Morbid - Listener Tales 64

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Listener Tales 64 is, of course, a beautiful array of tales sent in by you beautiful beasts. We can't say enough how much we love reading these and connecting with you on a more personal level when we get to do these eps! This installment features a life-saving badass cat, a ghost missing a stomach, and the potential unsolved murder of one of our listener's best friends. If you have a listener tale please send it to [e-mail] with "Listener Tale" somewhere in the subject line! Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this be morbid. It's a big old morbid. It's fucking huge. And guys, this one is going to be a rough one. Yeah. Should we tell them what to this? Yeah, we should. A lot of people are like, are you still doing this? Because we did announce that we were doing it and then things got like a little discombobulated. Yeah, because we released our collab with horror soup. Love you, Caleb and Bree. And we released that earlier in the week. And then so it kind of threw off. our schedule for doing these. Right, right, right. So we are still doing right now this very episode, Robert Ben Rhodes, da-da-do. A.k.a. The truck stop killer. Ooh, truck stop killer. I know nothing about this case. This case is brutal. I do hate to break it to you. We have a couple things to talk to you about first. Sorry about it. You haven't been cleaned in your room lately. The dishwasher's full. I'm sorry. Sorry, Mom. Didn't it sound like I was like, we got a few things to talk to you about? It did. Like when your parents sit at you down. We're disappointed in you.

You guys, we actually just want to tell you if you didn't listen to the listener tales episode because you don't like them or like whatever your problem is with the listener tales, we did announce that we have an Alabama show coming up. Huntsville, Alabama, we are coming. We're going to be all up in you. Whoa. That was one way to put that. We are.

Roll tide, baby. Roll tide foots and balls. Futs and balls and we're all in up in you. We are. Gross. There's so many euphemisms. I know. Okay.

Well, if you want to check out that show, show, which I bet you don't now. But you can go to our website, www. www.morbidpodcast.com. Elena is a fucking brilliant kebab. And you're like a meatstick. I sure am. And she put a fucking link to like this link tree that our manager created for us.

It's beautiful. All of our shows are right there with links to the tickets. It's fucking so organized. It's all there. So you just go to morbidpodcast.com. And it is all laid out there and I'll be adding any future date because, you know, we're going to add future dates. I sure hope if you guys buy these tickets, we'll add future dates. Yes, please.

And they'll all be there right on the homepage. So go check that out because we want to see all your faces there. And we want to sell out because it makes us feel cool. Come on, Bama. Let's do it. Bama, baby. So yeah, definitely do that. And we are going to begin shouting out older patrons, older Patronuses.

OG Patrona. Our OGs next week, we are like putting together, we decided to put together like a little spreadsheet to help us out to figure out who's been shouted out, who hasn't, and we're starting with the older ones. So next week, we're going to start doing that again. So hang tight older patronesses. We come up for you. We are also going to be organizing our goodies to send out to you guys for the first of the year,

you know, the first month of the year. So, oh, you know what we should do? Let's take a little picture tomorrow and post it as like a tease that. to let you know what's going to be in your little goodies. But not everything. Just like a little teaser. So stay tuned for that, Patronus's. And a Patronus bonus will be coming soon.

We're just trying to figure out what we want to do for one. And yeah, that's all the business. I think we should get to Robert Ben Rhodes because this dude is a... Monster seems like inadequate. Why are you bullying murderers? I know. I'm sorry. I'm going to bully the shit.

shit out of Robert Benhards. I just want to put that out there, guys. So if that offends you, like, you know, this might not be the one for you. But this is similar. It's not as bad as the toy box killer. Oh, is it? Is it on the same wavelength? It's on like, it's definitely on like the same continent as the like toy box killer adjacent. Yeah. And so I just want to put a little trigger warning here. There are going to be mentions of rape. No. There's going to be. some somewhat detailed explanations of torture and sexual sadism. So if that kind of stuff is something you don't want to hear, you know, maybe you don't want to listen to this one. But I will also, I'm going to try to let you know before I'm going to go into something really

gnarly. So maybe you can just hit the skip button. Trigger warning. But yeah, I just want to let you know that if, you know, that's not your bag. Some people, this is just a little too, too much. We totally understand. But this is a rough one. So, for all you people that are still here. Let's begin. In the early morning on April 1st, 1990, Officer Mike Miller, who was an Arizona State Trooper, noticed a big truck, like a big truck to a tractor trailer truck.

You know, a big old truck. It was parked kind of oddly on the curb outside of Interstate 10 in Arizona. This truck had it, has its like hazard lights on. Okay. So that indicates, you know, that indicates that something's wrong. A hazard. And to Officer Miller, it indicated that he was likely having some mechanical issues, and, you know, perhaps this trucker needed assistance. And being the policeman, he was.

Yeah, he's like, I am helping citizens. So those hazard lights and this trucker's mistake of throwing them on at that moment was probably the thing that saved a woman's life, and most likely, countless others that would have met a grisly end in the future. Oh, my God, I'm so happy. I'm so happy, but, you know, bad things happened before this. But I do love when someone gets saved. Yeah, and honestly, and it's like these cops like did the right thing. You know, I mean, like they followed what they saw. And this guy, and we'll get into this a little further, Robert Ben Rhodes was known to be a very charming and very manipulative serial killer.

Like a Bundy deal? Very much a Bundy deal. And he was also a sexual sadist like Bundy. He was kind of very much like Bundy. Oh, okay. And like he couldn't get off without the girl being in horrible amounts of pain and fear either. Oh. So, yeah, he's not an awesome guy.

And so these police officers did the right thing. They followed like what was actually happening instead of listening to this asshole, try to charm them. Right, right, right. Which they could have. So Officer Miller doesn't see anyone in the truck or around it. So he uses a flashlight and he scans the perimeter of the truck. No one's in the cab and no one's in the nearby woods that he could see. So suddenly as he passes the cab, he hears some weird noises.

And he's like, huh. So he steps up on like the little. like footstep thing on the sides of trucks. Yeah. And he wants to get a better look. So he flashes his flashlight into the darkness of the sleeper cab section of the truck. Okay. And apparently long-haul truckers have sleeper cabs that can be like really customized for their, you know, like exhausting and nomadic lifestyle. Like cool-ass little bunks. Yeah. Like there's beds back there. There's kitchens. They can put TVs back there. Oh shit. Like I had no idea about this until I looked all this up. I didn't know that. If you look at pictures online of some of these like sleeper cabs, they're like bad.

Remember, like, pimp my ride? Yeah, it's like pimp my sleeper cat. Pimp my truck. Pimp my sleeper truck. And it's, I mean, some of them are really cool. I believe you. So, because, I mean, if you think about it, long haul truckers, like, that's a job. There's a whole fucking show about that on the Discovery Channel.

There is, you're right. I think there is, yeah. I think it's called long haul truckers. And also, I just want to put out there, too, this is going to seem like it's giving truckers, like kind of a bad name, but I just happens to be a shitty trucker. Well, and I just want to say, like, the vast, vast majority of long-haul truckers are perfectly wonderful human beings who have never hurt somebody.

Sometimes they even beep if you do that motion up them. Exactly. It's great. It's like there's... We know you're good people. I know truckers. We have listeners who are truckers who listen to the show while they're trucking. I had a friend who her dad was a trucker.

So we just want to, I mean, I just want to put out there that I know a lot of really great truckers, but obviously like any line of work and especially a line of work where you're kind of like nomadic. and able to go through different states and stuff pretty unnoticed. It's easy to be a moiter. It's a little easy if you're a bad person to take advantage of that. And that's what happened here. Well, this particular rig did not have a cool, comfy lounge vibe or anything like that.

It wasn't a pimp my sleeper cab situation. Hashton Pimp My Sleeper Cab situation. Well, I guess for Robert Ben Rhodes, it was a pimp his sleeper cab situation. Oh. What Officer Miller saw when he illuminated the sleeper section with his flashlight was a woman. Was a naked woman. Oh, no. wearing shackles and chained to a wall on the back of the truck.

When she saw the police officer, she started screaming at the top of her lungs. And he could see that she was gagged with something. He just couldn't see what it was at the time. Now immediately a man comes out of the darkness of the back of the truck and came into the front of the cab. And behind him, he closed some curtains. These curtains acted as a separation between the front of the truck and the sleeper part. So he closed them behind him like, oh, nothing to see here, officer. A partition, if you will.

Exactly, like a makeshift wall, like in a dorm room. So as he closed the curtains, he hid the woman behind him and she's still screaming. Good. And immediately, Officer Miller is like, get the fuck out of the truck. Yeah. Like, I don't know what the... And so this guy, this trucker, he does. He gets out of the truck without a fight.

Okay. And in fact, he told the police officer that he had a gun on him. Okay. So he was like, he offered the information. In a Tucson weekly article, the officer Miller said, quote, he was so smooth, yet that woman was terrified. I didn't know what I had on my hands. That must be so fucking wild as a police officer. Right?

Because you're like, wait a second. You just never know what you're going to wake up and see. And that's the thing. Like, this is probably like, you know, I don't know what day of the week this was, but like, let's say Tuesday. Just a Tuesday night. And you're just like, shit. This is just my Tuesday.

And now this whole time, this trucker is telling the officer that this was a consensual, albeit somewhat freaky shared experience between the two of them. Then why is she screaming so loudly? Well, and he's like, you know women, bro. She's just crazy. And I don't know, maybe it took it too far. But like, this is consensual as fuck and everything's fine. And he's like, nah, the screaming indicates non-consensual.

So Officer Mike is like, yeah, I don't think so. But like something in his brain is also being like, you know, people like different things. Maybe this is just a consensual thing. and they both like this whole like rape scenario, and maybe that's just what they like. Right. But he's like, I can't just be like, okay. Right. So Officer Mike really isn't buying this at all.

So he handcuffs him behind his back. He puts him in the back of the cop car and he buckles him in the cop car because he's like, you're not going anyway. Okay. So he goes back to the screaming woman. Good, good. This woman has a fucking horse bridle around her neck and a horse bit in her mouth. What is a horse bit? I'm sorry.

It's what you put in horse's mouths and strap around the back of their heads so that they can, like, communicate with the rider better. Like, the rider will pull on it to get them to do certain things. Oh, okay. That makes sense. You still. Yeah. You know. So she had a horse bit in her mouth and, like, bridle, like, literally strapped around her head.

And she's not a horse, so there's no need to communicate with her that way. And I can confirm she was not a horse. So this did not make any sense. Good. There was a chain attached to this thing around her neck, and it was padlocked. Oh, good. She also had bruises and cuts everywhere, some that looked like they had started to heal, which indicated that this was a long experience for her.

There were also long whipping lashes all over her chest. Ouch. So Officer Miller is trying to calm her down, but she is literally inconsolable. And she's probably in so much pain. Oh, she's in complete panic at this point, because at this point, she just wants out of there. Yeah. Like, this is her moment and she wants fucking out of there. And she's trying to make it fucking clear.

that something has gone awry. Because can you imagine, like, you can already hear this dude being like, no, no, no, officer. Everything's fine. In your head, you're probably like, he's going to leave me here. Like, he's going to leave me here. And now I've just screamed to get this guy's attention. So now he knows what's going to happen. I can't imagine.

So Officer Miller tries to put something around her to cover her naked body. Oh, sweetheart. And it always gives me so much comfort when a first responder will, like, do that in these situations. It happened in other cases like Jessica Chambers. Yep. And it's like so caring to try to just like preserve someone's dignity in these situations. Like it's nice that that will be like someone's first thought.

Yeah, I agree with you. So anyhow, this woman is clearly not in a consensual situation. No. But she can't be cut down yet because they're trying to find the keys to unlock her. Oh, and I bet they're with the fucking dude. Well, so she's literally losing her shit, just panic, just anguish. And she probably can't talk, I bet. She can't talk.

It's like in her mouth, like, you know, it's like gagging. her literally, like probably ripping up her mouth. They said she had like blood around her mouth. So it was obviously like tearing at the sides of her mouth. Oh my god. Ow. And she's just screaming and they're like, we need, we're going to get you out of here. I promise. But like we don't have anything to break this right now. Right. So he goes back to the car after radioing for backup and he discovered that the trucker had got his handcuff hands in front of him now. And has managed to unbuckle his seatbelt in an attempt to leave the car. Holy shit. Yeah. So Officer is like, no way, fuck ass and fixes that situation. He's like, oh, no. I wonder how he even did that.

Well, and then, and he said later, he was like, all I thought of later was, what if I'd stayed in the cab with her for a couple more minutes? And he had gotten out of there, killed me, got back in that car, and we never would have. Just drove right off. He was like, that could have been the end. Holy shit. Yeah. So now, so he then checks this trucker's pockets, and boom, finds the keys. I knew they were with him. They also found out that this guy, name was Robert Ben Rhodes. Okay. By now, Officer Robert Gygax of the Casa Grande Police Department had arrived as his backup. Officer Miller gave the keys to him while he stayed with Rhodes who tried to escape, you know, from which mountain. And Officer Gygax unshackles the woman who we're going to call

Miranda because I've seen different names for her and most of these things are like, this is not her real name. So I don't think she wants to be named. I decided to call her. I decided to call her. her Miranda. I like that. I just like that name. They brought her to the Casa Grande Police Station, and they talked to her about this experience with this monster. Jesus Christ. She was able to provide a lot of information to the person interviewing her, which was Detective Rick Barnhart. She said she had been hitchhiking, Rhodes picked her up at a truck stop, somewhere north of Phoenix. She said he was super charming, very sweet, not threatening at all when she met him. She even felt so comfortable that she fell asleep while they were driving.

That's a something. And that's when shit changed. Right. He suddenly stopped the truck, dragged her into the sleeper cab, and shackled her immediately. Oh, my God. Like ripped off her clothes and shackled her. Oh, God. This is when the torture began.

Oh. He had a, and again, little trigger warning. We're going to talk about some, like, rapy things. He had a rape kit, which is a common thing that perverted maggot mounds carry with them like Ted Bundy. Sexual sadists usually start out with, like, kind of a crude kit. And then as they do these things longer and longer, you see that their kit becomes more and more, like, refined. It's called like a kit.

Like he, like, needs it for work. And it was literally in a briefcase. So this is like his work. What the fuck? And this is such a thing with these sexual sadists guys because they take very, you know, they take pride in their kit. I really just have to point out like so quickly because I can't stop thinking about it, how ironic it is that he's a trucker and his last name is Rhodes. Oh, I know. I just really wanted to say that.

It honestly, it made for really good, like, true crime books about him. Yeah. Like, you know, the road to this or something like that. But, yeah. So Rhodes had a very well-kept rape kit, which indicated that he had done this for quite some time. Yeah, he's, like, prepared and shit. And it was in a briefcase, like I said, and it was full of horrifying items. According to the Tucson Weekly article, Detective Barnhart said, quote,

he took good care of the contents of that briefcase. There were alligator clips, leashes, handcuffs, whips, pins, and dildos. Pins? It was just very well cared for and everything was placed neatly. I knew I had a serial rapist because of all of that and I suspected he might have also killed someone. Wow. And yes, pins, because one of the things he liked to do that we'll mention later, is he liked to just stick pins in his victims over and over.

in again, this is rough. Most of the time he liked to stick them in the breast area. The nipples and the groin and vagina. Yes. And he also used fish hooks. Oh! Yes. He had tortured Miranda endlessly for hours with this kid.

Oh, my God. Rhodes had told her once he began his torture that he was called Wips and Chains. This was also his CB radio handle on the road. Okay, Rihanna. Like, hey, I'm Wips and Chains. she said he informed her that he got off on pain and torture and that he had quote been doing this for 15 years 15 years yep also when I heard that his CB radio handle was whips and chains I just thought of Joy Ride that movie that is so underrated guys can we watch that rip paul walker rip that was like one of my favorite movies go watch joyride if you haven't candy king

candy king so good all right so it was noted in photos taken of her injuries that again this is rough Her nipples and labia had been punctured with something sharp. Ow. And they asked her, have you been raped? And she was very, like, hesitant to say, which I understand. Like, that's common. Like, it's hard to say, yes, I've been raped. Yeah.

And she kind of said, like, yeah, like, not really. Like, she just kind of, like, hesitated to say it. And, but by looking at the evidence photos of her injuries, they were like, she was definitely raped in some capacity. I think she was just too in shock and too traumatized. Yeah, and just it's, I can't imagine. Not that you should be embarrassed, but there's so many feelings. There's such a feeling of shame that comes with it, like innately, you know.

So they understood why she didn't come out with it. Right, right. Now, when they went to speak to Rhodes, it was around 3 a.m. And they couldn't imagine what they were going to discover. But let's take it back, shall we? Fuck you. Robert Ben Rhodes is thought to have killed at least 50 women. 50?

But people also think it could be up in the hundreds. I mean, yeah. He only confessed to three murders. Really? The FBI says that they have good reason to say that while he was active, he had killed up to three women a month. Wow. And he was active from 1975 to 1990.

That's literally like one a week and like maybe a week off. Yeah, exactly. Now, he was born November 22nd, 1945 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I think that makes him a Scorpio. There's not a lot known about his younger life, which I guess is a good thing. I'm like, was it really fucked up, though? It wasn't. Really?

Well, yes. There's a fucked up part that makes you be like, okay, what else was happening here? But like, by all accounts, it was a pretty normal childhood for the most part. Okay. I mean, there's always something. Yeah, I mean, there's a big something here. Nine out of ten times. There's typically something.

I think there's more hidden behind the veil here. So he was raised mostly by his mother, Fay Rhodes. He was one of four siblings. He was the second oldest. He had a, you know, pretty standard upbringing. He was popular in high school, no problems, played football, was into wrestling, French club and Glee Club. Oh, so you know. Glee, you know.

Yeah, Glee Club, you know, Robert Ben Rhodes and Glee. He sang S&M by Rihanna. He did. He totally did. That was funny. Before it was even a thing. Har-har. When he was 12 years old, his father, Ben Rhodes, came home from overseas active military duty.

He was a firefighter. His father was. Yeah. At 16 years old, Robert was arrested for tampering with a vehicle. That same year, he was arrested for fighting. So all was not perfect. Okay. 1964, around age 18 or 19, he entered the Marines.

Uh-huh. This is when the normal childhood shit, like, goes awry. Okay. That same year, in 1964, his father, Ben Rhodes, was arrested on charges of pedophilia. Okay. He was charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. Oh. Ben Rhodes was fired from the Council Bluffs Fire Department.

He received a suspended sentence. He went out on parole. Then a second girl came forward. Oh, shit. Yeah. That's when a municipal court judge put out a warrant for his arrest. And two days later, he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in Fairmount Park. What a pussy way out.

So he didn't even get to be charged. or arrested for it. None of that. He didn't get to face the music. What is straight up puss? Yeah, that's a big puss. Later in life, Ben said his father was violent and gave the impression that he may have been the victim of his father's sexual abuse, but never comes out and says it. Okay. And it seemed like later he was like he was definitely violent. He definitely wasn't like a really good dad. Yeah. So, but not again, not a lot has come out about this. Right. But psychologists have looked at what he did to these women and have like postured that maybe he was like switching the rolls a little bit because you will find out later that

he did things like he cut their hair really short and stuff almost making them look like boysish yeah and so it seems like maybe he's like taking back the power that was maybe taken from him when he was younger sure and making them into like versions of himself oh okay but that's like a deep psychology kind of like dive into it that's like my favorite part of true i love that stuff yeah If I can find some of the articles that I was looking at in the psychology journals about this, I'll definitely post them so people can look because it's interesting. Cool. He was dishonorably discharged from the army after he committed armed robbery.

Oh, Robert was. Okay. He tried to do some college, but he ended up dropping out. Same zies. He tried to be a cop. Oh, same zes for you. He didn't get hired. Samzies.

This is not good. He moved back to Council Bluffs. He got married and had to. one son. Oh, no. Yeah. Luckily, he, he, I didn't seem to have a whole lot to do with his child. And that's probably in the child's best interest. Yeah. It's a bummer, but also great. Yeah. So he became a long-held truck driver after attempting to work different things like supermarkets, restaurants, like, just like any kind of job. He was super into the swinger and BDSM scene. Okay, live your life. And live your life. You should have just kept it there, bro. And this, it's like, and he used the name Wips and Chains as his

like BDSM name. Cool. And he liked, you know, but the thing was that bothers me because it's like live your life, do what you want. But he tried to like force his wives into it and his wives were not into it. Yeah, if you're not into it. Yeah. It's not allowed. It's like that's not okay. Right. So, um, consent. Yeah. Exactly. So people like on the road when he became a truck driver, they thought he like got a reputation for being kind of creepy. Okay. Um, like sex workers and like swingers clubs even like that he frequented were like yeah no like this dude's weird he was like too aggressive it seems yeah it's like there was just something off about him once once they got to know him they said initially he came off as this like very charming very sweet like when he was younger he was

like relatively good looking you know i mean like he was a very unassuming right um but then it got on comf well and even other truckers stayed away from him because they were like yeah i don't know something's off there and that says something and then rumors began to circulate among like you know hitchhikers and sex workers and like what truckers referred to as lot lizards which were any women that were around truck stops basically like that's a horrible name isn't that horrible you're a lot lizard yeah a lot lizard like i'm chilling fuck off there's a Starbucks in there I'm chilling um so rumors started circulating among them that he possibly had like a sex dungeon in his truck like the cab and they were right correct um like we said he took that whips and chains nickname and he used it as his CB handle

and he also was known as Dusty. That was his other CB handle. I'm a dusty whip and chain. Which I think is just like... That's yuckus. Like you think of Joyride. It's like candy cane. Yeah.

I don't even know what the other ones are. I wouldn't want my... I'm sorry if your nickname is Dusty. Rusty nail. I wouldn't want my nickname to be dusty. But Dusty is probably like one of the like super chill ones. Like Joyride, it was like Rusty nail. I would love for my nickname to be Rusty nail.

That's fucking... Like I'm a give you tetanus. I'm a give you tetan. Tadness. Stay away from me. Leave me alone. I'll give you tetanus. A rusty nail. So in 1972, he divorced his first wife. Bummer. He married two more times. Oh, shit. Also bummer. If you didn't know who he was, you'd be like, he's just looking for love. Yeah. But no, he was just a dick. All of his wives said he was a manipulative asshole. Great. Like, that's why he was just blowing through him. Aw, sham. He had a very unique truck. It was this, like, white, like, very pristine truck. It was a

sleeper cab because again he was a long-haul trucker but he had converted it into exactly what he needed he needed a mobile torture chamber who doesn't uh like we i mean don't we all yeah but we can't all have it uh it was like the toy box killer situation where he personalized the truck to hold women for weeks at a time could be assaulted and tortured before eventually being murdered and dumped that's horrible yes so um there was a g-ckel Q Magazine article written by a woman named Vanessa Veselka. Vanessa Veselka, that's her name.

So in 1985, Vanessa was a young girl hitchhiking across country. She remembers now that she was sitting in a truck waiting for the trucker who had initially picked her up to pay for gas. She noticed commotion near a dumpster and discovered that people had found a deceased body of a young teenage girl in it as she was there.

Spook. So there was all this craziness. The police showed up. Somebody around her said it was a, young teen girl who was murdered while hitchhiking. Oh, geez. So immediately Vanessa is like, uh, fuck, what if this trucker that picked me up is the guy who did it?

Like, we don't know. Yeah, you don't know. But inexplicably, she decided that was crazy and she just stuck with him. Oh. Now, despite what you're like, oh, shit, what happened? It turned out to be a very nice trip for her. Oh, okay. She's in the truck.

This trucker was not Ben Rhodes. Oh, okay. She said they drank Diet Coke. They listened to Bruce Springsteen. They ate snacks. all the way to Ohio. She told GQ Magazine that she was pleasantly surprised that he didn't even try to have sex with her. That's always a pleasant surprise.

Which I'm like, what a world. Wow. That you're like, he didn't even try to do it. This Prince Charming did not even try to rate me. Everybody has standards, Elena. What a guy. So that's really sad that that's like, wow, geez, pleasantly surprised. So days later, after she was dropped off from that nice experience,

she was picked up on I-95 in Carolina, and she was hitchhiking again. No. This guy was tall, built, and very clean cut. He wore a button-down shirt that was rolled up over his very toned biceps. Was it been brutes? And he just really didn't fit the trucker description. It was Ben Roads, wasn't it? It was totally Ben Roads.

Thank you. She also noted that the cab of his truck was extraordinarily clean. Okay. I feel like poor truckers are getting a badass rep as like messy monsters here. But like... Well, I mean, you're like fucking busy. But like, they're long-all truckers. They have a lot.

They're exhausted. I'm long hauling. I'm sure there's not a lot of time to, like, pristinely clean your cab. Well, I mean, Ben Rhodes could do it. Yeah. I mean, Ben Rhodes apparently is multi-tasking. So initially, he was very charming and nice. He gave her no indication of threatening behavior.

Mm-hmm. While driving, suddenly his demeanor changed. Awesome. Like, as soon as he picked her up, but he was like, hey, girl, get back in this car. It's fine. I got to go for you. Like, let's just hang out. It's going to be fine.

And then as soon as they started driving and, like, the doors are locked and everything's then he's like all the sudden. He suddenly stopped answering questions. Oh. And just had a look in his eye that frightened her. So he brought up the woman who had been found dead in the dumpster. Oh. And what she had said about the first truck or the really the nice one was that they didn't speak

of that girl at all. Because he probably was like, I'm not going to kill you and we don't need to talk about somebody that died while hitchhiking while you're hitchhiking. Exactly. So he was probably trying to be respectful and be like, I'm not going to freak this girl up. Right. So about that murdered hitchhiking teen that they just found in a dumpster.

Ben Rhodes is like, so about that murdered. Ben Rhodes is a fucking turn. Well, he's a sadist. So he brings up the woman and she's like, oh, okay. And then he says, do you know about the laughing death society? We laugh at death. I mean, how fitting. Like, fucking dork.

You know about the laughing death society? We laugh at death. I'd be like, who to thunk? I'd be like, that's dumb. That's dumb as fuck. And then he would have just murdered you. Like, you're dumb. So they pull over in a wooded area.

No thanks. Where he suddenly pulls out a knife and he tried to force her into the cab of the truck. Oh, God. Now, according to the GQ article, written in her words, she said she repeatedly tried to, and this is smart. She repeatedly tried to tell him, this is your choice. Like she kept saying it, this is your choice. You're choosing this. That is really smart.

And she said, you don't have to do this, but this is your choice. I won't go to the police if you don't hurt me, but this is your choice. She kept repeating that. And then she said, he looked. looked at her and just said, run. Oh, ha ha. I know. Even I just got chills.

I just got chills. I just got chills saying that. He literally, she said, if somebody told me to run, I'd be like, well, I need to know if you're going to chase me because should I set a pace or like, I'm kind of fight out the gate? Like, I get shin splints pretty easily. Is this like a 300 meter dash or are we running a marathon? Like how far?

I mean, should, is there a landmark where I could stop? Should I use some of those jail packs that? people use that just like get a burst of energy. Do you have any Dr. Scholes in the back? It's like, no. No, okay. Okay, I'll just go. He just said, run. Oh, hey, yeah, yeah. And she ran. Because I'd be like, do you want to chase me?

She said she did not even think twice. She just fucking ran. She was like, and I ran so far away. Did she get away? This is why we can laugh about this. She got away. Okay, okay. She escaped and ran into the woods where she hid until she saw him pull away. Oh, man. Oh, man. Which, first, I mean, we are joking because this is, this was a happy ending.

Yeah. But that's traumatizing as fun. Yeah. Do you think she ever hitchhiked again? I don't know, actually. I want to know. But actually, you know what? She did because she said, she waited until he pulled away and then she had to hitchhike again.

She walked back onto the road and had to do it again. Wow. So, I mean, I don't know if she got into another truck. Yeah. But maybe. But either way, like, in the GQ article. which I'll post in the show notes is so amazing. It's so well-researched.

I mean, she goes into all the other things about this case. She did a lot of research. She talked to FBI agents. Because she fucking was with this dude. She did the damn thing. That's wild. And she's a badass survivor. All right.

Tell me more. So in the late 1980s, an 18-year-old girl, this one's real rough. So just putting that ass there. Okay. She does live, though. Okay. I want to put that out there. Thank you.

18-year-old girl, kind of the same. situation. Her name was Shauna Holtz. She asked him she asked Robert Ben Rhodes for a ride. Yep. On the road she said she fell asleep and this is when he pulled off into a secluded area. She woke up and started panicking because she was like, what the

fuck, and he hit her in the head and then dragged her at gunpoint into the back of the sleeper cab. Oh my God. He shackled her hands and legs. He spread them, spread eagle. Oh. To chains hanging from a bar on the ceiling. Oh. He stripped off her clothing and forced a

horses bit into her mouth and around her head and neck the horse bridle, he tortured her for weeks. Oh my God. She was almost naked the entire time and he would stick her with pins all over. Ow. Used fish hooks to suspend her and pierce her with them. Ow! He would shackle her to the side of the truck in the standing position for hours and just periodically whip her with a legitimate whip.

Jesus Christ. After he got off from her terror and pain, like after he, like ejaculated from this. He would let her sleep only to wake her up and violently rape her. Oh my God. Yeah. And she's, she's an 18 year old girl. This is like the shit that you see on criminal minds and it's so hard to wrap your brain around the fact that this happens. Oh yeah. Like this isn't just like someone's dark corner of like their brain where like their storytelling. Nope. This shit happens. This is real life. This is the, these are things that people are living with right now. And it's horrible that I, it's so hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that.

like a human can do that to a human. Oh, it's so hard to wrap your brain around that. It's a totally different kind of human. It is. It's not even a human. No. Well, and it gets worse. To go to the bathroom, he would go somewhere secluded, like when she had to go to the bathroom.

Right. And he would bring her out naked on all fours and a leash and collar. Oh, my God. And he made her go to the bathroom in the all fours position like a dog. Oh, my God. After almost a month of this, he took her to his apartment suddenly in Houston. Oh, God. That would be horrifying.

This is weird, where he let her bathe and eat, and then he raped her. Uh-huh. He then took her back to the truck, and he left her in the truck unshackled, telling her, be a good girl. And then he went to do something. Uh-huh. I got like a local brewery for work. Okay. He was, to me, because she was like, what the fuck?

Because there's also stories where it's like, oh, she got out of her shackles because he didn't, you know, he didn't like close them all the way. Right. But she says that's not the case. He didn't shackle me. He just told me, be a good girl. So to me, he was hoping that he had instilled so much fear in her that she wouldn't try to run away. And that he had willingly stay unshackled just out of pure fear. Like he thought he had that much domination over her that he could just go be a good girl and she'd just stay there.

Right. Well, she ran like a bad. bad bitch. Yeah, good. She went straight to the police, brought them straight back to the truck. Oh, my God. Wait, she brought them back to the truck. Oh, yeah. She was like, here's the truck. What? Like, here it is. Well, yeah. No, no, no. I'm saying like, good for her, but like, the police saw the truck and like, there's still more after this. Oh, yeah. You're like, yeah, duh. She showed them. When they, I'm like, yeah, she showed them. I'm like, no, I get that. But when it came down to charges, she wouldn't press charges because they said she wouldn't even look at him. She was looking

down at the ground while they were standing there. It must have been so scary. She wouldn't identify him and she said she was so terrified that even the police wouldn't be able to save her. She said there wasn't enough police around. He was going to like he would have taken me again. Oh my God. And she was like, I just said like, I don't know. I don't know.

And so and later she was like, no, fuck you, that was him. Like, right. So they didn't, the police didn't press it. But also she's 18 years old. And they didn't search the truck. So they just, she was like, nope, I'm mistaken. And they're like, all right. And she's, you know, an 18 year old. Titchhiker. So they're like, what, it's her word against his. Oh, that's, that's like a heartbreaking.

But she got away, but he was free to kill. Right. And now he's pissed off, I bet. Exactly. So November 1989, he's, um, he's 44 years old at this point. Uh-huh. He killed for the first known time. Okay. This is the first time that he admits to, yeah. But they think he began at nine, in 1975. Okay. So this is when they think he picked up 24-year-old Candice Walsh and Douglas Sykowski. They were newlywoods. Okay. They had just left Seattle in November and they were hitchhiking to Georgia where they were going to do some like missionary work and like Christian missionary work. They're pure a. F. They are pure A. F. That's when Rhodes picked them up in Texas. Okay. He killed Douglas immediately. Oh, wow. Which he does in the two instances that we know of him killing, we know he

dispatches the man right away because they're just an obstacle at this point. They're like, all right, I'm just going to, I'm assuming he like probably shoots them and then that's it. I can't imagine how horror because then you're like, oh my God, what is going to happen to me? I imagine the fear and like just feeling of hopelessness. Yeah, that's your human. Yeah. You just got married. You just got married. And so he killed him immediately. He dumped him along Interstate 10 in Ozone, Texas. He was found pretty quickly in Texas. but he wasn't identified until 1992. Oh, wow.

Candice was kept for seven days. She was tortured. She was raped repeatedly. And he killed her by shooting her multiple times and then dumped her in Millard County, Utah. Oh, my goodness. Her body was found in October 1990 in central Utah by deer hunters. Can you imagine? No.

Like whenever I hear of that, I'm like, damn. But she was not officially identified until 2003. Oh, wow. And they had to use dental records. Oh. So one of the people that worked on this case said, quote, her body was found months later. So she was probably kept alive for a while. Okay.

Now, by this time, his fourth wife, Deborah, who he married in February of 1990, says that she met him during this time. When she met him, he was dressed as an airline pilot. And it took, like, a long time for him to admit that he was not an airline pilot. Like that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh, catch me if you can. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it.

He tried to bring her into the BDSM stuff. She wasn't into it. I'm busy that day. In fact, she said at one time, at like some swingers party, he brought her into a room where he had drugged an unconscious young woman who was lying on the bed. And then he proceeded to rape this young woman in front of his wife. Oh. So after that, that's when Deborah was like, I'd like a divorce.

It was a little weird. I don't know if I'm into this. At this point, sex workers, hitchhikers, they were banding together because there was just all these missing women and dead women turning up. A lot of them were getting, like, they were seeing other people get into his truck and then they would never see him, them again. So now they were like looking out and being like, yeah, we're not getting in his truck. Oh, okay. So April 1st, 1991, this is when things came to a crashing halt, but also when the horrors came into better focus. So that's when they discovered Miranda at the back of his truck from the beginning.

So after he had been interrogated, after being caught with Miranda screaming in a sleeper cab, officers were able to secure a warrant to search his apartment in Houston on April 6th. They found women's makeup, women's clothing, they found bondage porn and paraphernalia, they found all kinds of weird tools that looked like torture tools, white towels everywhere. One was saturated with blood. I found in several sources that there was a Santana album poster on the wall that looks like a lion. But when you look closer, it's just a bunch of faces screaming in pain. Oh.

And knowing what kind of sexual status he is, that's just like really unsettling. That is very unsettling. And it's in a lot of different sources. So I think it's just one of those things. It's just gives you the hebes. That's like a very good like movie. It is. That'd be like good in a movie.

That reminds me of like a Buffalo Bill kind of thing. Yeah. The most unsettling thing they found, however. was photographs. Oh. These were photos of a very young girl, like in her early teens. She had short, dark hair, and she looked terrified and was crying in most photos. Some photos, she was in various stages of undress, and some she was nude.

She was also shackled up and restrained in every photo. She also always had a choke chain around her neck with a place for a leash to clip on. This is when agents realized she was with him for a long period of time. because Rhodes' signature thing he did was cut the hair on the head and also shave the pubic hair. Whenever he kept someone, like, you know, Shauna, those people, they always had their haircut and pubic hair shaved. That's so awful. These photos showed that there was regrowth in various photos, and that meant it was weeks of torture for this young girl. There were also bruises specifically around her breasts that could be seen fading in the series of photos over time.

Oh, my God. Rhodes had been sentenced to six years for the kidnapping of Miranda at this point. That's it? Yes, but don't worry. I'm not, but like, damn. I'm not. Do you only get six years for kidnapping somebody? I mean, that's ridiculous.

What the fuck is wrong with the judicial system? Jujer Shisholm. Me, I'm wrong. In 1992, a farmer in Illinois was doing a thorough search of a decaying old barn in a huge fields. It was one of his properties. Uh-huh. And he was planning to have it demolished, so he wanted to make sure.

there was nothing in it before he did that. And guess what there was? He went up in the loft and found a young woman dead. Oh. This woman was 14-year-old Regina K. Walters. So young. She had been strangled with bailing wire that was attached to a wooden beam like a garot. She was strangled far past the point of death.

Walters had been reported missing when she was last seen in Pasadena, Texas in February of 1990. She had been hitching with her boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones. they were trying to run away together to Mexico. Oh. And they had taken a ride from Robert Ben Rhodes. Right, and it didn't go well. Detectives thought back to the photos they found in Rhodes' possession at his apartment. The ones of the young girl with the short hair and terror.

She looked like Regina Walters, but Regina had long, thick hair. And this woman had short cropped hair. So detectives showed one of the photos to her father, like one of the ones that they like covered things and like made sure it wasn't horrible. detective showed one to her father and he said that's definitely her. So he had kept her for so long that her hair had grown back. Yeah. And what did you say? She was 14 when she was found. Well, the thing was her hair was still crop short when she was found, but Regina K. Walters had long hair. Okay. Okay. So they were like, is this her? Because this doesn't look like her.

He was able to specifically point to birth marks on her neck to prove that that was her. Oh my God. That the girl found in the barn and the girl in the photos was Regina. And that's probably when they kind of figured out that that was. like something he did. Yeah, cut the hair. Yeah, because now they're seeing a pattern. Oh. So now they know that the woman who they found murdered in the barn in Illinois is Regina K.

Walters. And this is now confirmed to be the woman in terror in his photos. Oh, my God. He had called Regina's father. What? Anonymously to taunt him about her over a month after she went missing. He called him and said, quote, I made some changes. I cut her hair.

Oh, my God. Can you imagine? No. He then told him she's in a barn in a loft in a barn. And when her father asked if she was okay, he just hung up the phone. That makes me want to cry. He also called her mother and asked at one point asked her to meet him somewhere. And she showed up and he never showed up and kept calling them and like taunting them about her.

I mean, obviously murder in and of itself is like the most horrific thing ever. But there's almost something more horrific about when they call the family. Because these, this, these parents are, have a missing child. Like, you are the devil. And this person, this man is calling saying, I have your child. And here's her name. Here's how, who she is. Like, he knows who she is.

So you're sitting there being like, what's happening to her. And I don't know who this person is. Oh, my God. Yeah. These calls were traced and checked against Rhodes, trucking logs, and they matched the areas. Right. Later, they would discover Regina's journal was in Rhodes's possession. Oh.

It had the name and number for her father, and this is what Rhodes used to call them. Oh, my God. But what really sealed the deal was an infamous series of photos that can be found online. No, thank you. This is actually what made me think of this case. The photos show Regina in and around the barn that she was found dead in. She's wearing a black dress. Oh, is that the one that we posted?

Yeah, that's the one that I showed you, too. She's wearing black heels that are too big for her. Short cropped hair. She also has a choke chain around her now. and she looks terrified. Yeah, she does. And is often shown holding her arms out, like, in a defensive position to keep her away from him. These photos were taken right in the moments before she was murdered.

Oh, my God. So experts compared these photos with those from the crime scene in Illinois, and were able to conclude it was the same barn. There was also one of the experts in this case was saying, you know, these guys often tell their victims what's going to happen to them. And I'm sure in those photos, she was being told what was going to. to happen to her. And that's why her face is in such despair. Putting yourself there, like, figure, like, ugh. It's the worst part about these photos, and if you look them up, you'll see

in the barn, first of all, it's broad daylight. Yeah. Yeah. And second of all, you can see houses in the background. Oh my God. And you just want to yell at her, like, run. Like, just run. She might have tried. I think one, she was probably too traumatized and scared. In, like, weak. And two, two weak. Yeah. And three, he might have had a gun. Right. But it's like, I just want to yell at her, like, just run.

And I don't mean weak, like she was like two weak to run. I mean, like, she probably wasn't eating and stuff like that. Like beaten down over weeks. Right. Right. Yeah. Like that's. I didn't want anybody to miss him.

Yeah. Like that she was a weak person. Yeah. That's not what I meant. But no, it's like, it's just you see like just hope behind her. You know what I mean? And you're just like, I want she to run. The broad daylight is like, it's so scary.

And to think of that horror happening. In daylight. Like, I think, I don't know if I was listening to a podcast about this or if I read it an article, but somebody was saying that they couldn't stop thinking of the people in those houses just living their lives. Yeah, like making lunch or like. And Regina sitting there maybe seeing those houses and being like those people are just living. Right. And I'm about to die.

Well, I'm about to lose my life. In the most horrific way ever. Oh, God. This is so sad. It makes me want to cry. It's a lot. So her boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones, was killed almost immediately. Lake Douglas. Not a lot is known about him or Regina really, but everyone knew that they were

hopelessly in love and they were planning to run away together because young love is very overwhelming and dramatic. So what they found was that he had cut her hair on her head and shaved the pubic hair of all his victims. Once they made these connections through all the victims, they notified Illinois to inform them, we have this connection. Look for this. Right. So in early 1992, Illinois State Attorney was finally like, sure, let's do this. Right. So he was basically convinced to take a plea deal, Robert Ben Rhodes was, and agreed to plead guilty for the murder of Regina.

Sure. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Thank God. So they analyzed his truck logs, and the FBI put them against skeletonized bodies of women found along the roots. He traveled across the country. He hit states like California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona. New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, and those are just some of the states he hit.

And that's crazy because you think like California on literally the opposite side of the world and then Florida right there. Or not the world, the country I meant. Yeah. Well, and that's, and it's like he hit all of those states and more. That's so scary. He could have been filling in every state. And they're a body and all the, bodies in all those states and missing women. So today they're still trying to connect him to these, but many of these missing women and murdered women have been attributed to him. Wow.

But most of the families didn't want to go through trials because he was already in jail forever and they just didn't want the pain. That's awful to have to go through. They were like, he's in jail without the possibility of parole. Why am I going to put our whole family through this pain again? Like, let's just let him rot. So they think he killed, like I said earlier, between 1975 and 1990. he could be pretty prolific if they can attach more to him.

In 2005, he was brought back to Utah to face charges for the murders of Douglas and Candace, the newlyweds. Sure. But after a year there, he was brought back to Illinois in 2006 and then extradited to Texas, where they were able to try him for all the murders together, instead of making Candace and Douglas' family go through multiple trials in multiple states. So in 2012 on March 30th, he was sentenced to a second life term for her murder. Wow. Good.

In exchange for them not seeking the death penalty because they could have. So he will literally never get out of jail because even if for some crazy reason, Illinois let him out of prison, Texas would imprison him for life again. Right, right. He's currently in the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois. Uh-huh. So this is just a crazy story. Another survivor found out that she survived a ride with him by seeing one of the photos he took of her way later in life on Facebook. What?

So the photo was circulating online asking who she was. Did she not remember? They were trying to identify. Well, nothing crazy happened to her. She just took a ride from him. Oh, okay. In 2005, she was like, oh, shit, that's me. So her name is Pamela Milliken.

She was the woman in the photo that circulated around Facebook. and actually survivor Vanessa Veselka was shown this photo by an FBI agent while she was researching to do that GQ article. So it was just like a casual photo? Yeah, well, they were like, here's a photo we found in his possession. Right. And the photo is innocuous by itself. It was found on the role after Regina K. Walters' photos.

Uh-huh. In it, it's just Milliken in the truck passenger seat and she's like lightly smiling and her eyes are kind of like tired and sleepy. She's probably just like this is fucking weird. Yeah, and she just kind of looks like, uh-huh, okay. She said she had been hitchhiking to visit her brother in Winnipeg, and Rhodes picked her up. She said she handed her bag to him while she hopped up. She said he was very friendly, very unassuming.

The only weird thing, he explained away pretty neatly. So just as Milliken was turning around to climb up into the passenger seat, she says the driver took her photo. And she said, what did you do that for? And he said, well, I'm going to take your picture. If you rip me off, I can tell the cops that you stole from me. So she was like, okay. Like, that makes sense, I guess. And he also pointed to a sign on the dashboard that apparently was kind of common in trucks at that time.

And it said, cash, grass, or ass. No one rides for free. Oh. So she said she didn't have any of those things except one, so they had consensual sex in the back. Okay. She said he then dropped her off at her destination and that was it. Wow. It was definitely Robert Ben Rhodes.

I mean, her photo was in his possession. He definitely am. Now, a couple of little tidbits at the end. One of his wives said that he would often become aroused when she was suffering. In fact, she was hospitalized with lupus, and he was super turned on by that. What? Yeah. Yep.

Both the surviving victims, Vanessa and Shana, said he placed a white towel underneath them before he began torturing them every time. That's very strange. He's like very into white towels. It's really weird. And they said they found a ton of them in his apartment. Right. You had said that. While he was being transferred between prisons, he was able to get the phone number of a waitress while in shackles.

What? That's how charming he was. Like, honey, I'm going to call you from jail? Like what? He ended up having a stroke in prison. Good. And he now looks like a supervillain. So, like, he doesn't look anything like he.

Oh, but he's still alive. He didn't die from the stroke. He has a stroke and it just, it paralyzed to half his face. So he has kind of like a scary Popeye look at this moment. Oh. Good. I'm glad I did that to him. I was going to say, but honestly, if anybody deserves it, he does. Yeah, 105%. So that is the story of Robert Ben Rhodes. That was insane. The truck stopped. That was like a huge bummer. It's a big old bummer, but at least he's serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. I wish, this is going to sound so crazy. He's close to 70 now, so.

But I totally wish that they could. somehow keep you alive for two lives for two whole lives so that you had to serve both that would be kind of nice if anybody could figure that out just like yeah because he's close to 70 he's had a stroke yeah I'm pretty sure he's probably going to kick it soon yeah but all we can hope is that it's long and drawn out and suffering super hope so because one thing we definitely know is that I mean he he loved long drawn out suffering so you know what maybe he'll like get off on his own death yeah maybe he Well, I hope he doesn't. I hope so either.

But Regina... I hope so either. I hope so either. It's late, guys. It is. But unfortunately, it's like Regina K. Walters, that... The way she died with the garot made of bailing wire is a very slow and torturous death. And just her whole entire experience.

Her whole experience. The photos are some of the most... And they're not graphic as in like gory or anything like that. No, they're just scary. They're the most disturbing. Because you're, it's unfortunately, your mind tries to put together the pieces and, like, and you just, you don't want them to do. And her face is just pure terror.

I got to go watch Gilmore Girls. Yeah. It's no good. This was heavy. So, hope this was everything everybody could have hoped for and more, uh, sorry that it was so grizzly. Wow. But we had to cover it.

You got to do these people justice. Yeah, you got to do it. So, uh, I hope that I did this case justice. Um, unfortunately, there's not a ton about. the victims or I would have gone a little further into them. There's just not a lot of information about them, but the best I could. You did great, sweetie. So, thanks so much.

So stay tuned next week. We're going to shout out some patronesses. Yes. And, yeah, so. In the meantime, hit us up on Instagram at Morbid Podcast. Follow us on Twitter. A morbid podcast. Send us a Gmail.

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Yeah. Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. I'm 100% not doing one. Not so weird that you become a murderous truck driver. Yep. Not so weird that you don't just drive your truck.

Just fucking drive, man. Let's drive. Bye. Bye. I'm