Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Serial Killer Who Took My Father Before I Ever Got to Meet Him Still Haunts Me #65

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #serialkiller #familytragedy #truecrime #hauntedmemories #lossandgrief  Before ever meeting him, the narrator’s father was brutally murdered by a serial killer. The trauma of this loss transcends time, haunting the narrator’s life as they grapple with grief, unanswered questions, and the chilling impact of a violent crime that shaped their identity and family history.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, serialkillers, truecrimecommunity, familyloss, griefjourney, coldcase, hauntedbythepast, tragicstory, unsolvedmystery, darkmemories, victimimpact, traumahealing, crimevictim, murderstory, emotionalpain

You ever wonder who the most evil serial killer in history was? I don't mean scary, or infamous, or, the guy with the most movies about him. I mean the one who probably left the biggest trail of pain and destruction in his wake. For me, it's easy to answer. Robert Ben Rhodes He's the man who murdered my biological dad before I ever had a chance to meet him. Yeah, let that sink in for a second. This guy, nicknamed the truck stop killer.

was a long-haul trucker who crisscrossed America's interstates for years. He had this horrifying setup in the back of his truck cab, like a torture chamber on wheels. We're talking handcuffs, chains, tools, everything he needed to keep his victims trapped, humiliated, and suffering. And the scariest part? Nobody knows for sure how many lives he ended. Roads drove coast to coast, highway to highway, never staying in one place long enough to draw suspicion. Some investigators think he could have killed hundreds. It's one thing to read about

a monster like that in a book or see him on a Netflix dock. It's another thing entirely to find out his path crossed with your family. That he stole your chance to ever shake your dad's hand or hear his voice. Here's how I found out. When I was born, my mom and my biological father had already split up. She was pregnant, but they couldn't make it work because he'd gotten caught up in this weird Christian cult. By the time I came into the world, my mom was back with the man who would raise me. That's the only dad I ever knew growing up, solid, dependable, the kind of guy who's there for your soccer games and school projects. I didn't even realize I had another dad until I was around nine or ten. I was digging through a desk drawer at home, snooping around like

kids do, and I came across this photo of a guy I didn't recognize. Long hair, skateboard in hand, carefree grin. Hey, Mom, who's this? I asked, oh, that's your biological father. I told you about him before, she said, like she was mentioning the weather. Except, I didn't remember her ever telling me. After that day, I didn't think about him much. Once in a while, though, though, I'd get curious and ask her what his name was. She'd tell me, Douglas Siskowski. I'd run to the computer, punch it into Google, and, nothing. No Facebook, no LinkedIn, no old skate videos, no arrest records.

Just static silence. Years went by like that. Then, one night, when I was about 23 or 24, I was at my grandfather's house on the other side of the country. Everyone was asleep, and I couldn't. So I got on my laptop and started digging deep, like the kind of internet rabbit hole where you forget to blink. This time, I hit something. There it was. A news article from 2012.

Human remains, long unidentified, had been matched to my father, Douglas Siskowski, and his new wife at the time, Candice Walsh. The police had been holding on to the remains for third. 13 years, not knowing who they belonged to. And who was the killer? Robert Ben Rhodes. This was when my whole understanding of my life split wide open. At the height of his killing spree, Rhodes was snatching women off the highways, torturing them in his mobile dungeon, and dumping their bodies wherever he pleased. Some experts say he might have averaged three women a month. Think about that. Three lives snuffed out every single month. And my first father just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once I learned the truth,

I couldn't stop myself from trying to learn more about Doug. Turns out he'd been kind of a legend in the skateboarding world. I found old skate magazines where he'd placed third in an amateur freestyle competition in Vancouver, Canada. This was in 1986, the same year I was born, just two months before my birthday. Even crazier. He was friends with Rodney Mullen, the Rodney Mullen, the godfather of street skating, inventor of tricks like the kickflip and the Casper Slide. Doug even had a cameo in a 1986 skate video called Radical Moves, which also featured a young Tony Hawk before he was a household name. There's a clip on YouTube. Seeing him move on that board was surreal. Like I was watching a ghost. Fast forward a few years.

I'm older, married, with a daughter of my own. The curiosity. about my roots never went away. So, like any stubborn millennial with Wi-Fi, I became an amateur detective. I tracked down Doug's parents, my grandparents, as well as his two brothers. I called the grandparents first. They thought I was some kind of scammer trying to pull a fast one. Nice try, they said. Click. Strike one. Then I found one of the brother's phone numbers. Called him up. Same story, didn't believe me, didn't want anything to do with it. Strike 2. The second brother was harder to track down.

I found out he'd worked for Boeing and eventually located a corporate number in Chicago. I called late at night, not expecting anything. Hi, can I get in touch with, brother's name? Oh, sure, here's his number, just like that. I dialed him up, heart pounding. To my surprise, he seemed first. friendly. We exchanged contact info. I'll be in touch soon, he promised. He never called back. By this point, I wasn't ready to quit. I got an address for the first brother I'd spoken to,

and one day my wife, infant daughter, and I hopped on a bus and went straight there. No warning. No heads up. He opened the door, surprised but not hostile. I introduced myself, hi. I think I'm your nephew, he invited us in. Inside, it was just him and his young son, around seven years old. We talked for a while. I asked questions I'd always wanted to know, family medical history, where his parents had immigrated from, details about Doug's life. When we left, he said he'd stay in touch.

He never did. About a year later, though, my grandmother mailed me a letter. She said she'd like to meet me, but only if her husband was out of the house, she didn't want him all wound up. I thought about calling her. But life got in the way. We were moving to Vietnam soon, and I never followed up. Sometimes I still wonder if she's alive. Their house is only about a seven-minute drive from where I grew up. There was one highlight in all this searching. I managed to meet up with one of my dad's old skateboarding friends. We sat down, and I told him my whole story, about Rhodes, about finding my dad's name in a news article, about my search for family. He looked at me for a long moment and said, man, you've got Doug's mannerisms.

It's uncanny, that conversation meant more than I can put into words. And meanwhile, while I was piecing together my dad's ghost of a life, Robert Ben Rhodes was rotting away in prison. Google his mugshot. He looks like some twisted, nightmare version of Popeye the Sailor Man. People have written books and articles about him. Some of the most notable are. Roadside Prey by Alva Bush, 1996. Serial killers, The Method and Madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky, 2004.

The truck stop killer by Vanessa Veselka, GQ, 2012. That last one. Veselka herself escaped from Rhodes in 1985. Her story reads like a thriller. There are documentaries too. The FBI Files, YouTube has the episode. Cold Case Files, Season 1, Episode 16, The Truck Stop Killer slash the Texas Drifter, and podcasts galore. Death Row Diaries, The Serial Killer Podcast, leave the lights on, but nothing hits harder than the photo.

The one of 14-year-old Regina K. Walters, hands up in fear, in the barn where her life ended. Rhodes took that photo himself. It's haunting in a way words can't capture. So yeah. When people ask me who the most evil serial killer in history was, I don't hesitate. Robert Ben Rhodes. Because he didn't just terrorize strangers. He stole my dad before I ever got the chance to know him.

And that's something no amount of Googling or family tree building will ever fix. The end.