Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Video Strangler Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

There was no evidence in Maury Travis’ childhood of arson or animal abuse, often seen as early warning signs for serial killers. And he didn’t appear to have been a victim of abuse from either of his parents. So what made this seemingly normal kid turn into a man who would rape, torture and murder as many as twenty women? This episode originally aired on Serial Killers in July 2018.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. In the summer of 2014, Katrina McGaugh settled down for a quiet evening in her Ferguson, Missouri home. She had decided to watch a documentary on serial killers that a family member had recommended for her. She likely tuned in for the same reasons many of our own listeners do. But instead of unwinding with a grisly tail, she was shocked to see her own house on the television. The ranch-style home she had moved into four months earlier had a sinister past.

She was living in the home of serial killer Morrie Travis, the St. Louis Video Strangler, who murdered as many as 20 women. Mori Travis tied up, tortured, and killed his victims in Katrina's basement, where her two-year-old relative often played. In the investigation, police found plans indicating Travis intended to build a tortured chamber in the basement to extend the length of his killings and the pain of his victims. The documentary showed crime scene photos of blood-stained walls and carpets in Katrina's house. She even recognized the very dining table and chairs.

that she had eaten at many times. The landlord had actually thrown in the killer's own furniture as a deal. Understandably spooked, Katrina called her landlord and immediately begged to be let out of the lease. Unfortunately, the landlord was unsympathetic and unyielding. Katrina discovered she was renting from the serial killer's own mother. I'm Greg Paulson, and this is serial killers. Today we're going to take a deep dive into the life of of Maury Travis, the St. Louis Video Strangler.

I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. We'd like to ask a quick favor. Would you leave a five-star review of serial killers on your favorite podcast directory? It seems so simple, but it really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe while you're there, because a new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast, and on Twitter at Parcast Network, or in our website, Parcast.

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Valley through 62326, participating stores only well supplies lastly out for full terms. Today we're going to discuss the life and crimes of Mori Travis, who raped, tortured, and murdered as many as 20 women in the St. Louis, Missouri area, from 2000 to 2002. Like many other serial killers, Travis targeted sex workers. These women are a vulnerable population due to their stigmatized line of work.

Their families are often unaware of their whereabouts, and other sex workers hesitate to involve police, since their line of work is not legal. Travis would take these women back to his home and imprison them in his basement for days at a time, making home videos of him torturing them. While video allowed Travis to relive his crimes in perfect, accurate detail whenever he wanted,

other technological advances would ultimately lead to his downfall. Mori Travis was one of the first serial killers to be undone by the internet. In part one, we'll look at the little we know of Mori Travis' childhood, his long and troubled history of institutionalization, and his first victims that drew the attention of all of St. Louis. In part two, we'll look at how the case of Mori Travis was unprecedented because of the online sleuthing used to catch the serial killer.

But before we discuss how technology has changed the ways serial killers operate and are caught, we should discuss what drove Mori Travis to torture and murder in the first place. Mori Travis was born on October 25, 1965, in St. Louis, Missouri, three days before the completion of the iconic Gateway Arch. St. Louis rests below the intersection of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Cross over the Mississippi on the chain of rocks bridge, and you'll end up in Illinois. Travis grew up in the Carr Square Public Housing Complex, just northwest of downtown St. Louis. Travis was born during the height of the civil rights movement in a city whose identity is inextricably linked to white flight and racial tension between white and black populations. St. Louis was scarred by an unfortunate history of housing segregation laws.

Racist opinions in the real estate market made it extremely difficult for black families like Mori Travis's to escape an impoverished background. Numerous studies have shown that poverty, segregation, and income inequality. lead to more violent crime as police forces are typically overworked and education is underfunded. In 1975, when Travis was 10 years old, his family moved to a house in Ferguson, Missouri, just north of downtown St. Louis. By all accounts, Travis was a seemingly ordinary boy. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she's done a lot of research for this show. Travis committed suicide before being tried for his murders, so unfortunately, we don't have as much information about his childhood as we'd like.

Police were not able to find any evidence of arson or animal abuse, which are often seen as early warning signs for serial killers. He doesn't appear to have been a victim of abuse from either of his parents. His parents did divorce in 1978 when Travis was 13 years old. But as we know, being a child of divorce typically isn't. enough to drive one to murder. One of his old neighbors remembered him as a quiet, respectful boy who sometimes mowed her lawn without being asked and taught her how to use an electric hedge trimmer. She said he was a pleasant child with a soft heart and said, I don't believe he could kill a fly.

Records indicate that Morrie Travis attended McClure High School, but several classmates said they could not remember him. If he appears in any pictures in the yearbook, he's not identified. The only person who seems to remember him from his teenage years is Sue Hannan, a retired English teacher at McClure High, who said she immediately recognized his name and picture when he was arrested. Travis was a student in her basic English class for students who failed an earlier English course. Like his old neighbor, Sue Hannan described Travis as very quiet and withdrawn, incredibly quiet for a teenager. Even the quiet ones can be noisy sometimes, but not him. Travis's quiet nature might have been a sign of more troubling behaviors.

Researchers have begun to identify some children as having what is known as callous and unemotional traits. Callous and unemotional traits can include a lack of empathy, remorse, and guilt, shallow emotions, aggression and cruelty, indifference to punishment, and the ability to manipulate. These behaviors can be an early sign of developing psychopathic tendencies later. later in life. It's believed that nearly 1% of children exhibit callous and unemotional traits, and the condition can go unnoticed, since these kids are smart enough to mimic social cues and can often mask their condition. Sounds just like many of the adult psychopaths we discussed on serial killers. Exactly, and more than 50 studies have shown that children with callous and

unemotional traits are more likely to become criminals and psychopaths later in life. Early diagnosis can help mitigate these behaviors and prevent the more drastic outcomes as they grow older. Yet these diagnoses in children are a more recent phenomenon, and it's unlikely that callous and unemotional traits would have been recognized in Travis's quiet and isolated demeanor during the 60s and 70s when he was a child. Records show that Travis graduated high school in 1985 when he was 20 years old. He then served two years in the Army Reserve,

working as a medical and dental assistant. We know that he took a variety of jobs with trucking companies in the area and volunteered at a local nursing home. In 1987, at age 22, Travis enrolled in Morris Brown College in Atlanta. It is here that Mori Travis became computer literate, which was still relatively novel at the time. It was also around 1987 that Mori Travis became addicted to crack cocaine and began his long history of trouble with the law.

In March 1988, he came home to Ferguson on spring break from Morris Brown College. Over the course of eight days, Travis robbed five shoe stores in north and west St. Louis County for cash to fund what he would later describe as a $300 a day cocaine habit. Travis was promptly arrested based on the description of his vehicle, but even the detective seemed surprised that such a nice-seeming boy was capable of his crimes. He described his encounter with Travis saying, quote, he was respectful and quiet and reserved. He wasn't your typical type of criminal, end quote. As young as 23, Mori Travis was displaying the characteristic trait of superficial charm that psychopaths are known for. Travis pled guilty to five counts of robbery and armed criminal action on January 19, 1989. He testified that he used a plastic gun and told the judge that he was so strong.

strung out on crack cocaine, that he barely remembered the robberies. It seemed as though Travis didn't intend to hurt anyone during these crimes. However, this was during the height of the crack epidemic in the United States, when the drug was still relatively new and misunderstood. On a molecular level, crack and powder cocaine are nearly identical. Crack causes a more intense high, not because of its form, but from the method it's ingested. As with other substances, smoking creates a quicker, more intense high than snorting. Still, a study at the University of California Berkeley

concluded that crack is no more addictive than powder cocaine. Despite this, crack users statistically get harsher sentences than drug offenders using powder cocaine. Before the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, federal courts treated one gram of crack as equal to 100 grams of cocaine. These policies unfairly targeted black communities. The lower cost of crack cocaine made it more prevalent in lower-income neighborhoods like Travis's, while white drug users in the middle and upper class gravitated toward cocaine in powder form. This was especially apparent in St. Louis, a city mired with a long and unfortunate history of housing segregation. The racial bias against crack users kept society from treating crack addiction as a public

health issue and perpetuated the rise of drug-related crimes like Travis's. throughout the 80s and 90s. It's likely that Mori Travis did not have a premeditated or malicious plan to commit his string of robberies, but was under the effect of an intense and violent high from smoking crack cocaine. The judge agreed.

At his sentence hearing, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Stephen Goldman reviewed letters of support for Travis and called the robberies an aberration in his character, resulting from the drug habit. Among the letters the court received was one from former U.S. Representative William L. Clay on Congressional Stationery. It reads, quote, I have known Mr. Travis

and his family for a number of years, and I feel he is deserving of special consideration in this matter. Since January 1988, Mr. Travis has conducted himself in such a manner as to pose no threat to society. I am pleading that he be given leniency and probation with the condition of voluntary service at a charitable community agency, end quote. After Travis's arrest for multiple murders, Representative Clay said he does not remember Mori Travis or his family and had sent thousands of similar letters during his career. Even with multiple letters of support and Travis's polite demeanor, Travis was convicted on all five counts of robbery and armed criminal action. Judge Stephen Goldman sentenced Mori Travis to

15 years in prison, a rather lenient sentence of three years for each robbery. Travis was moved to Farmington Correctional Center, about 70 miles south of St. Louis on July 5, 1989. It was about four months from his 24th birthday. Mori Travis did not do well in prison. Just two months into his 15-year sentence, he wrote a three-page letter to the judge begging him to reconsider his sentence. He wrote, quote, daily and hourly, also at any given moment, I think of taking my life. The conditions here are excruciatingly tormenting to say the least. Staying in my cell and crying myself to sleep most every night will not help. But it's so very hard to believe this has happened to me.

This whole situation is horrid and phantasmic. If it weren't for such a caring cellmate, I'm very sure I'd have committed suicide after my first day here at this institution. End quote. The letter goes on to describe rapes, cramped living conditions, and a proliferation of drugs. Though Travis did not indicate whether he had been a victim of sexual or physical assault while in prison, he asked that a sentence be replaced by a 120 or 180-day shock imprisonment.

Shock imprisonment, or shock incarceration, is a short-term imprisonment that mimics military boot camp. It's often reserved for non-violent first-time offenders who are young or minors. The first boot camp prisons started in Georgia, and Oklahoma in 1983, and were further developed throughout the 80s. They would have still been relatively new when Travis requested the sentencing in 1989. In his letter, he wrote, quote, You, sir, are my last hope. Please give me another chance in society.

Please, end quote. It's impossible to say whether Travis already possessed the urge to commit sexual assault and murder when he arrived in prison, but it's unlikely that exposure to the harsh conditions in Farmington, directional center had a positive effect on him. A 1986 study by UCLA psychologists found that men who had been exposed to violent sexual material reported more sexual arousal to a rape story than men who had not. It's possible that witnessing the sexual violence Travis described during incarceration had

negative effects on his own mental health. A study by Rutgers University showed that encounters of violence during incarceration were significantly related to aggressive, anti-social tendencies and emotional distress upon release. Individuals who were witnesses, as well as victims, of violent crimes, showed the poorest adjustment to life outside of prison. While the vast majority of people exposed to violence while incarcerated do not become serial killers, it's clear from his letter that Mori Travis was distressed by the conditions he was exposed to in prison.

It's possible that after five years of exposure to violence, and sexual crimes, Travis began to feel desensitized. The study by Rutgers University showed that violence encountered while incarcerated might be more damaging psychologically than violence encountered in other settings and can influence the emergence of aggression and antisocial behavior. In other words, incarceration may have done more psychological harm to Travis than good. In many ways, Mori Travis was the product of a system that disregarded his needs. and the needs of young black men.

He grew up in a poor, segregated city that was primed for further devastation by the crack epidemic and was incarcerated at age 23. While these are certainly not the cause of his psychopathology, it's no surprise that his troubling behavior went unrecognized and untreated. However, it's also possible that Travis's letters were simply a manipulative plea to reduce his sentence.

People displaying psychopathic behavior, are master manipulators, and it's entirely conceivable that he was using his superficial charm to try to sway the judge. While in prison, Travis worked in the Farmington Correctional Center's janitorial and food service areas. He was given 13 conduct violations during his stay. But according to a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, none of them were particularly significant. It's not clear if his letter begging the judge for leniency had any impact on his sentence, but Mori Travis was granted parole in June 1994 after five years and three months behind bars. He was 28 years old.

Mori Travis moved into a duplex just east of Ferguson. Reverend Linda Harrison lived in the unit next to him. And though they shared a common wall, she said she never had any problems with him while he lived there. Reverend Harrison recalled doing laundry in the basement of the building when Travis startled her while coming down the stairs. She said he was very apologetic, and from then on, hummed while entering the basement to announce his presence. Though Travis was a good neighbor, he was still struggling with his addiction to crack cocaine. In February 1998, at age 32, Mori Travis returned to prison for violating parole by possessing drugs. He served for a year before being released in January 1999. This is when Mori Travis bought

and moved into the house at 1001 Ford Drive in Ferguson, Missouri. He worked several waitstaff jobs in St. Louis, using his experience from working on the prison food service staff. Travis was arrested at age 35 in November of 2000, again for drug possession and violating parole. Travis served a four-month sentence and was released in March 2001. While violating parole a second time, seems like it should warrant a harsher punishment than the first.

Missouri's guidelines for sentencing parole offenders are vague and often left to the discretion of the parole board. At this point, Travis had been incarcerated three times, serving a total of almost seven years, a fifth of his life behind bars. After this release, Travis committed crimes that drastically eclipsed the gravity of the shoe store robberies and parole violations he already served time for.

Travis was given multiple chances to assimilate back into society and pursue a normal life. Instead, he couldn't ignore a growing lust for killing and began a two-year-long murder spree that would claim the lives of as many as 20 young women. Mori Travis had a seemingly normal childhood. He graduated high school, joined the Army Reserve, had enrolled in Morris Brown College, where he learned computer skills. Yet in 1980, at 23 years old, Travis committed a string of shoe store robberies while high on crack cocaine and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released on parole in 1994 after serving five years. He was 28 years old. Though he claimed to be shocked by the conditions of prison,

Travis was unable to overcome his addiction to crack cocaine and returned to prison twice for brief sentences after violating the terms of his parole and possessing drugs. It's still not clear if these additional shorter stints in prison were as traumatizing as his first. There's no evidence to suggest that they were. Around the late 90s, Travis started bringing sex workers back to his home and filming his interactions with them. He would record the two of them smoking crack cocaine at engaging in consensual sex before letting them leave. But some of these women weren't so lucky. It's not exactly clear when Mori Travis made his first kill, but he documented and narrated the act on a VHS camcorder.

Travis taped himself, wrapping his belt around an unknown naked woman's neck. He pulled, choking her until her body went limp. Once she was dead, Travis panned over the body with a video camera and said, quote, this is first kill, number one. First kill was 19 years old. Name, I don't know. First kill was nice. End quote.

Police were never able to identify this victim, and her body was never found. Mori Travis labeled the tape of his murder, Wedding Day. He recorded an hour and 26 minutes of footage from a wedding ceremony as cover before using the rest of the tape to document his rape, torture, and murder. While recording his victims, Travis often asked them to engage in bizarre rituals. He forced them to dance in white clothes or wear sunglasses with the lenses blackened so they couldn't see. At this point, the women were still largely unaware of the danger they were in. Travis would then bind them with ropes or handcuffs and cover their eyes with duct tape.

He dragged his victims downstairs to the basement where he would imprison them for days at a time. He then shackled them to a beam and taped himself sexually assaulting his victims, torturing them with a stun gun before strangling them to death. Mori Travis's torment wasn't limited to physical torture either. Travis would verbally taunt his victims, demanding that they call him master and berating them for coming home with him and for their crack addictions. In one videotape scene, Travis told his victim, I can't hear you what you're saying. Say it clear.

An unknown woman weakly responded, You are the master. It pleases me to serve you. Travis forced her to repeat this mantra over and over through her sobs. At times, his tone shifted dramatically. He asked his victim softly, You sorry? The unknown woman replied,

Yes. He responded, You sorry about what? His victim murmured everything. Travis suddenly got angry and scolds her for getting in a car with a man she didn't know. He asked her if she wanted to say something to her kids, and the woman told her children she was sorry.

Travis went on to ask this victim who was raising her kids. She explained that she was. Travis's disdain for her is clear and disturbing, as he told her she wasn't raising her kids. He said, quote, you over here on your back smoking crack. You ain't going home tomorrow. I'm going to keep you about a week, end quote.

It might be shocking, to hear Maury Travis berate women for their crack use when we know Travis himself suffered from an addiction to crack cocaine. He often smoked crack with his victims before tying them up. People who have psychopathic tendencies also display qualities of narcissism. A narcissist's inflated sense of self-importance and grandiosity makes it difficult for them to recognize his or her own flaws and leads to hypocrisy. This hypocritical behavior could also point

to a deep-seated feeling of shame and self-loathing regarding his own drug use. By targeting women who smoke crack, Travis was expressing anger toward his own drug addiction. On April 1st, 2001, less than one month after Travis is released from prison, Reverend Inuka Mwanguzi was woken by a 3 a.m. phone call. Though still half asleep, the Reverend immediately recognized the caller as Alyssa Greenwayd. Alyssa Greenwayed had experienced a tough life. She suffered from an addiction to crack cocaine and turned to sex work to pay for her expensive addiction.

However, the Reverend knew she just needed a way out. Reverend Mungozy said, quote, she felt trapped, you know, and she knew that what was happening with her was wrong. It was not good for her. She knew all of this. What she didn't know was how to get out of it, end quote. Reverend Mungozy had known Alyssa.

the Greenwayde for about a year. They met through the Reverend's community outreach work, and Reverend Mwanguzi invited the 34-year-old mother of two to live with her. On that call in April, Alyssa was excited to tell Reverend Wanguzi about a man she had just met. Alyssa wanted the Reverend to talk to this new date. When the man came to the phone, he told the reverend, quote, you've really been nice to her, but you don't have to worry about her tonight because she's with me and she's safe, end quote. Less than nine hours later, the police would find Greenway's body in a ditch in the Washington Park neighborhood of East St. Louis, partially clothed and strangled.

Alyssa Greenwayd's death was reported in only four sentences in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Crime Section. It read, quote, The body of an unidentified woman was discovered Sunday afternoon in a ditch along 60th Street at Caseyville Avenue in Washington Park, authorities said. An autopsy disclosed that the woman had been strangled. The victim was described as black in her mid to late 20s, five foot three and weighing 110 pounds. She was wearing a gray t-shirt dress, end quote.

Reverend Wanguzzi cooperated with the police. Knowing the man she spoke to on the phone was likely Greenweights killer, but she didn't know the name of the man and had no additional information. This is unfortunately common in crimes against sex workers. According to Eric Hickey, author of Serial Killers and Their Victims, Sex Workers are particularly vulnerable to serial killers. Accessibility is essential for sex workers to make a living. And because it's an illegal and highly stigmatized line of work, there's no oversight or protections for these women. It's not uncommon for sex workers to take clients they don't know.

Often they travel alone together in a car to a secluded location. So Mori Travis' victims likely didn't hesitate to get in his car and go back to his home. What's more is that many sex workers don't have a family and live a transient lifestyle, according to DJ Sears, author of To Kill Again, the Motivation and Development of Serial Murder. Other times their families are unaware of their profession and unable to give information about their recent whereabouts to police. Those who do have information are often sex workers themselves and have an unlawful. understandable distrust of the authorities. Sears also states that in cities like St. Louis, with overworked and underfunded police

departments, crimes pertaining to sex workers are often wrongly viewed as lesser priorities. The stigmatized nature of their work and the idea that sex workers are unfairly viewed as criminals within the justice system allowed Travis to target this vulnerable population with unjust impunity. Feminist scholar Lenore Kuo notes that their are dire consequences to the societal neglect of sex workers. By giving crimes against sex workers do respect and attention, we can discourage their further abuse. She writes, quote, the lack of outcry and concern when such instances are reported in the media encourages

those who would abuse and exploit women to seek out sex workers for victimization and exploitation, end quote. It's possible this lack of outcry is what allowed Travis to continued killing. claiming the lives of as many as 20 women, including his next victim, Teresa Wilson. Wilson was another sex worker who grew up in the Baden neighborhood of St. Louis. As a child, she was often left alone by her parents in the evenings. Lisa Young Gibson, a childhood friend, said Wilson had an independent streak,

which often turned into a recipe for trouble. Recalling at time they took a bus to Six Flags St. Louis and Eureka and missed the last bus home. school, Teresa Wilson wasn't into hard drugs or alcohol. She smoked some marijuana, but not excessively. Her friend Lisa said, she had a lot of male friends, but she wasn't promiscuous. At age 17, Wilson became pregnant and dropped out of high school to take care of her daughter chastity. She was a caring mother by all accounts. Lisa Young Gibson said, quote, she was an absolutely great mother. She was very attentive, very strict with her. She pushed good grades, good

behavior. She always dressed her well, end quote. But unfortunately, Wilson started using crack cocaine, and like Alyssa Greenwayd, she turned to sex work when her addiction started to bankrupt her. By the early 90s, she was working along Broadway in Baden. She was arrested several times for sex work, drug possession, shoplifting, and theft. She routinely skipped court appearances. Her daughter was often seen sitting on a bench or lingering on a corner, waiting for mother to return from a date with a client. Ultimately, Chastity Wilson was placed in a children's home when she was around 10 or 11 years old. To most people, Teresa Wilson was invisible. Bill Morrow had operated the Baden bicycle shop on Broadway for 12 years when Teresa Wilson went missing. He had

seen Wilson and other sex workers pass by his shop at all hours, day or night. Once, he had hired Wilson to work in his shop, but fired her after only a week when he was. she began stealing, forging, and cashing checks from the shop to feed her crack addiction. Bill Morrow said that Teresa Wilson would often disappear for weeks at a time, and then suddenly reappear, saying that she had been in jail or a drug rehabilitation program. So no one was alarmed or thought to file a missing person's report when 36-year-old Wilson went missing in May 2001. That May, Mory Travis picked up Teresa Wilson along Broadway, soliciting her for her services. He brought her to his home in Ferguson, and the two likely smoked crack cocaine.

Travis bound Teresa Wilson and then held her captive in his basement, where he tortured her verbally and physically, and filmed it on his VHS camcorder. As we've discussed on serial killers before, it's not uncommon for a killer to keep a memento of his or her murders. Jeffrey Dahmer famously collected pieces of the skulls of his victims, and Harvey Glatman, the Lonely Hearts Kemp. kept photographs of the women he murdered. These trophies can give the serial killer stimulus to act out again, according to Dr. Eric Hickey, author of serial murderers and their victims. But what's unique about Mori Travis' trophies is that it's not just a memento to help him remember and recall the urges associated with his crime,

but an actual recording of the crime itself. Our emotional response to memory recall is enhanced by sensory stimulation. stimulation. A serial killer might remember the events of his or her murder to recreate the high of killing, but viewing pictures of his or her victims can heighten those emotions. Advances in technology have allowed us to create more accurate recordings of their memories. Photographs surpass the accuracy of illustration. Color photographs captured more detail than black and white. And video captures a sustained period with sound and color. The closer your momentary The more sense it stimulates, the easier it is for your brain to recall.

When Mori Travis wanted to recall the emotions he got from torturing and killing his victims, he simply had to watch his videotape to see and hear his murders. The sensation he felt from watching himself verbally abuse, rape, torture, and kill gave him much more stimulus than he would have gotten from a lock of hair or an article of clothing. trophies from a bygone era of serial killing. Another reason for keeping trophies is for a sense of control over their victims. In her book, Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime, Nicole Mott writes, quote, a trophy is in essence a souvenir.

In the context of violent behavior or murder, keeping a part of the victim as a trophy represents power over that individual. When the offender keeps this kind of souvenir, it serves as a way to preserve. the memory of the victim and the experience of his or her death." The way Mori Travis forced these women to dance and repeat mantras affirming his dominance, and his desire to watch this over and over certainly indicates a need for control. Definitely. And documenting that control over his victims was another step in a ritual that ultimately existed to demonstrate his power. Ultimately, Mori Travis strangled Teresa Wilson to death.

Teresa Wilson to death. He left her body in West Alton, Missouri, just north of St. Louis, between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, roughly 30 miles from where he disposed of Alyssa Greenwayd's corpse. On May 15, 2001, 45 days after Alyssa Greenway's body was discovered, police found Teresa's body. The corpse was completely unidentifiable. Detective Jenna Walters said, there was nothing to identify. There was no clothing, no ID, no purse. No one had reported a missing person, and the body was so badly decomposed that police were unable to lift fingerprints. The only way police were able to identify the body was from a dental plate extracted from the victim's mouth. The plate was inscribed with the name Wilson.

The body count was starting to pile up, and unfortunately it would continue to do so. That is until Maury Travis made several pivotal errors. And while these errors did not immediately put him in prison, it put all of St. Louis on watch, as it slowly dawned on them that there was a serial killer in their midst. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mori Travis went from shoe store robberies and drug possession charges to much more sinister crimes. He began bringing home sex workers under the guise of soliciting them for their services. Instead, he would imprison them in his basement. Travis would blindfold the women and force them to dance and repeat mantras affirming his dominance.

He would torture the women with a stun gun and sexually assault and rape them before ultimately strangling them to death, all while videotaping these horrifying acts. This is how he claimed the lives of Alyssa Greenwayd and Teresa Wilson. On May 23, 2001, just 8.000. Eight days after police found the body of Teresa Wilson, another body surfaced in the East St. Louis area. The woman's body had evidence of bondage and strangulation. Perhaps most notable was a tire mark that was visible on her leg between her knee and ankle, indicating the murderer ran over her body with his car.

Police were able to identify the body as 46-year-old Betty James, another sex worker. About a month later, on June 29, 2001, Another body was found in West Alton, Missouri, just 16 feet from where Morrie Travis dumped the body of Teresa Wilson. This was 36-year-old Verona Thompson, another sex worker, who was found dead of strangulation six days after she went missing. This made four sex workers murdered within just two months. The police set up a multi-jurisdiction task force of investigators from the Illinois State Police, City of St. Louis Homicide. and St. Charles County Sheriff's Office. The facts of the four murders were compared,

which revealed several similarities in the victims, their professions and where they worked and the way their bodies were disposed of, including evidence of bondage and torture. It was decided that one individual was likely responsible for the deaths of these four women. St. Louis had a serial killer. As the police were starting their task force

and launching a coordinated investigative, it would have been a good time for Mori Travis to lay low. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a risky domestic dispute that threatened to expose his torture and murder. On July 4, 2001, Mori Travis' neighbors reported seeing a naked woman running and screaming from his house. Police were called to the scene. Travis was arrested for allegedly assaulting the woman, who he said he had picked up at a local club.

Yet Travis claimed that she drugged his drink. and he awoke to find her going through his wallet. When he grabbed her, she ran naked from the house. Ultimately, neither party pressed charges. While it's easy to assume that Mori Travis was lying when he said this was a woman he picked up at a club, there is evidence that Travis kept a fairly normal social life. He had girlfriends,

worked as a waiter at several restaurants around town, and enjoyed fixing up cars. Friends and coworkers have said that his 2000 black Mitsubi she eclips was his pride and joy. Cadesa Massey, a childhood friend of Mori Travis, repeatedly said that Travis didn't have a violent bone in his body.

She said she once saw another man hit Travis in a bar and said that Travis did not strike back. Those who knew Travis were surprised to find he solicited sex workers. In fact, Travis had several girlfriends during the course of his murder sprees.

Massey said he typically went for smart girls. One of his girlfriend mother's mothers said she could never have imagined that he was what she called a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, saying, he always seemed so happy, so laid back, he was the perfect gentleman. This seems to be a trend among serial killers we profile. People are often shocked to find that a person they trusted and befriended was capable of such horrific acts. Many psychopaths utilize a superficial charm, which helps them become social chameleons and gives them the appearance of a regular life, in part to conceal their crimes.

Mori Travis's ability to have girlfriends and jobs were ultimately all part of his ruse to seem as normal as possible, just as he convinced his neighbors that he was a normal, quiet boy when he was a child. His neighbors all said he lived a quiet life and could be seen cleaning his gutters, mowing his lawn, or working on his Mitsubishi eclipse. Dave Watcher, a co-worker of Travis's from the restaurant of the Mayfair Hotel in downtown St. Louis, said Travis even taught him how to wax his car and take care of the engine. While working in the restaurant during the summer of 2001, Watcher

unknowingly gained an insight into Travis's double life. He told Travis about a friend whose car was stolen and later found burning in East St. Louis. Watcher later said, Morrie told me that East St. Louis was a good place to dump things because there's not many police around? Many of Travis's victims were found in the East St. Louis area. The shrinking population of St. Louis left many vacant buildings and empty lots overgrown with weeds, where Travis disposed of his victim's bodies. Travis's comment that there were a lack of police around reflects how law enforcement were required to patrol a large urban area on a budget for a smaller population. It's tragic, but not surprising that it often took weeks for police to find

his victims, and that many bodies were never recovered. It was very risky for Travis to disclose such information to a colleague, but his mistakes were piling up. This is likely due to the grandiose sense of self-worth that narcissists and psychopaths often have. Mori Travis had already gotten away with at least four murders that we know of, and he was likely starting to feel overconfident and infallible. The more he successfully killed, the more that confidence likely grew to to the point where Mory Travis thought he was unable to be caught and wasn't being as careful as he was when he started his murders.

In the late summer of 2001, Travis made an egregious misstep that would eventually come back to haunt him. On August 25, 2001, about one month after police discovered the body of Verona Thompson and started to investigate the possibility of a serial killer in St. Louis, Travis' next victim was found naked and strangled to death. The body was identified as Yvonne Cruz, another sex worker. Two weeks later, on October 8, 2001, police found the body of a sixth sex worker, Brenda Beasley, again strangled and left naked in a field. But these last two murders differed from Travis's previous killings in a significant way.

Seminole fluids were found on both bodies. The DNA found on Cruz and Beasley matched, confirming what police had suspected, that a serial killer was responsible for these crimes. This was a glaring oversight for Travis to make, but it did not lead to his immediate arrest. Finding matching DNA on the bodies of Brenda Beasley and Yvonne Cruz was a huge win for investigators. But unfortunately, there were no matches

in the combined DNA index system run by the FBI. The national version of the database was implemented a few years earlier in 1998, and Mori Travis' initial charges for the... the shoe store robberies were from 1989, well before Missouri started collecting DNA from convicted felons. Just as the authorities made this crucial break by confirming the existence of a serial killer, the killings suddenly stopped. New bodies had been turning up every six to eight weeks. Detectives had expected to find another victim by Thanksgiving. But after Brenda Beasley was

found on October 8th, there was a noticeable lull in activity. Police had said, Several theories as to why the murders had stopped. The events of September 11, 2001 had drastically changed the mood of the country in a matter of hours. While it seemed unlikely that a large-scale national tragedy would give a serial killer a change of heart, police thought it was possible that the killer enlisted in the military, which would have been a more productive way to satisfy a lust for blood. The less exciting theory was that the killer was in prison for an unrelated crime. As it happens, the simpler answer is,

is often the correct one. On November 29, 2001, when Mori Travis was 36 years old, he returned to prison for violating parole a third time on drug possession charges. At this point, Travis' DNA could have, and arguably should have been collected and catalogued in the FBI's national database. His DNA would have been a match with the DNA

found on the bodies of Yvonne Cruz and Brenda Beasley. But for whatever reason, it was not. DNA collection is an imperfect system that requires the coordination of many separate branches and divisions of law enforcement. A forensic magazine investigation found that thousands of incarcerated prisoners do not have their DNA cataloged. There are many cases where prisoners refuse to give DNA samples or authorities simply didn't get the testing done for logistical reasons.

We don't know if Travis conscientiously refused to give a sample to conceal his larger crimes or if his DNA collection was simply overlooked. He was released in March 2002, after serving a little over three months and returned to his house on Ford Drive. While Mori Travis was in prison, police did find three more bodies, but they had been dead for months, past the point where forensics were able to identify the victims. It's not clear if Mori Travis resumed his killings after he was released for his parole violation, given the fact that previous incarcerations did not deter him from drug use or murder, it's a safe bet to say that this three-month stint in prison didn't give him a change of heart either. Regardless, by May 2002,

the police had hit a wall in their investigation. There had been no recent killings, the bodies found were unidentifiable, and Travis's DNA had no match in the national system. But Bill Smith, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, had not been able to forget about the unsolved murders of nine women, feeling they deserved to be remembered as more than just sex workers or murder victims. Smith wrote a long article profiling the life of Teresa Wilson. The article humanized Teresa Wilson. It explored her positive relationship with her daughter and friends and how she desperately tried to overcome her addiction to crack cocaine. It ran on the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 19, 2002. The article forced the readers to view

Travis' victims as real people. But Moray Travis enjoyed that as crimes were gaining notoriety. When the story ran, its author Bill Smith had no idea that his quest for empathy for the slain women of St. Louis would provoke a response from the serial killer himself. It was Bill Smith's article that ultimately chased Travis out of the shadows and led to his arrest. The article stroked a part of his ego that he could not ignore. Travis's response inadvertently left to trail back to him in a way he could never have imagined.

A trail that at the time, police had rarely used to catch criminals. A trail through the ever-burgeoning internet. Next week, we'll follow that trail. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, Tune-in, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify, or in our website, parcast.com, spelled p-ar-c-a-s-s-t-t-s-t-com. If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media.

We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. It seems simple, but it really helps our show. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Russell Nash, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admeier.

Serial Killers is written by Carolyn Clarecky and stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson.