45 minutes past Elka to exit 205. So you have to kind of wonder why authorities think that the truck driver heading to Elko would be of any use to their investigation. But I think at the very least, more as the police, you want to talk to this truck driver.

You want to figure out who it is and have a discussion with this person. I mean, the truck is seen on the dash cam. It appears as if the truck has stopped up ahead of Patrick, almost as if they were. in some type of convoy. And you know what it's like when you're traveling with another car. If they get off the highway, okay, you see that, you get off. If they were to get pulled over, most likely you would pull off the side of the road somewhere past them. That's what this situation appears to have been. Now, we're not positive about that, but I think you can make that argument. Yeah, I don't think there's any harm in trying to track that trucker down and see what they

know or might know because there's really nothing that police have to work with, no other witnesses that might be of help to figure out what happened to Patrick. And even if the trucker was only headed to Elko and Patrick made it, you know, quite a bit further than that, maybe they had a discussion about someone that Patrick was due to meet or you just never know, right? There could be be some very important information. Unfortunately, Patrick didn't have a cell phone with him on a trip. He also paid cash for everything, so there was no way to see if he made it anywhere and purchased anything.

No credit cards to track. Patrick's keys were never found. Lucky was wearing his collar, which was also never found. Patrick's son didn't think his father would ever pick up a hitchhiker because Patrick had been robbed and injured by a hitchhiker in Eli, Nevada. To Patrick's son, it was just unlikely that he would ever take that. at risk again. So he believes it was Patrick who was driving and Lucky was the only passenger. All mentions of footprints near Patrick's car say that there was one set of footprints leading

away from the scene, but there is no official clarification on which direction the footprints were headed. So we don't know if they were headed towards the highway or into the desert. It's also unclear if Lucky's paw prints were seen. Depending on the hardness of the dirt that night, Lucky may not have left any prints. Some missing persons posters note that Patrick may be walking with a limp, so it's unlikely that he went very far on foot. The only lights you could see from where Patrick's car was were the lights of any cars on the highway,

but there's a fence that would have prevented him from making it back to the highway without following the road. And that would have been. been very tough given that the scene was pitch black. All articles mentioned that Patrick's car was stuck in brush, but when you look at photos from the scene, it looks like he slowly crashed into or stopped up against a fence, trying to get back to the road through the dirt.

Currently on satellite images, about 1,000 feet from exit 205, there's a body of water. It's unclear if it's a lake or a pond or just a depression in the around that fills up with water seasonally. But it would be large enough to fall into. There's obviously no lifeguard around there to save you if that happened. If Patrick had for any reason been wandering in the desert that night, he could have fallen into that body of water and been unable to make it back out. If he did fall in and managed to climb out, the temperatures in the desert at night can be very cold. And if he was wet and unable to find his way back to the car,

Patrick could have died from hypothermia. It's unlikely that if that pond existed in 2011, that police would have completely ignored it in their searches for him. Articles only note that during the search for Patrick Carnes, canine searches, aerial ground searches, and ATV off-road searches were performed. There's no mention of dragging or emptying any body of water. On April 14, 2014, Patrick Carnes was declared legally deceased three years after he and Lucky went missing. Patrick Francis Maloney Carnes was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 30th, 1925. He was an aviation radio man in the Navy Air Corps during World War II

and served in the battle for the Solomon Islands. He was honorably discharged in 1946, having served four years. He was recalled the next year as an aviation electronics technician and was honorably discharged again in 1950. In 1953, he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from UCLA. He retired from the Rand Corporation in 1981 and moved to Reno with his wife Margaret, who passed in 2004. After this, Lucky became his life.

It's easy to imagine that Patrick would have never abandoned Lucky. Patrick was featured on America's Most Wanted, twice in six months, which is pretty rare. The only update in the second airing was the focus on the logo of the truck that was parked in front of Patrick's car. Some internet sleuth have mentioned that they can see a Texas Longhorn, a star at an angle, the United States at an angle, or an American flag at an angle, all of which are an actual trucking company logos. Humboldt County undershiref Curtis Cole points out an NG at the top left corner of the truck logo. The truck that police would like to identify has side-mounted fuel tanks.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your... your podcasts. It turns out Patrick Carnes was not the first person to disappear and have their

car found at exit 205 in Pumpernickel Valley, Nevada. In 2006, 62-year-old Judith Ellen Casida met a similar fate. Like Patrick, Judith was also a resident of Reno, Nevada. She left her home in Reno in her 1991 Mazda truck on Valentine's Day, 2000. She stopped at a McDonald's in Lovelock, Nevada, almost 100 miles northeast of Reno and was never seen again. More than two weeks later, Judith's Mazda was found about three hours away off exit 205. Her truck was still drivable and had a full tank of gas, but Judith wasn't found inside her truck or near it. The McDonald's receipt was found inside the truck, so that's how authorities know she had stopped at the McDonald's. Judith's disappearance is a bit different from Patrick's, because Judith left her home and Patrick was trying to make it home.

Judith also left a note for her husband at her home that indicated that she was depressed and unhappy with her life. It stated that she was unhappy with her marriage and that she was leaving. She had driven east for whatever reason. Judith had family in Oregon. So if she had been trying to run away from her life and her husband and get to family, she appeared to be going the wrong way. But Highway 95, 20 miles east of Exit 205, does end up going north and into eastern Oregon, where Judith was known to have those family members.

Judith's bank accounts have remained untouched, making it unlikely that she just wanted to get away and restart her life. There was a single set of footprints, heading from, Judas truck to Interstate 80, which seems to point to the possibility that she got into another vehicle that was traveling along that route. If the footprints had gone further into the desert, dying from exposure would be much more likely. But a set of footprints vanishing at the highway seems to point to her hitchhiking. She could have caught a ride with a stranger. Or since she had been unhappy with her marriage, it could have been.

in someone she knew and wanted to be with who picked her up. Of the many mysteries along I-80, Judith and Patrick's cases are most easily connected because their cars were both found at the same extremely rural exit. Nan Dixon was 73 years old in 1978 when she went missing on her way to seven troughs, Nevada, about an hour from the Pumpernickel Valley. The town no longer exist because it was a mining town, and everyone slowly left. Nan had loaned $6,000 to her brothers, Harry and Dan to mine for gold, but they had no luck, and neither brother paid her back. $6,000 today is a pretty good chunk of money, but in 1978, $6,000 was a heckle of a lot of money. Eventually Nan made up with her brothers and forgave the debt because she was tired of the rift.

Nan made plans to visit Harry in the remote town of seven troughs. On September, On September 21st, 1978, Nan left from Grass Valley, California, on a three-hour trip to seven troughs, with a bag of her clothes, a handmade map, and a 22-gall-bear handgun. It's known that she made it into Boomtown, Nevada, to have dinner, and afterwards stopped for gas in Lovelock, Nevada. But she never made it to her brother's house, and she never returned home. She basically just vanished in the thin air. On Thanksgiving, 1982, Nan's Lime Green, 19. 1976, Dotson B-210 was found on unused land at the Eagle Pitcher Mine. This was about 20 miles south of seven troughs and 20 miles north of Lovelock.

There was half a tank of gas in the Dotson, but the clutch was burned out and the car was stuck on the side of the road in a ditch. There was an empty six pack of diet soda on the ground near the car and four empty cartons of cigarettes in the seat. Unlike in Judith and Patrick's cases, there were signs of foul play at the scene where Nan's car was found. A strand of hair with what looked like human tissue attached to it was strung across the steering wheel. A roll of electrical tape was found inside the car, as was one long piece of that tape. The trunk liner and tire rims were stained with what appeared to be blood. The Persian County Sheriff's Department believed that Nan had taken her own life. Despite the fact that they also believed that the electrical tape had been used to bind her.

The case was closed as a suicide, not a homicide, and the police auctioned off her car, even with the possibility that it could have been part of the crime scene. And I think this is kind of an interesting aspect of this one more. the authorities kind of closing the case as a suicide, even with kind of all signs pointing to the fact that we've got some foul play here. A few things point away from suicide here. Nan didn't try to leave alone. She asked her husband and a friend to go with her,

but her husband reportedly refused to go, and her friend had plans. But still, police believe that a piece of writing found in the car was from a note Nan had written, indicating that she was going to take her own life. The section of paper begins with the words, keeps telling me to get the gun and end my nightmares, but this I'll never do.

It continues with why she would never do such a thing. This note at the very least suggests that even if Nan was considering suicide, she would never go through with it. So, Mor, there's a lot of interesting aspects to this thing, right? Number one, to me is the car. I think it's pretty clear that police closed this down somewhat quickly and ruled it a suicide, given the fact that they auctioned off NAN's car, which potentially could have been a crime scene. And then you have this part of a note, which seems to be part of their reasoning behind the ruling of suicide, but to me, kind of speaks to the exact opposite. it's almost as if she's writing that someone else is telling her to end it all,

but she doesn't want to. And she'll never go that route. And then I think the last thing morph is the duct tape, electrical tape, someone that is thinking about doing that. Why would they need to bind themselves? It's not necessary. And you have the fact that the authorities never found her body. So unless she just walked out into the desert and died there, you know, to me, kind of a lot of signs are pointing away from that.

I don't know. What troubles me is the strand of hair with human tissue attached to it that was found in the steering wheel. I don't imagine that that's like an accident. Someone maybe pulled their hair out accidentally and leave us a big string of it with a chunk of flesh there. when you combine that with the tape and then the possibility that the trump liner and the tire rooms were stained would appear to be blood. I wonder if they even tested that stuff to see if it was blood or if they just rushed to judgment and said, let's declare this a suicide and be done with it. But I think I'm right there with you. It seems like there's at least the possibility

that some kind of foul play happened here. I also think you have to talk about the fact that she asked two different people to go with her on this trip. It's not logical that someone is contemplating taking this type of action while they're going to be on this trip and they ask people to go with them. That just doesn't make any sense to me at all. If they've thought about it ahead of time, I think you have to wrestle with that. Some people believe that Nan was going to collect her $6,000 loan back from her brothers, despite apparently forgiving them for not paying her back. And maybe it was this idea that led to some type of physical altercation.

But if that was the case, you would think that her husband would have probably gone on that trip with her. Nan was 4'10, 73 years old. She had arthritis and a hernia. Fear of a physical confrontation could be why Nan brought her husband's gun. But the loan occurred 17 years before Nan decided to make this trip. And so it does seem that she sat out on this trip to visit her brothers because she missed them. And I get why someone would have a hard time getting over being stiffed out of $6,000.

What I don't get is them waiting 17 years before they strike or they try to get it back. You know, we're just talking things that are not logical. You have to put that in that category. On top of the fact that, you know, this woman is 73 years old. She has health issues. I just don't see why at that point in her life, she would decide now is the time. I'm going to get my $6,000 back and I'm going to have it out with my brothers.

My thing, morph is she probably brought the gun, just because she was traveling. Yeah, I think if you're out in the middle of nowhere, like she was driving, that's the kind of area where you want some kind of protection if something happens or you encounter some people with bad intentions along the way, especially this elderly woman who had some health issues.

She would have been wanting to protect herself so I could totally buy her, bringing that gun with her for that purpose. And we don't know all the details of her mental health history had she ever. threatened suicide or had she had any depression, that stuff we don't know. But it seemed like this was a cut and dry case of her wanting to go, planning to go see her brothers and asking people to go with her like you mentioned,

and she just wound up having to go alone and then whatever happened or happened. What's interesting is that the area that Nan's car had been found in was searched early on when she disappeared, both by land and by air. It's possible that someone stashed it there after the search was done. But her car could have blended into the desert due to its location in a shadowy area beside a large hill, and it could have been missed by searchers. Others believe that Nan drove into a ditch and burned out the clutch trying to get out of it. When she realized she was stuck, she used the soda to stay hydrated

and maybe smoked more cigarettes than she normally would have so she could focus, calm down, and not feel hungry. An empty diet soda bottle was found by her, is about one and a half miles away from where Nan's car was found. And that's led many to believe she finally tried to walk for help before passing away from exposure and dehydration. If so, animals and the elements would have made any hope of finding Nan's remains, nearly impossible.

While the three people we have talked about so far in this episode were never found, there were several bodies found in that desert area over the years. On July 14, 1972, the body, of an unidentified woman dubbed Star Valley Jane Doe was found by a rancher off I-80, 35 miles east of Elko, Nevada. Star Valley Jane Doe was nude and had been posed in a cross-like manner. She had been shot by a 22-caliber handgun in her neck and face. A blue Volkswagen beetle with Tennessee plates was seen in the area around July 7th. It was believed to be reported stolen from Tennessee. The car and its driver were never found. More mysteries followed.

On October 15, 1987, Stephanie Stroh, a Portland, Oregon college student, who was hitchhiking from New York to California, called her parent from a Wells, Nevada truck stop. She told them she was heading home to San Francisco and would be there the next day. She was never seen again. Multiple convicted killers, including Tommy Lynn Sells and Dale Wayne Eaton have been mentioned as being responsible for Stephanie's death, but none have been proven to be connected to her disappearance. On February 25, 1990, the remains of a woman dubbed Hilltop Road Jane Doe were found, sought in half about 17 miles off Interstate 80.

She has never been identified. And three years later on February 1, 1993, another Jane Doe was found in Elko County, off Interstate 80. On July 26, 1992, an 82-year-old man named Johnson John Frederick White went missing from Winamucka, Nevada. He was last seen driving as 1979 Silver Pontiac Bonneville. The next day, on July 27th, his car was found 11 miles east of Battle Mountain. It appeared to investigators that the car had been in a single-vehicle rollover accident. There was no sign of John White, and he has never been seen again.

It's been reported that he went missing after telling one neighbor, that he and another neighbor were going for a short drive, and that some of this neighbor's belongings were recovered in John's car, but this hasn't been verified by law enforcement. On Valentine's Day 2001, five years before Judith Casita's car was found at exit 205, Norma Jean Parker's skeletal remains were found by a hiker in a makeshift gray north of Winamucka Dry Lake.

She had gone missing from a retirement home. in Tracy, California a year earlier. Norma, like Patrick Carnes, had been a truck driver in the past. She was known to like to travel between California and Colorado with other truckers. Norma's case lends more credibility to the idea of an interstate trucking serial killer roaming I-80. It was well known that she traveled with truckers and she was found in an area accessible by Nevada state route 447, which intersects I-80, just south of the dry lake.

Prior to her remains being found, Norma's family had spread flyers along I-80, and tips came in that she had been spotted at truck stops as far away as Illinois. The spot where Norma's remains were found was about 40 miles from seven troughs, Nevada, where Nan Dixon was headed when she disappeared. and some people more think there's a pattern here. Judith was found in 2001, Norma was found in 2006, and Patrick was found in 2011. All of them five years apart,

some people think that's a pattern, not a coincidence. Although a cause of death couldn't be determined for Norma, it's safe to assume she was murdered, and she was found in the makeshift great. Norma suffered from Huntington's disease, and she had trouble walking. So it would have been extremely difficult for her to get to this spot where her body was found on her own.

And obviously it would have been impossible for her to dig her own grave, lie down in it, and then cover herself up. And there's no mentions of any shovels being found or anything like that. So it seems obvious that she met with some kind of foul play. Or the other argument could be that she did. died of natural causes somehow and someone she was with wanted to hide her body and just disposed of it that way. Yeah, there's a lot of different scenario. Now, I will say this. I think some are more likely than other. Can you rule out the fact that someone wanted to properly

bury her? They didn't know who she was. They found her. No, you can't rule that out. You can ask the question, well, why wouldn't they call the authorities and have somebody come out? I think if you have to put money on it, though, more, you'd lean towards the side of this definitely involving foul play. Yeah, and I think we can clearly rule out the suicide aspect. In 2012, the skeletal remains of a man named Robin Putnam were found near a railroad track in Tobar, just south of Wells and I-80. Interestingly, though he was found relatively close to I-80, his family believes an Amtrak employee was involved in Robin's death and that there are two Amtrak lines are notorious for similar cases where it appears someone has jumped or been dropped off of train. It would seem that there are certain things about long-haul travel in general, not just trucking, that makes for the perfect set of circumstances for a serial killer to operate or for people to at least believe there's one at large.

And more if there are a lot of reasons for that. a highway serial killer isn't exactly unheard of. There's the I-24 killer, the I-45 killer, the I-70 killer. In fact, there are so many that there is an FBI highway serial killings initiative. The FBI's initiative was announced in 2009 after an analyst found a pattern in 2004 of murdered women dumped in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi along the I-40 corridor. The suspects in these killings are mostly long-haul truckers. The initiative as of 2009 had arrested 10 suspects who had committed multiple murders,

including two truckers. They also arrested a team of two people who worked together along Interstate 40. I think more if we have to go back to the cases of Judith and Patrick off exit 205. if they met with foul play, their killer or killers had to have a way to leave the scene somehow. Sheriff Call does give some credence to a serial killer operating on I-80. He is even interested in other disappearances outside of his own jurisdiction along I-80 in Utah. While many don't rule out a truck-driving serial killer, others believe that there is a rogue police officer or someone masquerading as an officer, since both cars at exit 205, for example, were still found in working order and hadn't been disabled.

Perhaps they were ordered to pull over. Sheriff Cole reportedly still visits Exit 205 to search for evidence. Despite all the deaths and disappearances along I-80, it's hard to shake the feeling that somehow Judith Casitas and Patrick Carnes' cases aren't connected. Out of all the empty spaces to pull over, why exit 205? It's so rural it seems like it can't be a coincidence. What are the odds that two people would vanish from that same spot? Whether there are truly one or more serial killers using Interstate 80 as they're hunting and dumping grounds, or whether any of these cases are connected.

It's clear that while in the desert, you're vulnerable. You need water to survive. There's none. You need shelter from the day's heat, the wind, animals, or the night's cold temperatures. And there is none. No matter how fit you are, how experienced. you can get turned around and lost in the blink of an eye. During the day, everything looks similar.

It's all dirt and sky. Many nights, you can't see anything at all. And even if you don't meet a sinister character, you're still vulnerable to car trouble and highway hypnosis. In any of these scenarios, you would have to rely on a good Samaritan to come along and to trust that they weren't some type of killer. So morph as we wrap this case up,

obviously we talked about a number of different people. These are some interesting cases in their own right. I think there's a lot of mystery surrounding these cases. And first and foremost, I think you have to look at some of these as, okay, were these people murdered? Or did they simply walk off, get lost in the desert and succumb to the elements? And when you're talking about a big. interstate. It's sad to say, but we know that there are killers and serial killers that operate

along these interstates. I mean, we mentioned it, right? There's, there's so many different documented interstate serial killers. When you focus in on the exit 205 cases, this little rest stop, if you want to call it that, it doesn't seem like a place where I would want to stop. I think a lot of people that are listening probably can identify with a long road trip they've been on where you see those signs where it says last chance for gas for 200 miles. The first thing you do is think, okay, let me fill up, let me make sure everything's in working order because I don't want to break down somewhere out in the middle of nowhere 100 miles down the road here or run out of gas.

So this to me reminds me of one of those places where you're out of luck and in serious trouble if something happens to you, whether it's your car breaking down or whether you encounter a predator or some sort out there, it's that kind of desolate area where there's not much help. And also, many of these cases

happened before there were cell phones. You know, I wonder if some of these cases might not be unsolved or if these people might have been saved somehow if there were cell phones back then or... And I don't know if even today if some of these areas have cell phone coverage, can you get a signal way out in the middle of the desert?

That's something I don't even know. So if anyone out there looks at these pictures of Exit 205 in Pumpernickle Valley, you can see nothing, but as far as the eye can see, just hills and flat desert brush. Really, it is truly an empty spot. There's just nothing there. And if you were in trouble out there, you'd have to hope and pray that a police officer came along

or someone came along because you're not going to get very far trying to walk out there and find any kind of help. The one thing I'm left with regarding exit 205 is how do we know that Patrick and Judith are the ones that parked their cars there? Perhaps someone else did something to them and then got rid of their cars there. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's the thing we don't know, right? There's more about these cases that we don't know than what we do know. But what you said is is very likely possible. There's a bunch of different scenarios.

I think that is one, the one you just mentioned. There's another scenario where these individuals pulled off of exit 205 for whatever reason. Maybe they were just tired of driving. They needed to stretch their legs. They needed to go to the bathroom. And they met with a predator intent on doing them harm. and then I do think there is a third option in which there was no foul play. They got out of their car for whatever reason, decided to walk a little bit, got turned around.

To me, that is the least likely option, though. I got to be honest with you. Well, I think that's what's so frustrating in these cases, especially the exit 205 disappearances. You don't have any clear-cut evidence that anything happened to them. you have no evidence one way or the other if they walked off into the desert or kidnapped or went willingly. But what we do know is they both had working vehicles and gasoline. So if they were wanting to leave there and able to leave there, they could have easily headed down the road. But for whatever reason, whatever they encountered there, that never happened.

Yeah, to me it's just, it's very unlikely that two individuals would pull off, decide to just, just walk out into the desert. I know I wouldn't do it. No way. Would I just decide on my own that I'm going to walk out and explore the desert? You know, in the case of Patrick, it's thought that he would have been at exit 205 sometime at night, I believe, to me, even less likely that you're going to walk out into the desert at night. You don't know what's out there, snakes, scorpions, all kinds of stuff. But the one thing we know for sure is that these are all mysteries yet to be solved. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. If you love the show and haven't done so yet, please take a minute, go out, give us a five-star

rating. You can leave a review, but keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also also find us by searching Facebook for criminology podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that is it for our episode on a number of mysteries along Interstate 80, but Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.