Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Boxcar Killer” Robert Joseph Silvera Jr.

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

He was a freight hopper who rode the rails of the western United States for over a decade. Robert Joseph Silvera Jr. was responsible for more than 30 slayings in that time, most of his victims being fellow transients—earning him the nickname, “The Boxcar Killer.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode includes discussions of murder, animal abuse, and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On a deathly cold December night in 1995, harsh winds rattled the walls of a train trundling through Millersburg, Oregon. 39-year-old William Pettett, Jr., nestled into his sleeping bag in the corner of the box car, trying to retain as much warmth as he could. Pettett was a transient, a freight hopper who snuck aboard train cars to travel between odd jobs. He was headed north along the Southern Pacific Railroad, but he wasn't the only one. His fellow traveler was a tall and gaunt man with lank, unwashed hair plastered to his head.

Tattoos featuring eerie mystical birds and exotic flowers intertwined along his muscular arms. As William drifted off to sleep, the stranger slowly stood up. Scant moonlight leaked through the slats of the boxcar wall, casting the man's jagged silhouette over William's dozing form. The stranger crept forward, quiet, approaching his prey like a jungle cat. Then, in a flash, he buried his steel-toed boot in William's face, breaking his nose with a satisfying crack. Before his victim could cry out, the man grabbed a two-by-four and smacked him over the head.

He hit him again and again. He beat, petted even after the life had left his broken body. And all the while, the man muttered a strange, cryptic phrase, Take a number and go to the mission. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a parcast original. Every Monday and Thursday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're digging into the story of Robert Joseph Silvera Jr., also known as The Boxcar Killer.

I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Parcast Originals for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network.

This is a one-part episode covering Robert Silvera Jr, a freight hopper who rode the rails of the Western United States for over a decade. He was responsible for more than 30 slayings in that time, most of his victims being fellow transients. Today, we'll chart Silvera's bloody path from teenage runaway and drug dealer to one of the most prolific serial killers to ever terrorize the American West. We'll also document law enforcement's four-year quest to bring him to justice. On the surface, the Silveras appeared to be a normal, suburban family in Redwood City, California. His parents worked at the San Francisco airport. His father managed airline staff while his mother worked in the in-flight catering office. But behind closed doors, the story was darker.

Silvera's father was a strict disciplinarian. He frequently beat Silvera and his three siblings for misbehaving. By age 11, Silvera started acting out, skipping school, and even experimenting with drugs. As a result, he felt the brunt of his father's violent anger. The more Silvera's father beat him, the more he misbehaved. It was a vicious cycle. Vanessa's going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist,

but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Studies have shown that corporal punishment is often not an effective tool for curbing bad behavior. According to child psychiatrist Paul C. Hollinger of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, research shows that physical punishment is actually associated with increases in delinquency, anti-social behavior, and overall aggression in children. Violence triggers fear, and fear typically triggers defense mechanisms. It's likely that Silvera reacted to his father's abuse by becoming defensively violent and combative himself.

predictably, Silvara's rebelliousness eventually led to outright criminal behavior. In 1971, at age 12, he was caught burglarizing a neighbor's home. But more disturbingly, around this time, Silvera showed signs of more sadistic behavior. According to an Oregon state psychiatrist who later evaluated Silvera, he admitted to throwing a kitten into a cactus in his childhood backyard. It died immediately. When confronted, Silvera told his parents it had fallen off a fence, but with his mother, later denying this ever happened, it certainly brings Silvara's honesty into question. Silvera's troubling behavior was no doubt further exacerbated by his early exposure to narcotics.

He began using heroin at age 14. A 2016 study by the University of Michigan identified a direct link between youth violence and early onset. substance abuse. Moderate to severe aggression was more likely to be reported on days in which subjects reported alcohol and recreational drug use. As his drug use became more severe, so did Silvera's aggressive behavior. At one point, he claims he removed the lug nuts from his father's pickup truck. Silvera Sr. drove back and forth from work for several days with his wheels barely attached. Despite the dysfunction, Silvera denied that he hated his father. Though his father was undoubtedly abusive, Silvera described him as a good provider who worked

to give his family everything he could. Regardless of whether this was true, it's clear Silvera had a tumultuous and complicated relationship with his father. All the negative feelings needed to go somewhere, and Silvera found an outlet in a bona fide life of crime. In 1980, when Silvera was 21, he took his father's pickup truck without asking. When Silvera Sr. reported it missing, police located his son and placed him under arrest. He was jailed and convicted of felony auto theft. But being fairly young, Silvera didn't spend much time in jail, nor did he learn much of a lesson. Upon his release, he almost immediately went back to stealing.

cars. Soon he built up a minor theft enterprise, regularly traveling as far as Sacramento to steal vehicles. Severa used a screwdriver to start the cars, then drove them to junkyards to sell them. He generally used the money to fund his ever-growing drug habit. But no matter what he did, Silvera never seemed to have enough money. Stealing cars required extensive travel and negotiations with KG junkyard managers, the payout wasn't always as predictable as he'd have liked. He searched for a more effective way to get rich quick and soon joined up with a friend to stock a local drug dealer. The pair of them followed the dealer to his home. They broke in after him, each wearing ski masks and brandishing a 12-gauge shotgun.

Holding the dealer at gunpoint, they swept the premises for drugs and money, absconding with every last scent and dime bag. Apparently, Silvera was never caught for this crime, but his wayward lifestyle wasn't totally unnoticed. Although his parents didn't know the full extent of their son's illegal activities, they suspected he was headed down a dangerous path. For their part, they tried to help him. Silvero's father got him a job as a luggage handler at the same airport where he and his wife worked,

but Silvera was soon fired for using drugs, while on shift. The Silveras then tried shipping their son off to a rehabilitation center for a few weeks. The programming didn't stick. Upon his release, Silvera began using crack and then amphetamines. He found some work in the construction industry, but once again spent nearly all of his income on drugs. By 1980, at the age of 21, Silvera had been jailed on charges of burglary, felony auto theft and motorcycle theft, and he was only getting started. That year he decided he'd had enough of his parents' rules. He left home hitchhiking from California to Arizona. Along the way, he was picked up by a man in his mid-40s who agreed to take Severa to Tucson,

Arizona. As Silvera climbed into the car, he noticed a gun partially covered by newspapers lying on the back seat. Wary, but needing the lift, he handed the driver everything he had on hand, $20 and some food stamps. A few hours into the trip, the driver pulled off the highway and onto a narrow dirt road. About three miles inland, he stopped the car, explaining he wanted to take a break and drink a beer. Silvera was instantly on guard. Something about the man didn't sit right with him. He remembered the gun sitting in the back seat.

Silvera nervously eyed the driver as he sat and sipped a beer. Then the man turned to Silvera and casually propositioned him for sex. Silvera quickly changed the subject, asking the man if he would teach him how to shoot his gun. The man reluctantly climbed out of the vehicle and set up a few empty beer cans along the side of the road. He carefully took aim and fired a few rounds into them. Then he passed the gun to Silvara and stood behind him, helping to position the weapon as Silvera trained its sight on the target. As the driver put his arms around Silvera, he began to squeeze. Without hesitation, Silvera spun around and shot the man in the face, killing him instantly.

Quick as a flash, he pulled the stranger's body off the road and rifled through his wallet. He plucked the man's ID, Social Security card, and military veterans card for keepsakes, and deposited the corpse in the trunk of the car. Afterward, Silvera drove until he came upon a ravine. He stepped out of the car and then put it in neutral, letting it fall into the gorge. Silvera then gathered some dry brush and used a flare gun to set the wrecked car on fire. As he watched it burn, he contemplated, what he had done. Robert Silvera Jr. had just committed his first murder. And he liked how it felt.

Coming up, Silvera continues his wayward path across the American West. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults. with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't

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which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band teas, but on Deep Hop, people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now, a teenager who calls them, vintage, will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Deepop. Just snap a few

photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste would be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Deepop where taste recognizes taste. Now back to the story. For three years, Robert Severa Jr. continued to hitchhike his way across state lines. In 1984, 24-year-old Silvera met the 14th. 13-year-old daughter of an acquaintance. He prayed on the young, impressionable girl and married her later that year in Quincy, California. For the next two years, the couple lived a dysfunctional lifestyle. Silvera tried and failed to hold down a job. His wife struggled to correct his bad behavior. In the summer of 1986, she gave birth to a daughter, and the family moved to Kentucky

shortly after. Silvera hoped to use the stolen ID of his first victim to collect Social Security and veterans' benefits. But they'd hardly gotten to Kentucky when Silvera was arrested for stealing from his previous job in California. He was extradited and remained in jail for a full year. The 27-year-old returned to Kentucky in 1987,

but Silvera's time in prison had made him even more erratic. He frequently left his wife home alone for hours, sometimes days at a time, with no explanation. During these absences, Mrs. Silvera finally realized her husband was a drug addict. His frequent disappearances were benders. Shortly after she had this epiphany, Silvera left the house and never returned. Instead, he went west and cut off all contact with his wife. He learned shortly after that she had secured a no-contest divorce, and he was single once again. The first Mrs. Silvera was correct and assuming Silvera was an addict, but his vanishings were not solely explained by drug-benders.

Those disappearances often coincided with his first rail-hopping trips, and they were born out of some troubling psychological issues. Silvera claimed that in the final years of his marriage, he would frequently wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat, having dreamt of murdering his wife and infant daughter. Not wanting to bring harm to his family, Silvera removed himself from the house on nights the dreams took hold. He took to the rails, looking for an outlet for this deadly energy. Apparently, he managed to stave off his violent urges for several years. until 1989. At age 30, Silvera was finally overcome. That April, he hopped a train to West Sacramento, California,

where he found his second victim, Anthony Garcia. The exact circumstances of their meeting are unclear, but it ended when Silvera bludgeoned the 62-year-old to death. After his second kill, Sevara once again tried to settle down. In November of 1990, while living in the Sacramento area, he met his second wife. The pair struck up a conversation at the woman's family reunion, where Silvera was the guest of a cousin. She later told investigators she found Zavara easy to talk to. He told fascinating stories, many of them untrue. For example, he told her his father rode with

the Hell's Angels. Perhaps this was a more desirable vocation, in Silvera's mind, than the airline industry, which had repeatedly rejected him. His tall tales won the woman over. In November of 1990, they moved to Mississippi and were married. They moved into a trailer park, and Silvera got a job working for his brother-in-law's roofing company. The second Mrs. Silvera later claimed that she never witnessed her husband doing drugs. She did, however, notice other strange things. Severa frequently disappeared for hours at a time. His wife had no idea where he went.

One day, he called her from a nearby bar and asked her to pick him up. When she arrived, she was shocked to find her husband bloody and bruised. He told her he'd been jumped. When she tried to call the police, Silvera stopped her. He said he would handle it in his own way. The next day, he went to work and behaved as if nothing had happened. But his behavior would only get worse over time. In 1991, four months into the second marriage, his life began to go south again.

A friend told Mrs. Silvera that her husband was a drug addict, and at first she didn't want to believe it. But then an agent from a county drug task force came to see her. He informed her that Silvera had substantial ties to the local criminal underbelly and that he was under investigation. Afterward, Mrs. Silvera tried to verify the information for herself. She called friends she knew in various local police departments. They confirmed everything the drug agent had told her. Then she noticed money missing from her wallet. Silvera was stealing from his own wife to feed his addiction.

She kicked him out of the house in short order. Severa once again took to the railways, this time aiming to be a permanent freight hopper. To do this, Silvera needed the approval of the freight train riders of America, or F-TRA. The F-TRA is a loose confederation of transients, claimed to be founded in 1984 in a bar in Whitefish, Montana. Most of its members were veterans of the Vietnam War. Many of the group's initial members were homeless or dealt with mental illness and were unable to work. They traveled from town to town, trading on food stamps and stolen identities.

philosophically justified as a mode of survivalism. Some FTRA members could be violent, robbing and dealing drugs, so it's not difficult to understand how Robert Silvera Jr. fell in with this crowd. To become a full-fledged freight hopper, Savara had to ride around the country with a seasoned member of the FTRA. While on the rails, his quasi-mentor observed him to determine whether he had their requisite toughness and moxie to make it in the group. During these inaugural trips, new members received their club names.

Silvera was dubbed sidetrack because his first train trip with the FTRA got sidetracked. Once formally inducted, Silvera continued to pull his signature disappearing acts. Club elders would send him out for beer, and he would go missing for days. He often returned with stolen goods, including vehicles. But theft alone was never enough for Silver. In 1992, 33-year-old Silvera met Hooter, a slightly younger fellow Freight Hopper and his girlfriend, Blondie, at a campsite near Salt Lake City, Utah. When Silvera stumbled upon their camp, Hooter and Blondie invited him to have a drink. Silvera accepted and shared a few glasses of chocolate milk and vodka.

Hooter handed Blondie some money and ordered her into town to buy more party supplies. After she left, the pair continued to drink, getting steadily more inebriated. At a certain point, Hooter began to badmouth the FTR, which got him on Silvera's bad side. All of a sudden, he lunged at Hooter, punching the man so hard he reportedly broke a knuckle. Falling back, Hooter cracked his head on a rock and barely conscious, tried to crawl away. Silvera pounced on him. He dragged Hooter to his feet, hold out a small buckknife, and stabbed him in the ribs. Silvera then brought a piece of plywood down on Hooters' head.

Silvera beat Hooter to death and then ran away. He managed to catch a train up to Vancouver, Washington, where in desperation he sought help from a mental health clinic. But there, a nurse told him, quote, Take a number and sit down, or better still, go to the mission. Deal with your problems there. Infuriated by what he saw as a rude dismissal, Silvera stormed out of the clinic. From then on, take a number and go to the mission became his killing mantra. Two years later in 1994, 35-year-old Silvera took a train to Tallahassee, Florida.

After landing in the city, he headed to the passenger rail station, where homeless people were known to congregate. There, he came across 52-year-old Willie Clark, a fellow freight hopper. Clark offered to show Silvera where to find Tallahassee's welfare facility. Along the way, he pointed out the best places in town for dumpster diving, where to apply for food stamps, and locations for flea markets selling cheap goods. Clark even offered to purchase clothes from a thrift shop for Silvera, but the killer didn't find his offers to help endearing. He felt condescended to.

Silvera got even angrier when Clark started flashing the money he had on hand. It's possible that his own precarious economic situation seemed even worse when compared to Clark's. And financial struggles are a leading cause of mental stress. Sean Fisher, a psychology researcher, with New York University says stressed people living in close quarters with other similarly stressed people can lead to measurably higher instances of conflict and violence. The hectic nature of his transient life primed Silvera to explode. With each interaction with Clark, he got closer to lashing out.

When he attempted to purchase drugs, Clark declared that drug addicts were derelicts and thieves. But later, Clark made a lot of him. bought and drank an entire bottle of whiskey by himself. The apparent hypocrisy brought Silvera to his breaking point. Eventually, he and Clark ended up at a deserted Tallahassee Park. There, Clark passed out from drinking too much. As the man slept, Silvera spotted a piece of pipe filled with concrete, laying nearby. He seized the opportunity. Lifting it high, he brought it crashing down on Clark's head. Once again, Silvera fled the scene. In no time at all, he was back on the rails, this time to Mobile, Alabama. He rode the circuit throughout the southeast, never staying in one place for long.

In the ensuing years, Silvera would target many more men like Willie Clark, transients, freight hoppers of necessity, but not all of Silvera's victims fit that bill. 20-year-old Michael Garfinkel was one such exception. The young man was an engineering student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the antithesis of the typical freight hopper. Garfinkel was a straight-A student with a comfortable home. He reportedly meditated three times a day and ran a successful part-time business. He liked to ride the rails as a hobby.

In August of 1994, he took his final. fateful ride. According to detectives with the Emeryville Police Department, Garfinkel encountered Silvera in northern California, just outside of Sacramento. Silvera, in an aggressive move, reportedly took over Garfinkel's makeshift camp. He resented the young man treating the rails like a hobby. He felt as though Garfinkel was a tourist in his world, an amateur who didn't belong. Soon, Silvera was overcome by rage and killed Garfinkel with an axe handle.

This time, however, there were witnesses. Other people had been camping nearby and quickly called the police. Silvera fled to El Paso, Texas. While waiting outside the local welfare building, he was approached by a tall man with a mustache and cowboy hat. The man introduced himself as Charles Randall Boyd. He operated a Christian Mission Ranch. and needed some strong hands to help out around the property.

He couldn't offer pay, but he could give room and board. Silvera agreed. He accompanied Boyd back to the ranch where the work was hard and profoundly physical, from planting watermelons to breaking concrete slabs. Still, he felt at ease and began to forge a bond with his new boss. At one point, their friendship grew so close that Silvera agreed to accompany. Boyd to visit his daughter in Kansas. The two drove from Texas, but upon arriving, it became clear Boyd and his daughter were estranged. Silvera waited in the car for only a short while before

Boyd walked out of his daughter's house. He told Silvera he wasn't welcome there, but said he knew a campground nearby where the two could spend the night. Later, while lying in a tent together, Boyd's sexually propositioned Slavera. Silvera immediately rebuffed him, trying hard to contain his rage. It brought him back to the feeling of vulnerability and powerlessness he felt trapped in the car with the first person he killed. Then and there he resolved to get rid of Boyd. The next morning, Silvera slipped quietly out of the tent as Boyd slept and retrieved

a small axe from the truck. returning to the tent, he towered over Boyd's sleeping form. He palmed the axe, considering its weight. An axe murder would be too messy. It could possibly alert nearby campers. He then spotted a large piece of concrete block lying near the campsite. With all his might, he dropped the block on Boyd's head. Then he lifted it again and dropped it once more.

Once he was sure Boyd was dead, Silvera took his wallet and keys and absconded with the truck. Coming up, the walls close in around Silvera as police catch on to his killing spree. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on. on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino,

celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Now back to the story. In 1995, 36-year-old Freight Hopper Robert Silvera Jr. was on the run after committing his sixth murder. To escape police detection, he took to the nation's railways. Soon he was out of Kansas and searching for new hunting grounds. The clear thread connecting all of Silvera's kills was one emotion, pure and unadulterated fury. According to forensic psychologist Joni E. Johnston, when a person's sense of self-worth is damaged, it can make someone fly into explosive, violent anger. For Silvera, Homosexual propositions and disrespectful comments most often provoked his rage.

Ever the man's man, Silvera likely viewed these interactions as threatening to his masculinity. According to forensic psychologist and gay hate crime specialist Karen Franklin's definition, Silvera may have displayed what is termed as marginalized masculinity. These feelings can inspire economically and socially disempowered men to exactly, dominance over other socially marginalized groups, such as members of the LGBTQ community. Often, that urge for dominance takes the form of physical violence, the only real power some men feel they have at their disposal. Ultimately, it seemed like nothing could calm Silvera's volatile temper, or stop him from

violently attacking anyone who slighted him. Between 1995 and 1996, Silvera could killed at least five more men, all affiliated in some way with freight hopping culture. Paul Wayne Matthews, William A. Pettett Jr., Michael A. Clites, William A. Brandelino, and a purported drug dealer unnamed in court records. By 1996, Silvera's killer tendencies were common knowledge in the freight hopping community. The FDRA Brotherhood that once welcomed him began to shun him, dubbing him a 5150, Police lingo for someone who's dangerous and mentally ill. But they weren't the only ones on to Silveira.

His murders eventually caught the attention of California authorities. Detectives determined the killer was likely a transient himself. From there, officers contacted a constellation of police agencies, ranging from Florida to Kansas and Oregon. All of them exchanged information about the various dead freight hoppers that were popping up along the rails. Then, using a network of community informants, they heard the paranoid whispers about Robert Silvera, aka Sidetrack and his nasty temper. Eventually, it all clicked together for Kansas FBI agent Bruce Miller while he investigated the murder of rancher Charles Boyd.

Miller contacted members of Boyd's family and learned that he had visited his daughter before he died. Boyd's daughter told Mellar that he wasn't alone when he came to see her. He'd been with Silvera, going under the pseudonym of Lester Paul Dyckman at the time. She described him as a man in his 30s with heavily tattooed arms. She also recalled the word freedom tattooed across his neck. Authorities checked in with several railroad companies and found that someone named Lester Dyckman had been stopped on several properties for trespassing. In those days, railroads did not often arrest trespassers, but took their photos and retained them for records.

Now, detectives had photos of the man they were after. They showed pictures of Severa to Boyd's daughter, and she positively identified him as the man who she saw with her father. Back in Texas, police ran Silvera's name through crime databases and revealed that he had an outstanding warrant in Mississippi. Railroad police across America were alerted to be on the lookout for their number one suspect, Robert Silvera Jr. But because he was constantly on the move, Silvera seemed to be forever out of reach, always a few steps ahead of law enforcement, until his luck finally ran out. On March 2, 1996 in Roseville, California, a railroad police officer named Billy Metcalfe was patrolling the local tracks. He'd been in contact with detectives investigating Silvera and received copies of his photo. He believed he'd stopped the man for trespassing several years prior.

That night, he happened to look out his car window and spot the very same man, hunched under the weight of a heavy backpack, walking along the train tracks. Metcalfe rolled down his window and motioned to the man, asking him his name. Silvera, suspicious, said his name was Dyckman. That was all that Medcaf needed to hear. In a flash, he was out of his vehicle and face to face with a suspected killer. He informed him there was a Mississippi warrant out for his arrest and asked him to accompany him to the railroad police station to check it out.

Metcalfe was nervous. Silvera wasn't technically standing on railroad property. If he wanted, he could refuse to accompany Metcalf to the station. To make matters worse, Metcalf realized Silvera was armed. Silvera stared at Medcalf, pondering his best course of action. After a few terrifying moments, Silvera threw his weapons on the ground and kicked them to Metcalf. Mysteriously, Silvera said, I will this to you. Puzzled, Metcalfe.

escorted Severa back to the station. There, he asked if his real name was Robert Joseph Silvera. It was. He was placed under arrest. Once in jail, Silvera started talking. Profusely, an officer hurriedly contacted Detective Bill Palmini. The 37-year-old was confessing to multiple murders. Palmini arrived in Roseville a few hours later. With ease, he elicited dozens of confessions from the killer. Palmini later said, Silvera had resigned himself to what he had done and hoped to make things right with God. Silvera appeared to be genial and polite, except for his eyes. Palmini described them as cold, unforgiving, the eyes of a resolute killer.

By the end of the interrogation, Severa confessed to killing at least one person in each of the 38 states he visited, while riding the rails. Not all of his claims could be confirmed, but he was ultimately convicted of two murders in Oregon and received two life sentences without parole. He got another life sentence in Kansas for the murder of Charles William Boyd. He's currently serving them out

at a medium security correctional facility in Wyoming. For such an aggressive man, Silvera's story ended with an unusually docile surrender. He rode the rails with little more than the clothes his back in search of some kind of escape, some kind of freedom. Instead, he found only rage and violence. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back next week with new episodes. For more information on Robert Silvera Jr., amongst the many sources we used, we found Murder on the Rails by William Palmini and Tanya Chalupa to be extremely helpful to our research.

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Killer Week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and is a parcast studio's original. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Jack Flanagan, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting Getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again.

I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hixed. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.