Going West: True Crime - The Freeway Phantom // 496

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Between April of 1971 and September of 1972, six girls, between the ages of 10 and 18, were abducted from Washington DC and found murdered. After some of their abductions, he would call the families or those close to the case breathing heavily, or giving crude messages. Then, left behind in one of the victims’ pockets was a note from the killer, taunting the police by saying, “Catch me if you can,” followed by a terrifying name he gave himself. This is the story of the Freeway Phantom.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host teeth and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west Hello, everybody. Yeah, hope you had a great weekend. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We have a serial killer case from the 70s. When we started diving into this one, I almost thought we covered it before because there are certain elements of this case that are kind of reminiscent of another one that we covered in this actually happened in New York, the one I'm talking about. But today's case is Washington DC And this has so many creepy twists. There's a scary letter involved. There's phone calls.

I mean, this story is truly baffling. Yes, this case is just entirely frustrating. It really feels like this entire case was just fumbled by the police. And still today, they're trying to find answers for this string of murders that took place. And it really feels like it should be solved. You guys are going to be so pissed off.

So without further ado, let's dive right in. Alright guys, this is episode 496 of Going West. So let's get into it! Between April of 1971 and September of 1972, six girls between the ages of 10 and 18 were abducted from Washington, D.C. and found murdered. After some of the disappearances, the killer would call the families or those close to the case breathing heavily or giving crude messages. Then, left behind in one of the victim's pockets was a note from the killer, taunting the police by saying,

Catch me if you can, followed of a golden era for serial killers. I mean you probably heard of some of the most infamous names, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the son of Sam. And while we can't point to just one reason why there seem to be so many, some sociologists think it could be linked to generational trauma and financial instability trickling down from World War II, which is honestly really fascinating. Yeah, it really does stick out as this kind of like era of unknown serial killers that were running amok. Well, in 1971, Washington DC faced its first known serial killer, one who targeted the most vulnerable

among them, children. And tragically, because his victims were all young black girls, these murders didn't receive the same kind of attention or national outrage as some of the other serial killings happening during that time. Missteps in the investigation and a lack of media coverage created confusion around many of the case's key facts. And even now, over 50 years later, the murders remain unsolved, with very little evidence left to go on. The Freeway Phantom's first known victim was Carol Denise Spinks.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Carol resided with her family in an apartment in the Congress Heights subdivision of the Washington Highlands neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Just blocks from the border of Maryland. Carol was one of eight siblings born to Alan Teane and Robert Spinks, and she had three brothers and four sisters, including a twin sister named Carolyn, who was her best friend. So we have Carol and Carolyn. Carol was a seventh grader at Johnson Junior High School and is remembered as quiet, polite, and kind. On the day she disappeared, her mom, Alantine,

needed to head out to run some errands and left Carol and a few of her siblings back at the apartment with very strict instructions not to step outside or open the door for anybody who came by. You know, makes sense, they're all young. She doesn't want any of them to get into any trouble or any danger, which is really eerily foreshadowing to what is going to happen this very day to one of her kids because they left the house.

But here's kind of how it went down. So when their older sister, 24-year-old Valerie, knocked on the door, they bent the rules because they knew obviously that they could trust their sister Valerie, and they opened the door to greet her, asking her what she wanted. Valerie had been across the hall at a friend's apartment and was wondering if one of her younger siblings could run to the store to pick up bread, TV dinners, and soda. So knowing that they would be in trouble with their mom, Alantine, if she found out that they left the apartment, her younger siblings initially said no. But Valerie was persistent

and they kind of were growing tired of her knocking and badgering and just asking. And you know, Valerie was in her 20s, so they thought, okay, if Valerie says it and she's going to keep kind of talking about it, let's just, let's just do this, right? So obviously, Carol had really good intentions when she offered to run the errand for her, despite how her mom might feel about it if she found out. Well, here's kind of a crazy part of the story, because while Carol was on her way to 7-Eleven down the street, she actually ran into her mom as she was coming home. And even though Alantine was a bit upset, she said that she could finish her errand and that they would just talk about it when she got home later.

Yeah, she was already out and Alantine was going home, so she's like, okay, I'll see you in a few minutes. But after about half an hour, Carolyn was growing kind of concerned that her twin sister had not returned home, checking across the hall with Valerie and her friend, but they told her that Carol hadn't come back yet. So Carolyn ran to the 7-Eleven to see if Carol was still there, but the employee said that she had already left. And when she told her mom this, Alantine called 911 and reported 13-year-old Carol missing. But sadly, police were just kind of reluctant to open a missing persons investigation, telling

her that her daughter probably ran away, and she would return within a few days. Imagine you know your daughter and you go to police and you're like, something happened to her and they're like, nah, she probably ran away. Yeah, and on top of that, she was just going to run a quick errand. Like she had a purpose for going to the store. It's not like she said, hey, I'm going to go to a friend's house. She's like, I'm going to go to the store because I need to get these TV dinners.

I need to get this soda for dinner tonight, whatever. So she had a reason to come back from the store. Yeah, actually her errand was quite responsible and helpful for the family. So I understand police receive so many calls like this and then it's like, oh, they were just right there. But that must've been so frustrating. And Alantine just knew that something was up here, so she rallied friends, family, and

neighbors to walk the neighborhood, calling Carol's name and combing the streets looking for her. Well, the police did eventually give in, and a missing persons report was filed, and the local newspaper printed a description of Carol alongside her picture. But to the absolute shock and dismay of her family, Carol's body turned up on May 1, 1971, discarded on the side of Interstate 295, which cuts through the lower quadrant of Washington, D.C., southeast of downtown. 13 year old Carol's body was found behind St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital along I-295, and remember that location because we're going to talk about it later.

And actually she was found after some kids playing there happened to find her remains in the grass. Carol was still clothed in the red sweater, blue shorts, and brown socks she had disappeared in, but the blue tennis shoes that she's believed to have been wearing were never recovered, maybe kept as a trophy by her killer. Carole's sisters remember hearing her mom's wails of agony from the front door when the police arrived to break the news because Obviously even though she had been the first to believe that something really bad could have happened to her daughter She still just couldn't believe that she was gone because remember she saw her on a walk So she was probably saying God if only I had pulled her home with me

Yeah, if only I had said no you can't finish this Aaron I mean obviously it's not her mother's fault at all. No. But I can imagine that's probably what she's thinking. Yeah, because she had that initial rule of, don't open the door, don't leave the house because I know that bad things can happen to kids and to anybody.

And so we know so much that all, like her only goal was to keep her kids safe. And little did she know that that one errand would change everything. Now Carol was found with bruises and abrasions dotting her body and marks around her throat, which led investigators to conclude that she had been strangled. And sadly she was also sexually assaulted. When she was brought in for an autopsy,

there was undigested citrus fruit found in her stomach. So based on this and the stage of decomposition that she was in, which was in the early stages, the medical examiner determined that Carol had been kept alive and held captive for a period of time before she was killed, which is terrifying when you realize that she had been killed only about two to three days prior to when she was found, despite the fact that she had gone missing six days prior

to this discovery. So that means she was held for three or four days. She was believed to have been taken from Wheeler Road, which was a main road in her neighborhood, and the road that she was walking on while she was headed home from the 7-Eleven. But the crazy thing is, like when Carol was abducted, it was broad daylight on, like I said, a bustling street. This is a major road, but nobody saw it happen.

So we're going to talk about this a lot in this episode why nobody would notice this which makes you wonder if a commotion wasn't caused and we will get into why. And you would really think that being in a city with so many people around there would be more opportunity for there to be more witnesses seeing this abduction take place, but I feel like sometimes the city is just so overwhelmed by everything that's going on. There's the sights the sounds everything so it's just like Maybe people just really don't pay attention to things like this Yeah, there were like almost too many other things going on that you it's almost like hiding in plain sight

Yeah, which is a really interesting parallel to an episode we covered a couple months ago, almost. Hayley Owens, episode 483. She was abducted off of a neighborhood road, and there were people out in their front yards, as we talked about, who saw her abduction happen, and they watched as she was pulled into a truck, and then the truck sped off. Yeah.

But maybe in this kind of situation, it was that, where just there was so much going on she was pulled into a truck and then the truck sped off. Yeah. But maybe in this kind of situation, it was that where just there was so much going on that nobody saw it. Or again, as we will get into, there is a whole other reason why nobody noticed. Well, within just three months, the killer would strike yet again.

16 year old Darlena Denise Johnson was one of 11 children born into a family who lived in the same neighborhood as Carol. And Darlena actually lived on Wheeler Road. Remember, that's the same road that Carol was believed to have been abducted from. On July 8th, 1971, Darlena was headed to work her shift at a local recreation center where she was a camp counselor, but she never made it there. When she didn't return home, her mom Helen filed a missing persons report. And this is when things started to get really terrifying for the investigation, because

in the week and a half between when she disappeared and when she was found, Helen was receiving very, very strange phone calls that were silent except for heavy breathing. Then finally, in one, a man's voice came on the line and sneered, I killed your daughter. Now of course, Helen reported the phone calls to the police, but they were unable to trace the origin of the call, so... They couldn't really determine if it was real or if it was fake, but... With this guy's future taunts, where of the belief that this really was the killer? Yeah, I mean, it seemed like this guy was having fun with it.

He liked toying with people. He's obviously very evil if he is assaulting and murdering children So I think it was him well sadly 11 days after she disappeared on July 19th 1971 her body turned up only 15 feet from where Carol's remains had been found and they had been spotted by and called in by at least two And they had been spotted by and called in by at least two different people who had been in this area before police took the report seriously like it took two people to call in and And nobody came to inspect to see if this body was actually there It's actually wild because one of the guys that called the police to report her body The police after getting two reports,

they drove by the area and said, Oh yeah, there's no body here, but they didn't even get out of the car. And then soon after this guy went back to kind of check on the scene and make sure police had done their job. And she was still there. So he called his boss to tell his boss, and then they called the police again. And then finally the police went to the scene. But it's like, why did it take this much for the police to go check it out?

It's like, there is a dead child in the grass over here. Like go do something about it. Yeah, it's complete bullshit that they just, they didn't have any sense of urgency. They didn't really care. It's just like, well, we drove by and we shined a flashlight but we didn't see anything. Which is such a trend in this case. It really care. It's just like, well, we drove by and we shined a flashlight, but we didn't see anything, so... Which is such a trend in this case.

It really is. So, Darlene was found in an advanced state of decomposition, which made determining her cause of death essentially impossible, but her clothes wore a match for what she had been wearing on the day she disappeared. So, because it took police so long to follow up on the multiple reports that were sent in, Darlenia's body was so badly decomposed that the medical examiner was forced to sever her fingertips in order to even identify her, which lost the investigation valuable time and evidence. Which is just completely unacceptable. Well, after the murderer claimed its second victim,

the community held rallies and searches in an effort to raise awareness for the case that police didn't seem to be taking seriously enough. On July 21, 1971, a press conference and rally was held where organizer Dorothy Wheeler told the crowd, quote, We're sick and tired of the deaths of our girls. And Dorothy did so much to help for both Carol and Darlenia like in the searches for both of them. And was becoming so known for speaking out on their murders that Dorothy herself

started receiving threatening phone calls just as Darlenia's mother had. A man with a deep voice apparently told her, quote, you have daughters and if you don't want them raped and dropped on the side of the road, you'll keep your nose out of this. That is absolutely horrifying. So it's almost like he was making the calls because he's trying to taunt the families and the people connected, but at the same time he doesn't want people talking about the cases, again assuming this is even him. Well of course, he doesn't want to get caught, so you know, he's got to make threats to other people that are now trying to investigate his murders. It's just weird with what's to come

because it's almost like he wants to know variety, but he doesn't, which we talked about for the Unabomber case as well with Ted Kaczynski. It's like, you don't want to get caught, but you want people talking about your quote unquote work. Well, just eight days after Darlenia's body was found, the murderer claimed his next victim and his tormenting phone calls continued. On July 27, 1971, the murderer's youngest victim, 10-year-old Brenda Faye Crockett,

was sent by her mother to a Safeway grocery store on 14th and New Street, NW, which was just about five blocks away from their home in Northwest Washington, D.C., to pick up food for the family's three dogs. It was supposed to be a quick trip, just like Carol's trip to the 7-Eleven, because Brenda's family was planning to sit down together for dinner and watch a movie a short while later. But as time ticked by without her returning home, Brenda's mom grew worried and headed out to search the neighborhood for her daughter. And we're about to get probably the most disturbing phone call yet because while her mom was out

at the house, Brenda made an eerie phone call home at 9.20 p.m. which her 7-year-old sister Bertha answered. Now according to Bertha, Brenda told her while crying that she had been quote snatched by a white man and that she was in Virginia with him but that she would be sent home in a taxi shortly. Well after receiving this first phone call, 25 minutes later Brenda called home yet again, and this time her stepfather answered the phone, asking where she was and telling her to stay put and that he would go get her. After telling him that she didn't know where she was, she asked him, quote, Did my mother

see me? So confused by this, the stepfather responded, quote, How could your mother see you if you're in Virginia? He asked her to put the man on the phone. But just then, heavy footsteps could be heard in the background. And Brenda cut off the phone call by saying, quote, I'll see you and then hanging up. Well, sadly, the next morning, Brenda's body had been found just eight hours after her disappearance, and just like Carol, she had been raped, strangled, and left barefoot. Investigators noted that her feet were so clean that they looked as if they had been

washed before her body was discarded. Romaine Jenkins, who still speaks about the case, later posed the theory that Brenda's captor was fearful that her mother had seen him abducting her and wanted to be sure that he would get away with it if he killed her, which may have meant that the man was known to this family. It just makes you wonder why he would think she saw him though, because the whole point is that Brenda went to the store for the family to get supplies. So she was alone, her mom wasn't with her.

So it makes me wonder if when her mom went out to look for her, if the man was with Brenda and her mom like went near them or something and he was worried that she saw him or something. Like that's the only thing that would really make sense to me it's so weird that he would think she saw him yeah he's definitely getting nervous he's trying to cover his tracks he's I actually do feel like when Brenda's mother was out of the house that they were probably nearby when Brenda was making the phone

calls home and that yeah maybe she had possibly spotted them. And Romaine wondered, quote, why would you let her call home not once, but twice? He had to make sure that the mother didn't see her. She also believes that the statements that Brenda made about being abducted by a white man and that, you know, she was in Virginia were false and made to deliberately mislead the investigation. Which would make a lot of sense. And anybody who doesn't know Washington DC is right next to Virginia so to get into Virginia from DC is very easy.

It's not like they would have had to go really far. But I completely agree with that because this is the only instance in this investigation or in this case rather where the killer let a girl make a phone call. So he must have really been worried. And it does make you wonder, this is actually what I was hinting at earlier, makes you wonder if Brenda knew her abductor, which also you wonder that about all the other victims, but particularly like what I was saying about Carol,

if maybe there was no commotion during her abduction because she was taken by somebody she knew. Yeah, and on top of that we're gonna talk about one other instance in which the perpetrator is trying to actively cover his tracks. So Brenda's body was found lying in plain sight alongside John Hansen Highway, also known as US Route 50, just across the border into Maryland after a hitchhiker walking along the road spotted her deceased body discarded on a grassy embankment.

And then just over a month later, the killer struck again, this time in Northeast Washington, DC. 12-year-old Nina Moshe Yates, nicknamed Nae Nae, was a soft-spoken sixth grader who attended Kelly Miller Junior High. On October 1st, 1971, Nae Nae was sent by her father to a Safeway grocery store just like Brenda, just a block away from their home,

to pick up a bag of sugar, a bag of flour, and paper plates because her mom had just had a baby so she was just helping her out. And according to the store clerk, she picked up her items and the change and left the store safely and happily. But at some point between the store and her home, she was intercepted and abducted. And only about three hours later, her body was found by a teenage boy who had passed by her on the street. In similar fashion to the others, she had been raped and strangled and left along bustling Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George's County, Maryland, only about 20 minutes away from

where Brenda was found. Ney Ney's body was still warm when the boy found her and her change from the store and her groceries were recovered with her body. After the murderer claimed his fourth victim in six months, the FBI finally became involved, fearing the worst. That the cases of the murdered girls were connected, that a serial killer had descended upon the city, and that there were more victims to come.

You know what is kind of annoying though, is that you had the first two cases in which the bodies of these girls were found 15 feet away from each other, and they didn't initially think this could be the work of a serial killer. I mean, come on. I mean, they re like you said in the beginning, they really fumbled this case from the start and they weren't taking it seriously at all, even though the descriptions of both the first two girls were very similar. The situations were very similar and they happened very close together.

And now the situations with the third and fourth victims were also very similar. Well, they're really starting to see a serious pattern here, and there were also connections between the actual crime scenes. So three of the girls out of four now were found with hair that was believed to belong to an African American man on their bodies. Three of them had suffered sexual assault and three of them had been strangled. But as we know, Darlena's body, the second victim, was in such an advanced state of decomposition that they could not determine if she was sexually assaulted or not.

And they also could not determine cause of death. like Keith said, it was impossible to determine. Yeah, and they almost weren't even able to identify her. The only reason why they were able to do that is because they had to sever those fingertips. Yeah, so she very well could have been sexually assaulted and strangled too. But I think, like you're saying, when you just said after the first two, how did they not make the connection? I think because they dropped the ball so badly, they couldn't say, oh, here's two girls with the same cause of death

because they couldn't tell it for Darlenia. Yeah. And here's two girls that are literally 15 feet apart or like their bodies were found 15 feet apart. I mean, I don't understand how you don't make that initial connection. It's ridiculous. Well, just six weeks later, a fifth victim fell prey to this newly minted serial killer. And she is actually the oldest victim that we've talked about thus far. She was 18 years old and her name was Brenda Denise Woodard.

And if you haven't realized this yet, she is one of many thus far who have the middle name Denise. Yes, we have connections to Denise's and Brenda's at this point. Yeah, she is the second Brenda. We are gonna talk about all that later though because it's a little, it's a little too weird not to talk about. So Brenda was known as ambitious, she was very outgoing, she was a high school senior who dreamed of having a career in fashion. And on November 15th, 1971, Brenda attended an evening class at Cardozo High School where she was learning typing skills, which was just around the corner from where Nene had

lived. After class, she and a classmate headed to nearby Ben's Chili Bowl for dinner. And this classmate actually would usually drive 18-year-old Brenda home afterwards, but with his car at a commission for the time being, they both took the bus instead. He watched as she exited the bus at 8th and H Street Northeast bound for her home. But she never made it there. And in the early morning hours of the following day, November 16th, her body was discovered just south of US Route 50, on a grassy exit ramp not far from where Brenda Faye Crockett's body had been discovered,

and Brenda Denise Woodard's body provided the first note written by the killer. After the horrific message, he signed it the Freeway Phantom. I'm out. Like the other victims, 18-year-old Brenda Woodard had been both strangled and sexually assaulted. However, unlike her four predecessors, Brenda had also been stabbed as many as six times, leading investigators to believe that she had either fought back so hard that she had angered her captor, or that she had nearly caught him in a mistake. Which was probably easier for her to do this than the other girls, because she's grown... Yeah, she was 18.

Right. Well, she suffered a fractured neck and bruises all over her body, and there were also defensive wounds on her hands and blood under her fingernails. Brenda was found fully clothed, though her outfit had clearly been disturbed, like her black turtleneck had been turned inside out and buttons were missing from both her skirt and her jacket. Her underwear were also found inside out and backwards and her bra was not fastened properly. So obviously it didn't seem like this was

her doing because why would she put on her own underwear backwards and inside out? It just doesn't make any sense. So to me it says it speaks to me that this was probably the perpetrator who redressed her. Her wig was also found on a median about 350 yards away from her body, and her body had been draped with her burgundy-colored velvet coat. Now inside a pocket of that coat was a note that read, quote, "'This is tantamount to my insensitivity to people, especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me if you can. Freeway Phantom."

What do you think that note means? I'm not really sure. It kind of feels like the killer obviously is taunting here because he's like, well, you haven't caught me yet, catch me if you can sort of thing. But I think other than that, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's just like, yeah, I'm an insensitive asshole. I kill people, you know, like we already know that. It's a little hard to understand. So I looked it up because I wanted to see what police and other people think. So essentially, the word tantamount means equivalent in seriousness too.

So it almost seems like he's saying that the acts that he has committed, you know, like murder is equal to his lack of empathy for people, especially women. So it's almost like he's admitting that he's detached, that he's deliberately cruel, which is really interesting because obviously this has to be analyzed and it makes, it gives us a little peek into who he is. Um, which is really interesting because obviously this has to be analyzed and it makes...

It gives us a little peek into who he is. The fact that he said especially women. He's telling us that he hates women. Well, I also wanted to point out real quick that in this note the word insensitivity was incorrectly spelled. Uh, it was spelled insensitivity and freeway was incorrectly stylized as free-way, but it's unclear if these were like intentional or possibly just oversights that he didn't he didn't catch while he was writing this. But here's the other thing, the the letter was actually not even written in his handwriting. Actually it was Brenda's handwriting. She was the one who wrote

this note. So it's believed that the reason why he did this is because he didn't want police to have a sample of his handwriting. Yeah, so did Brenda just accidentally misspell insensitivity and write freeway that way because she did that on her own? Or did he say do free dash way? Like, you really don't know. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we can determine that these were his words. But because her script was clear, steady, and unchanged from how it usually appears, investigators thought that maybe she knew her killer. Sergeant Romaine Jenkins posited, quote,

There were no signs that she was nervous when she wrote the note. You don't think calmly like that if someone has kidnapped and assaulted you. And this idea became a theme because both Carol and Darlenia were abducted from the Congress Heights neighborhood, which is a tight-knit community, and both had been raised on strict regulations from their parents to never accept a ride from, you know, somebody that they didn't know. So it seemed possible that this person stalking the neighborhoods for young girls may have been known and trusted among them. Or someone that they should have been able to trust inherently.

Someone who was like a fixture in the community. It's just so weird either way that Brenda's handwriting was steady because they really they really looked at it compared to others and they, like you said, it was unchanged. But the writing itself, it's not like the letter was positive. This is tantamount to my insensitivity to people, especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me if you can. Why in any context would she be calm writing that? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. And it's kind of one of those things I feel like, you know, how a lot of people like to judge people when they're grieving and say like, Oh, well, they didn't seem to be crying, you know, when they're when they found out their wife died, so they might be a suspect or whatever, you know what I mean?

Maybe it's one of those things where it's just like some people have the ability to do that and others don't. Yeah, like maybe she doesn't usually have a shaky hand when she's nervous. Sure. So I feel like that would make sense because like Romaine is amazing and she knows so much about this case

and she cares about it so much, but her kind of saying that she wasn't nervous, that it means concretely that she wasn't nervous when she wrote it. So maybe she knew the perp just cause you know, the perp in my head doesn't mean you're not nervous when you're writing such a letter. Like obviously she would know that something was up. So I don't know. I think it's definitely possible that she knew her killer,

but I don't think that the fact that her handwriting was steady means that that's true. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't mean anything, to be honest with you, but I do think because a lot of these cases happened around the same area. They were all these Denise or Brenda's, they all happened. Well, a girl was either headed to the store or was walking alone on the street. I mean, I just think there's so many connections that it does make me feel like it's possible that somebody in this community may have known all the girls, but how? I don't know how. Yeah, it feels like kind of a stretch that you know this many young girls or young women. I wanted to go back to Brenda Faye Crockett's abduction and the fact that when she had called home she was saying like, oh did my mom see me? That to me speaks volumes because it's like, okay well did the mom know the person who

was abducting Brenda and so that's why he was asking whether or not, know what I'm saying or you know if it's like somebody that they know from the neighborhood yeah well that's what police think too and I think that one holds a lot more weight than this does and it is possible that the perp knew all of them but a you know kind of spoiler alert none of the families ever came forward and said yeah there is this weird guy and that we know and maybe it was him. And then, hey, he knows all of them too. There was never a connection made this way. I mean, it's so crazy to me just the amount of details that we have in this case, the amount of like little pieces of evidence here and there that we are going to get into some more evidence that

police uncovered, but and the fact that just there seems to be more evidence than most cases and it's still unsolved. Which was also very much a trend in the 70s. We don't know who a lot of those big serial killers were. True. Which is so frustrating. While near Brenda's body were discarded papers that may or may not have belonged to the Freeway Phantom, but they were collected as evidence just in case, with investigators wondering

if maybe they were thrown out mistakenly when her body was left on the side of the road. These scraps of paper included a three-page press release from a local bank, which would have only been issued to other banks and small businesses in the area. So this is kind of important because it could tell us where, in a way, in a very broad sense, where the guy worked, if these papers belonged to him, but there's also no way to determine if they did.

So does it really even help? But obviously it's better to collect potential evidence than not. And also on the press release, two phone numbers were scribbled, both of which rang roadside assistance hotlines, so that could be interesting. Well after Brenda's murder, a 24-hour tip line was established with six hotline phones that were manned constantly, and tips really flooded in, but none materialized in a suspect. Munns passed with no answers, but no new victims either, luckily. That is, until September of 1972.

Ten months after Brenda Denise Woodard was killed, 17-year-old Diane Denise Williams went missing. So we have another middle name, Denise. Now, Diane was a bubbly social girl who dreamed of a career in the entertainment industry. On September 5th, 1972, Diane went over to the home of her boyfriend, James, who happened to live near where Carol and Darlenia were kidnapped. Needing to make it home in time for her curfew, which was 10 PM, James walked her to the bus stop and waited for her until she got on safely. The bus driver saw her exit the bus safely only a block or so from her home.

But the following day, 17 year old Diane was found by a trucker alongside I-295 in Maryland, so just a couple hundred yards outside the Washington, D.C. line, and only about 10 minutes down the highway from where the first two victims, Carol and Darlenia, were found. So that means only a block or two from her home she was abducted, which is really similar to the other girls in this story. It was all so close to home. It's so crazy to me that he's abducting girls from the same area and he's also discarding of their bodies in the same area. Yeah, seriously, but still going undiscovered.

Yeah. Well, like those before her, Diane had been strangled, and though there were no overt signs of sexual assault, there was seminal fluid found on her clothes. So police wondered at first if maybe this was from her boyfriend the night prior, but James said that they had not been intimate that evening, so investigators were led to believe that it was left behind by her killer. Found with five of the six victims were green fibers believed to be from the carpet inside

of a vehicle. Despite being grabbed from busy streets in their friendly and tight-knit neighborhoods, some even in broad daylight, no one could offer a reliable description of the abductor or his vehicle, lending more credence to the theory that the abductor may have been somebody that they knew or trusted. Though some witnesses report possibly having seen him in the area of his crimes, reports of the color of the car were blue, green, red, and white, and may or may not have sported a stripe, so this is basically all over the place.

Doesn't help at all. No it does not. Well, all the victims were black and all of them were female, and strangely, four of the girls had the middle name Denise. So the Washington Daily News even printed a headline at the time that read, quote, Police psychologist warns black girls named Denise. Dr. Sheldon Freud, a psychologist who worked closely with the Prince George's Police Department, reported, quote, I would think that any girl with the name Denise would be particularly careful right now. Random killing is not very common. Assuming that this is one

man, we might suppose that he had some hostile association with the name Denise or even the letter D. And Denise is obviously such a common name, common middle name, so that doesn't help the Denise's of the world. And then of course like we said there were two named Brenda and actually all of them either had the name Denise or Brenda one, which was Brenda Denise Woodard, but everybody else had Denise as their middle name or Brenda Faye Crockett. Her first name was just Brenda and she had no Denise. So that's just like really weird. And honestly, to me

feels almost too weird to be a coincidence. Yeah, like maybe he had some sort of like, maybe he was... Maybe his mom was named Brenda or possibly Denise and he hated his mom or maybe an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife? Yeah, like we know that he hated women. He literally told us in his note. So it's possible, because we talked about this in the Unabomber episode where, you know, maybe he was like an incel. And he's the kind of guy that's mad at women for not dating him or mad at women because a woman like his mom, like many serial killers was an abusive figure. And so then they turn around and suddenly they hate women as a whole because this one woman wronged them.

Well, I want to quickly go back to the green fibers that were found on some of the victims because I was actually looking up like what vehicles in 1971 came out with like green carpet but sadly there was a lot and a lot of the time, yeah, there was a ton and the color that was actually used was called avocado green but something that kind of piqued my interest was the fact that Okay, let's say this guy abducted these girls. Where did he take them to? Where did he assault them? And my mind immediately went to like a work van that possibly had green carpet in the back because vans Back then oftentimes had like shag carpet so true or even a personal van

But that's such a good point because for any of them that were held for any period of time, it would make sense if he had a type of vehicle where you could be in the back, where he could hold them hostage, assault them. Yeah, because we know that one of the victims was found about three hours after she was abducted. She was found murdered.

So was he able to take these victims back to his home because his home was nearby? Or was he assaulting them in a vehicle, in which case he would not want witnesses who were walking by to see him assaulting a young girl, so possibly it was a van with no windows. It would absolutely make sense for this case if he had a van. And he's acting very quickly, like he's murdering these girls one right after the other and then he'll take like a short little break and then he'll go back to Kill like two within the span of like a month or two and then he'll take like a ten month break again You know what I mean?

So this makes you wonder so much like who he was what he did for work why he took breaks and then why he stopped after? Six well some people were talking about the possibility of him being in the military, because if he was stationed somewhere around Washington, DC, these murders happened within a few years span, and then he got deployed to Vietnam or possibly sent to a different station, and then the killings just stopped within that DC area. Is that what happened?

One more idea is that possibly the killer was a janitor at, you know, the girls' schools or one of the girls or multiple girls' schools. I don't know, but some people- Maybe he popped around different schools over time. Yeah, exactly. So some people were kind of thinking that and that's how they possibly knew him. Yeah, I think that would totally make sense. Well, actually now that we're going into this, let's talk about the suspects that there are in this case, since this case remains unsolved to this day. Now, the most discussed is Robert Elwood Askins,

a local man with a history of violent crimes against women dating back to his teen years. Once a promising student of chemistry, 19-year-old Robert Askins was studying at Minors Teachers College with hopes of becoming a professor. But allegedly, he suffered a head injury as a teen that permanently altered his behavior. And some short time afterwards, he committed his first known crime in 1938 at the age of 19. And here's the thing, Robert, he spoke very openly about how much he disliked women, about how sex workers ruined his life, and how he wanted to eliminate them for the good of his fellow man and the community as a whole.

Newspapers purported that he had caught a venereal disease from the persistent hiring of sex workers and that he blamed the women of Washington, D.C.'s red light district for this, even though he's the one hiring them. Like, wear a condom or have sex with somebody whose sexual history you know and feel confident about. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely his fault.

Yeah, so, but this is like classic, I mean, it's definitely his fault. Yeah. But this is like classic, I hate women because they wronged me, even though it's not the woman's fault. Well, in late December of 1938, he was drinking with five or six of these women. And after mixing up a batch of cocktails, he offered a dollar to the woman

who could finish her drink first. Most of the women declined to finish, complaining that the drinks tasted funny. But 31-year-old Ruth MacDonald was the first to finish and died shortly thereafter from cyanide poisoning. A week prior, 26-year-old Elizabeth Johnson was stabbed to death, and police also believed that Robert was responsible for this. When Robert was arrested for both of these crimes, he said that he didn't know who Elizabeth was or what happened to her, but for Ruth, he explained that he had actually

prepared the drink to kill himself, not his female guests, and that Ruth's death had been an accident. Yeah, that's complete bullshit. Oh, who can finish the drink fastest? Oh, I'm sure, yeah, that was totally... I'm trying to do this to myself. But also, like, you're mixing up a batch of cocktails and you put cyanide in yours so you can kill yourself in front of these women?

Like, that doesn't make any sense either. It doesn't. especially because he also admitted to being a self-proclaimed quote woman hater According to Robert his life had been ruined by women and he wanted to prevent other men from suffering the same fate Okay, definitely an incel for sure. Shut up dude, like that's so annoying. I know, what a wiener. In February of 1939, he was sent to a mental hospital for observation and there, he fought off orderlies while strapped down and had to be subdued. He was then declared criminally insane.

He spent 13 years at, guess where, St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital, which interestingly, it might sound familiar, that is where the Freeway Phantom put his first two victims. He put them behind this psych hospital. But somehow after multiple appeals, he won a discharge from St. Elizabeth's after pleading with a judge and saying that he had falsely confessed and that he had actually not killed the two women, but that he had been beaten by the officers so that he would confess. So he's saying they literally assaulted me and I had to say I did this even though I didn't.

Yeah, which is obviously, again, complete bullshit. I mean, you're a piece of shit. We know. But of course, Robert did not stay out of trouble for long no shock there in 1954 just two years after his release from the psychiatric hospital. He was arrested for the 1952 murder of 44 year old Laura cook Witnesses saw him check into a hotel with her, and she was later found strangled. He was caught after trying to do the same thing to another woman who escaped and identified him, and she linked him to both attacks.

He was then sent back to St. Elizabeth's, but due to lack of evidence, the charges for Laura's murder and another stabbing were dropped. However, now considered sane, he was tried for the earlier poisoning of Ruth MacDonald and was found guilty of second degree murder in 1954. And he was sentenced to 15 years to life. But here's the really shitty thing here is that he walked free in 1958, thanks to a technicality,

as too much time had passed since his indictment, so he only spent four years in prison. That's insane, again, considering how obvious it is that this man is a danger to women and society. Oh yeah, he should be locked up forever. And I understand that it's a technicality and it's a legal thing, so it's like, just because we know it, quote unquote, doesn't mean you can keep him, but so frustrating Well, he did stay quiet until

1977 working as a computer tech, but then in 1977 He abducted and raped a woman after posing as a cop so clearly he should have never gotten out She survived luckily and months later another victim led police to his house. Robert was arrested, denied everything, but was found guilty of assault and kidnapping and he was sentenced to life. So he didn't do anything that we know of between 1954 and 1977, but as we do know, between April of 1971 and September of 1972, the Freeway Phantom was active.

So it is very possible that this was him. I have a lot of trouble believing that for 20 plus years, he didn't do anything to anybody. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he did. He was just not caught for those crimes. And after his arrest, after abducting and raping the woman in 1977, investigators suspected a link to the Freeway Phantom murders. One reason, a document in his home used the word tantamount, which was also found in the note left on Brenda Woodard.

And Robert was known to use this word often. Which, I mean, I never hear that word thrown around, so... No, it's not very common. Kinda interesting. Well, unfortunately, police found no fiber or hair matches, but they did uncover some disturbing items. So they discovered soiled scarves, an essay by a young girl, photos of young girls, women's clothing buttons, and earrings in his car.

And we know that some of Brenda's coat buttons were missing. That's very true. And still, Robert denied any connection, and he was never formally charged. Then, unfortunately, he died in prison in 2010 at the age of 90 before they could really pin the crimes on Robert. And even before they really started suspecting Robert potentially, another person was on their radar a little bit. This happened in 1974, so a couple years after the last victim of the Freeway Phantom, or

at least the last known victim, was found deceased. And this happened after a tip came in from prison. So Morris Warren was a part of a group nicknamed the Green Vega Gang, named after the Green Chevrolet Vega that they supposedly used during a string of serial rapes. From prison, Morris claimed one of the gang members was behind the Freeway Phantom murders, and in return for giving up names, he wanted out of prison, but he also wanted that reward money. To test him, the FBI let Morris go on ride-alongs to identify spots connected to the case, and

he actually knew a few of them, but he also got a lot of details wrong too. Then during a second ride along, things kinda unraveled because Morris heard a news story on the radio about an anonymous tipster helping with the case and he kinda freaked out, realizing his old gang might figure out that he was snitching, and he suddenly stopped cooperating altogether. But even before that, there were some serious cracks in his story. The green Vega he claimed they used wasn't even made until 1972, so after five of the six murders had already happened, and then later, prison officials found letters where

Morris admitted that he had made it all up just to try to get released. So, I don't know if we can trust this guy. But a more promising lead came out years later in 2024 from a report by the Washington City Paper. It suggested the killer might have driven a Ford Gran Torino. And though this suspect was never publicly named, an FBI report, which has now been lost except for a phone call recording, unfortunately, said that he might have nearly been caught

in 1971. The same night that Brenda Woodard, the fifth victim, disappeared, a green and black 1968 Gran Torino was in a single car accident just down the road from where her body was found. And inside, a bloody knife. As we know, Brenda was the only victim that was stabbed. The driver was apparently a black man in his late 20s or early 30s living near Brenda's neighborhood, and they had even gone to the same high school. And this guy did have a very tragic background because, born to a 13-year-old mother, his little sister was kidnapped as a toddler and he was known for violent outbursts driven

by alcoholism. He died in 1990 and in a strange twist, was buried near where Nene Yates' body was discovered. I think this is really interesting. It's so hard because we don't know his name. We really don't know anything else other than that. But the fact that he went to school with her, he fits the profile for the perp as we're going to talk about. And just the fact that he was, there was a bloody knife in his car

But because this case is not solved we don't know if they tested the blood if it matched Brenda's Which is really unfortunate because I would imagine if they did they would have just arrested him But they really bungled the case anyway, so did they test the blood on the knife like we don't know yeah We really don't know but as we as do know, the Phantom Killer had six victims, but there were also two other cases that were believed to be connected to this killer, but it is unlikely that they were. One was 18-year-old Tara Ann Bryant, a young woman who went missing in November of 1972 after a hospital visit.

She told her mom that she'd catch the bus home, but she never made it, and her body was found in the Anacostia River the next day. Police do believe that she was strangled, but it wasn't clear if she had been sexually assaulted. To this day, her murder also remains unsolved. Then there was 14-year-old Angela Denise Barnes, Denise, who was found shot in the head in July of 1971. And her murder was solved, but not until 1974, when two former DC Metro police officers were arrested. Their names were Tommy Simmons and Edward Selman.

And according to Tommy's wife, she became suspicious after reading a news article about Angela's death. On a recorded line, she actually got him to admit that he and Edward tried to assault Angela. But when she resisted, they panicked and then they killed her. The weapon they used had been stolen from the police department, and actually, these men had already been let go in 1971 for excessive force, and it turns out that they committed another rape around that same time. So they were obviously just bad news. But nothing made police or the FBI believe that they could collectively or separately

be the freeway phantom. Well that same year, police looked into two more suspects, convicted rapist Sylvester Gray and John N. Davis. Sylvester was a postal worker arrested for kidnapping and rape in July of 1971, which is around the very same time that Darlena was abducted and murdered. John Davis was already serving time for a string of violent assaults that eerily lined up with the Phantom murders up until that point. Ultimately, neither of these men made the official shortlist and devastatingly, as the

years passed, leads really dried up as the crimes suddenly came to a halt. I mean, even a $150,000 reward from the FBI couldn't shake anything loose. But the families remained desperate. 13-year-old Carol Spinks' sister went to the station every week asking for updates. 17-year-old Diane Williams' sister even became a police officer to honor her and help bring justice to other cases.

In 1987, the serial killing case was reopened, but Sergeant Romaine Jenkins discovered that the physical evidence had been destroyed. And weirdly, no one could explain why, but without it, there was no hope for DNA testing, which if that wasn't destroyed we would know today who this who the freeway phantom was probably exactly because they could just test it and then it would just be done they literally had seminal fluid like they had and they had hair they had hair seminal fluid they had green carpet but it's all gone it was all destroyed but by who and why yeah was that just like an oversight? Was it a nefarious reason? And it's just so

upsetting because they did have good evidence. And a lot of other similar serial killer cases, they don't have, they don't get this lucky. And the fact that they bungled the case and they still were able to collect evidence and then they can't even use it by the time testing gets good enough to use it. So ridiculous. But still, without it, desperate to finally put this case behind them, the agency put together a profile. They believed the killer was a man in his late 20s and early 30s who worked full-time, likely knew some of the victims, and was motivated by power and sexual dominance over women."

Which I have to say is kind of ironic then, or weird, that he would kill young girls who are innocent and haven't quote unquote done anything to any man yet. You know, it's not like he's killing sex workers. Like why, if you hate women, why are you killing a 10 year old? Yeah, and I think probably this is where the power comes in you know because yeah He feels like he can easily outmaneuver out advantage these young girls They're not really gonna fight back because the only person who we believe did fight back was Brenda who was the 18 year old victim right and so you know he I think he just kind of was using that as maybe he was upset at women but he was killing girls because it was easier.

And this is also the reason why I don't necessarily believe that Robert Askins was the perpetrator because he seemed, yeah, he did hate women but he seemed to kill older women where this perpetrator, his MO, was solely focused on young girls. Yeah, actually, very, very good, good point there. But as we know, systemic racism and very sloppy police work haunted this case overall. Retired officer Tommy Musgrove said bluntly, quote, Those black girls didn't mean anything to anybody. If they had been white, more manpower would have been used, no doubt.

Of course, Sergeant Romaine Jenkins agreed. And though she retired in 1994, she has never stopped fighting for the girls. In a 2018 Washington Post interview, she admitted she still pours over the evidence and keeps 10 boxes of case files in her home. Sergeant Romaine said, quote, I am truly obsessed with this. No time ever goes by that I don't think about it. And then in 2023, she added, quote, parents have died not knowing who killed their kids. So yeah, just going back to Robert Elwood Askins really quick,

he was in his early 50s at the time the freeway phantom killings would have happened. And the police, like I just said, believe that the perp was 20s or 30s. So in a lot of ways, he sounds like a good suspect. But horrifyingly, his mindset about women and revenge on women is seen across many killers and rapists. Yeah, of course. This is very common thing. Yeah. So it's possible that he was just another one and there were no reports of a personal connection between Robert and any of the victims and any of the others,

the other potential suspects and any of the victims and any of the others, the other potential suspects and any of the victims, except that unnamed young man, the one who had the Gran Torino and was in that single car accident. He went to Brenda's high school, but we still don't know if they knew each other. So none of these are a slam dunk. Yeah. It's so unfortunate that we don't have any information about that young man who was driving the Gran Torino. Like, I just, I wonder, I wonder who

he is and what the deal was. What was the knife about? But I mean, it is very possible that the real killer went completely undetected by police. But now, more than five decades later and with little evidence left, answers seem heartbreakingly out of reach. Despite decades of dead ends, missing evidence, and forgotten leads, the mystery of the Freeway Phantom still haunts Washington, DC, a chilling reminder of how easily justice can slip through the cracks. With families still waiting and investigators running out of time, one question continues

to echo. Will the Phantom ever be unmasked? If you have any information about the Freeway Phantom murders, please call the Metropolitan Police at 202-727-9099. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure that you share this one because it is still unsolved. We still need answers. And also go take a look at the photos, go head on over to our socials. We're on Instagram at going west podcast. We're also on Facebook and let us know what you think about this case. It is so frustrating that we, it doesn't feel like we have one good suspect. It's possible that police have names that they have not shared that is so common in unsolved cases but like the fact

that he was able to leave behind evidence, write a note, place multiple phone calls and kill multiple people in different areas, some of which were in broad daylight and he still got away with it like is this guy a ghost? Well he is called the freeway phantom. So true. Well thank you guys so much again for tuning in. Please let us know what you think about this case and the details and we will see you guys on Friday. Alright guys so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. So So I'm just a kid, I'm just a kid