0:00

You're listening to the Freeway Fanom, a production

0:02

of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot TV, and

0:05

Black Bar METSVHAH. The views

0:07

and opinions expressed in this podcast

0:09

are solely those of the podcast author

0:12

or individuals participating in the podcast,

0:14

and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,

0:17

Tenderfoot TV, Black Bar, MITZVAH,

0:19

or their employees. This podcast

0:21

also contains subject matter that may

0:24

not be suitable for everyone. Listener

0:26

discretion is advised.

0:31

DC had never had a serial killing

0:33

before, and so it wasn't something

0:35

not that you ever get used to it, but it wasn't something they

0:37

were familiar with. And so if there's a body

0:40

found here, and then you know, a few weeks

0:42

later, there's a body found here and some months later,

0:44

and they don't connect it until the

0:46

fourth one or so, then it

0:49

sort of spirals and people take notice

0:52

and then they said, oh, Houston, we've

0:54

got a problem here. These deaths may be

0:57

connected. And I'm not sure why

0:59

that is. Maybe because you

1:01

know, there were different detectives assigned to each

1:03

of the cases. Maybe because

1:06

you know, one of the bodies or so was found

1:08

across the district line in Maryland and

1:10

they didn't communicate Maryland in d

1:12

C. Or again, maybe it's because

1:14

there were so many homicides in the

1:17

city and six little black girls

1:19

from not the best parts of town.

1:22

You know, did anyone really care outside of their

1:24

families.

1:30

The homicide detectives termed

1:33

the cases the little girl cases.

1:35

This child was laying on the side

1:37

of the road.

1:38

I wouldn't go no way, I

1:41

wouldn't come up my house.

1:42

Those first five murders

1:44

should have been a huge warning bell for the police.

1:47

We just want to know what happened.

1:49

This person must have saw that. They were

1:51

thinking that maybe it's just one person, and he

1:53

says, they need to know.

1:55

This is me.

1:57

I thought that they would catch him.

1:59

I thought it just a matter of time.

2:02

I'm Celeste Hedley and this is

2:04

Freeway Phantom.

2:11

In the last episode, we learned about the third

2:13

and fourth victims of the Freeway Phantom,

2:15

Brenda Crockett and Nina Mosha Yates.

2:18

Up until this point, these murders were

2:21

largely considered by law enforcement to be

2:23

unconnected, but the murder of

2:25

Yates was a big turning point.

2:28

She was twelve years old and she was

2:31

found on October first, nineteen seventy

2:33

one. She was a seventh grader,

2:35

and she was a very quiet and well

2:38

behaved child. In the evening,

2:40

she went to the safeway that was a few

2:42

blocks away from her home to buy a bag

2:44

of sugar.

2:46

This is author Victoria Hester, who

2:48

co wrote a book with her father Blaine Pardo,

2:51

on the Freeway Phantom Murders. She

2:53

reminds us that Nina Mosha Yates

2:55

walked to a nearby safeway around

2:57

seven pm one night to pick up some

3:00

groceries, and then after leaving,

3:02

she was somehow abducted. She

3:05

was found dead just over two hours later

3:07

in Prince George's County.

3:10

Her body was found by a fifteen

3:12

year old hitchhiker beside Pennsylvania

3:14

Avenue, just sixteen hundred

3:16

feet beyond the district line.

3:19

Her body was still warm when

3:21

it was found, so she had been dumped

3:23

and killed very recently. She

3:25

was literally just dumped on the side of

3:28

the road.

3:29

Co writer Blaine Pardo told us about the

3:31

evidence gathering process that law

3:33

enforcement went through for Ninemosha.

3:36

They would have looked under fingernails, et

3:39

cetera, not for DNA

3:41

traceable, but to see if she had scraped

3:44

her victim or fought back and

3:47

that was done, but

3:50

you don't get that tangible

3:53

piece of Oh you've got somebody's skin,

3:56

we can run DNA on it, etc. So

3:58

while they may have found things like that, unfortunately

4:02

those things usually wouldn't have been preserved

4:04

and they didn't have the means to preserve those

4:07

things. But they said the problem

4:09

was at the time, the police always had kind of a

4:11

standard blanket in the back of their car

4:13

for when they found dead bodies, and they throw that

4:15

blanket on them. And it's

4:18

not like the blanket went off, got sterilized,

4:21

completely cleaned before it was used

4:23

again. It was a blanket

4:25

that they used over and over. So the

4:27

contamination could have come from any

4:30

number of sources. And I think

4:32

that's one of the complicating factors when it

4:34

comes to the DNA is how this evidence

4:36

was physically handled. These

4:39

guys didn't put on rubber gloves when they touched

4:41

things that you know, they just picked

4:43

it up and you're going to pick

4:45

up trace DNA of everybody that's ever

4:47

touched that piece of clothing. So

4:49

it's a real tricky thing.

4:52

But police were able to identify

4:54

and preserve a few pieces of evidence.

4:57

They found what they called negroid hair

5:00

on her sanitary napkin hairs that

5:02

did not belong to her. They

5:04

also found green fibers, much

5:06

like the ones that had been found on previous victims.

5:10

No one knew about the green synthetic

5:13

fibers until Detective

5:15

Lloyd Davis. When Davis

5:18

had requested that all the evidence

5:20

be sent to the FBI. That's

5:22

when they came back about the green synthetic

5:25

fibers, which aren't really

5:27

green if you see them visually.

5:30

This is retired MPD Detective

5:33

Romaine Jenkins.

5:35

Now, this is what the FBI technician told

5:37

me, the guy who handled the cases. To

5:39

the naked eye, they're a different color. They're

5:42

only green if you look at

5:44

them under microscott. Then what

5:46

are the sources of the fibers?

5:48

That's what I wanted to know about the fiber

5:50

evidence, I asked him. I

5:52

said, well, you know, what's the source of the

5:54

fibers? He said he thought they came.

5:57

From an auto.

5:58

He said, but let me get my notes that I'll get

6:00

back to you. Well, it took for ages for him

6:02

to get back to me. Fine, he didn't. He said, nah,

6:05

I think they came from an auto. But

6:07

I talked to Detective Lloyd Davis,

6:10

who had all the evidence submitted.

6:12

He said he was told that

6:15

the fibers came from a bathroom

6:17

mate like a bath mat and a

6:19

bathroom, and that goes along with these

6:22

victims being washed and cleaned.

6:24

I said, that sounds about

6:26

right, You know that as far as I'm

6:28

concerned.

6:30

We'll explore the possible sources of these

6:32

fibers in a later episode, but

6:34

for now, there are two important things

6:36

to keep in mind. Technology

6:38

at the time just wasn't advanced

6:41

enough to properly examine these fibers,

6:43

so they were stored away, possibly

6:45

in the boxes that Romayne has stored in

6:47

her home.

6:50

Oh, these are glass slides, don't don't bother

6:52

that. No, I'm not gonna open

6:54

them.

6:54

For sure, but these are hairs and

6:56

fire. These are actual glass slides with the hairs

6:58

and fibers. It's

7:01

possible that today we could revisit

7:04

the fibers to learn more about their origin,

7:06

but the evidence would need to be resubmitted

7:08

for processing. The other significant

7:11

matter, as Romaine alluded to, is that

7:13

the FBI was now involved. After

7:16

the murder of Ninomosia Yates, law enforcement

7:19

finally started to recognize that these cases

7:21

were connected, and that expanded

7:24

the scope of the investigation.

7:26

The fourth body that brought more

7:29

people in because where's the body

7:31

found. You're talking about PG

7:34

County, right, You're talking about crossing

7:36

jurisdictional lines, So then he

7:38

is PG County coming into play.

7:41

By the time we get to Ninomosia, people

7:43

are beginning to think this is the same

7:46

perpetrator. They didn't

7:48

have a phrase of serial killer. They

7:50

may be called it a pattern killer.

7:52

Ye pattern case.

7:54

The homicide detectives term

7:57

the case is the Little Girl cases

7:59

because they didn't know anything about Freeway

8:02

pantom.

8:04

Up until this point. The FBI was only

8:06

vaguely aware of the first few murders

8:08

in the Little Girl cases.

8:12

I would hear them talk about the first

8:14

two is I recall the

8:16

bodies were found with only

8:18

about fifteen feet of each other, and

8:21

that kind of peaked their interest

8:23

what we got going on. We've never had a serial murder

8:26

here, but we've had multiple

8:28

murders, and I thought, there's

8:30

something in here that would be interesting to

8:33

get into and see how you would how you would

8:35

work it out, how you could figure out who did it.

8:38

This is retired Special Agent Barry Culvert,

8:40

one of the FBI investigators who worked

8:42

the case. He says that once

8:45

victims started turning up both in DC and

8:47

over the state line in PG County, the

8:50

FBI officially got involved.

8:53

At the time of this case in

8:55

nineteen seventy, I'd been working

8:57

fugitives and bank robberies four

9:00

or five years, and that lets

9:02

you know just about every corner

9:05

in their dark alley and Washington,

9:07

d C.

9:08

If you work those kind of cases, Colvert

9:10

says, the Freeway phantom murders felt different

9:13

to him. He was struck by the

9:15

innocence and youth of the victims and

9:17

felt compelled to work their cases.

9:20

All of these girls were not

9:23

from runaway families. These girls,

9:26

from what I can remember just hearing

9:28

from the detectives, these were

9:30

families that went to churchs and watched

9:32

after their girls and wanted to

9:34

know where they were. They were

9:36

good families. They didn't

9:39

take chances that would have led

9:41

them to that kind of death. I

9:43

don't think. I don't know that they would

9:45

have taken a chance of getting in a car with

9:47

somebody that they didn't know to

9:50

get a ride home or something. I don't think they would have.

9:53

Colvert remembers when they got the call to join

9:55

the investigation.

9:57

I think the Chief of Police in Washington re

10:00

down to our agent in charge of the Washington

10:02

office. They had so many leads and

10:04

so many things to cover, they just didn't have

10:06

the manpower. There was a lot of things

10:08

going on in Washington then. This was only

10:11

two or three years after Martin

10:13

Luther King and Stokely

10:15

Carmichael had killed the

10:17

pigs, burned the pigs, and we were pigs, so

10:20

they were really shorthanded. And the fact

10:23

that it was a federal crime, we could assist

10:25

the Metropolitan Police in

10:27

leads that were just over the line in Maryland

10:30

or in Virginia because we had jurisdiction

10:33

on those places. And I think the

10:35

Boss came around and he was taking agents

10:38

off of various squads to see

10:40

if they wanted to work on the homicide case,

10:42

this particular case, and I immediately

10:45

offered my services. I said, I like the

10:47

detectives that I worked with over there. I'll

10:49

be one of the volunteers for it. And that's

10:51

how I got involved in this case.

10:55

Colvert says the FBI's investigation

10:57

of the Freeway phantom murders was broad,

11:00

intense, and incredibly

11:02

hands on.

11:04

We figured there had to be someone that got

11:06

away, someone that was lured to

11:08

the car, and we even had a couple of cases

11:10

where they were forced into the car, duct

11:13

taped, but they got away. So

11:15

you would take that thinking maybe

11:17

that could be our guy. There has to be someone

11:20

that he's not successful with when

11:23

working those cases, because we actually

11:25

had evidence and witnesses. There

11:27

was one that was dropped on the side of the highway. It seemed

11:30

like a truck driver went by and

11:32

thought he saw a white

11:34

van or a white pickup truck or something.

11:37

If you had a partial tag number,

11:39

you couldn't go on a computer. You had to

11:41

go through files. We got

11:43

leads from psychics that were weird,

11:46

but you were almost afraid to

11:48

discount any of them. The

11:50

one good suspect that

11:53

we developed, the young girl

11:55

was coming out of a drug store, I think on Minnesota

11:58

Avenue, and a

12:00

white man called to her to come

12:02

to the window, and I think when

12:04

she backed away, thinking he was just asking for

12:06

information and he was really trying to get her in the car

12:09

either, he reached out for her and she pulled

12:11

back and screamed, and

12:14

other witnesses came forward and gave us

12:16

a tag number, and when we identified

12:19

this person, he was

12:21

a contractor that either

12:24

built houses, apartments, main

12:27

building schools in all not

12:29

only the district, but in Maryland and Virginia.

12:32

If he was working on those buildings and offices,

12:34

he had a place because I know at

12:37

least two of our victims were kept

12:39

for a day or two and then bathed.

12:42

He could tell he had been washed before

12:44

they were dropped on the side of the road, so

12:46

we figured that would fit. He'd have

12:49

a place to take them. He was not a

12:51

threatening looking person at all, so

12:53

I thought this guy looks good. They

12:56

did a polygraph exam on it him and

12:58

I think he passed. I thought he was

13:00

a good match.

13:02

Culvert didn't provide the name of his suspect,

13:05

but we reviewed the FBI case file. He

13:07

was thoroughly investigated and cleared

13:09

of suspicion, and so it

13:12

was just one of many dead ends.

13:15

That was the kind of leads we got. Mostly they

13:17

would come in by the phone or they would

13:19

give you a nickname. We heard that

13:21

bow Ray had done something

13:23

like this. He had raped the girl and got

13:26

mad at her or something, and he was afraid

13:29

she was going to go back and rat on him because

13:31

she knew him and he killed her. We

13:33

didn't have an internet to look. We had

13:35

to go through hand files, these

13:37

index cards. Bow Ray, Who's

13:39

bow Ray out there? Because everybody went by

13:41

street name in DC, so you never got

13:44

a name. It was bou Ray or Mumpsy Bumps

13:46

or Niani or something like that. So

13:49

you go through the moniker file, you never

13:51

have one. You'd have six bow Rays

13:53

in there.

13:55

As a result, Culvert says, their investigation

13:58

became both frustrating and exhausting.

14:01

We had spent so many nights away

14:04

from home, so many weekends,

14:06

so many holidays, out on

14:08

the street, either in a surveillance

14:11

or just trying to catch somebody. If

14:13

you had a suspect, you didn't

14:15

have any evidence. The only chance you had

14:18

maybe was following some night and

14:21

catch him in the act of trying to

14:23

get a little girl in the car, pull him over,

14:26

charging with a misdemeanor. Till you could get prints

14:28

and hair samples or something. That's

14:31

what you were hoping for, And it was

14:33

labor intensive. You

14:35

sat in cars with these

14:38

guys all night long and

14:41

the worst weather, hoping we'd

14:43

get a line on somebody, somebody that's going to

14:45

call up here and try to do this, and we're going.

14:47

To get them.

14:48

At the end of the day, you thought,

14:51

is there something else we could do right now?

14:54

Your shift is up, you've done your eight ten hours,

14:56

and you're ready to go home. Man,

14:59

if we could swinging by that corner one

15:01

more time and look and see if we see

15:04

a white man, let's do

15:06

it. Let's do it now. You

15:08

were bone tired the next day,

15:10

but no one was looking at their watch,

15:13

no one was looking to see, all right this

15:16

time, let's cut it off. Let's go home. There's nothing else

15:18

we can do. Is there something

15:20

else we could do right now that we couldn't

15:23

do tomorrow? It's one o'clock in the morning,

15:25

But sometimes that's the most advantageous

15:28

time to find this

15:30

kind of person doing this, And

15:33

sometimes it meant driving way the heck out in

15:35

PG County to just see where my

15:37

friend was. At that time, there

15:40

was no doubt these guys were committed to

15:42

solving this thing, and I really thought we

15:45

might. I believed it at that time. I

15:47

believed it. I said, he's going to do something

15:49

stupid. Somebody's going to get

15:51

away, and we'll get him.

16:14

The work of retired FBI Special Agent

16:17

Barry Culvert was impressive. Up

16:19

until this point, it seemed like law enforcement wasn't

16:22

taking these cases seriously, but

16:24

Culvert's team appeared to be different. He

16:26

says they were dedicated to solving

16:29

these murders. Culvert and his detective Jimmy

16:31

Owens interviewed dozens of people from

16:33

the community and talked to numerous

16:35

family members of the victims. Culvert

16:38

remembers one night when they visited a family

16:40

member to show her some evidence they'd found

16:42

at a suspect's residence.

16:45

We were going out to a woman's house and

16:47

I think it might have been the aunt of one of them,

16:50

and I was going to take this picture to

16:52

show her these items like

16:55

ring, ear rings,

16:57

maybe some little trinkets that a teenage

16:59

girl would have. And I remember

17:02

that because it was the one that made that the hardest

17:04

to get off of this case. Jimmy

17:06

was on the phone and the police cruiser

17:09

and he said, you just take it in there, and usually

17:11

the police there were the evidence custodians

17:13

of these things, says you go in and do it.

17:16

So I can remember knocking on her door and

17:18

she came to the door and

17:20

I told her this is. My name is Barry, Barry covered.

17:22

I'm an FBI is't and I'm

17:25

trying to find who killed

17:27

your niece cousin. And

17:30

she said come in. As soon as I came in

17:32

the door, she took my arm and

17:34

she led me over to the dining table

17:37

to sit down, and I said, I have this picture

17:39

if you've ever seen any

17:42

of these things on that she had

17:45

and she put that paper down like

17:48

she was she was being

17:50

so gentle with that picture

17:52

of those items, and she kept

17:55

rushing the edges, looking and then

17:57

she'd pick it up, and then she'd

18:00

away and put it back down. And

18:02

I noticed that her eyes were tearing

18:04

up when she looked at the picture. And

18:07

then she said, I don't recognize

18:09

any of these. It must be one

18:12

of the other girls. Boy, that

18:14

just I didn't know what to

18:16

say after that, I know, I said, well,

18:18

we'll do the best we can. We're going to try to find

18:21

this person. We got up, and

18:23

she held my arm all the way back to the front door,

18:26

and I turned around and stopped and I said,

18:29

just took her by the shoulder. I said, we're

18:32

going to find out who did this. We are

18:34

going to find out who did this. And

18:36

I gave her a hug, and

18:38

then we walked out the front and

18:41

it was hard because she just stood by

18:43

that front door, that glass door, watching me get

18:45

in that car. And when I got in the car,

18:48

Jimmy Owen said, hey, you know you've got

18:50

lipstick on your shirt. Let me get a get

18:52

me get a clean next that. And I said, you know, Jimmy,

18:56

let's don't wipe it off for a while. Let's leave

18:58

that on here. I

19:00

don't know that I ever. I'm sure

19:02

I sent the suit to the cleaners, but I

19:05

think I wanted it on there for a while. I

19:08

think I did just because

19:10

of that interview with that woman. I'd

19:12

made a pledge. And

19:15

from the South, we touch and hug a lot of people,

19:17

and I'm a hugger, but in

19:20

this case it was more than just a hug.

19:22

It was like, this

19:24

is me promising.

19:26

This is more than a promise. I just want you to

19:29

know I mean what I say. We're

19:31

going to find the person that did this. And

19:33

I wanted her to know that and

19:36

not some perfunctory handshake or

19:39

i'll see you later. It

19:41

meant more than that to me. And

19:44

then later, when our

19:46

role stopped, I

19:49

remembered that promise to that woman and

19:52

it just kind of hard to walk away from it. That's

19:55

why this was different. I could not

19:57

do this three months six

20:00

months that we did this. This

20:02

was this was hard. This was a

20:04

hard step.

20:07

Meanwhile, public perceptions about the murders

20:09

were shifting. Now that the cases

20:11

had all been connected, things were

20:13

changing in the neighborhood.

20:16

I think, just like during the DC stipe

20:18

of time doing that when we

20:20

talk about mass murders or killings, the

20:23

communities started to close ranks

20:26

a little more, be more watchful.

20:29

This is Derek Davis who we talked to in episode

20:32

two. His family has owned a barbershop

20:34

in the neighborhood since the sixties.

20:37

People were more watchful of our youth

20:39

then. Okay, they were looking

20:42

out for him. People were talking

20:44

about it more. It was more talk. For

20:47

instance, what I mean when people came to barber

20:49

shop, that was that was the discussion

20:52

in the barbershop. And people were saying, well,

20:54

watch out, you know, watch out and doing it this and

20:56

that that.

20:56

Yeah, you know, we're doing this. I'm getting off.

20:58

At this time, you know, people were

21:01

kind of like somewhat forming their own

21:03

groups or own not

21:06

like police school, but something like neighborhood

21:08

watches or the orange chat watches

21:10

when you said these orange hat where

21:12

communities were started to walk.

21:14

The blocks and stuff like that.

21:16

So the community were kind

21:18

of like somewhat policing the sells the

21:21

best way they could to stop

21:23

what was happening. We couldn't stop what already

21:25

happened for surely, and we

21:28

didn't necessarily see where

21:31

that support was coming from.

21:33

Also sitting with us was Derek's friend, Reverend

21:36

Anthony Motley, and we got to talking

21:38

about why it is that there

21:40

was practically no media coverage

21:43

on this case. It's astonishing

21:46

to me that someone could

21:49

snatch and murder young

21:51

black girls and now we can't even

21:53

find coverage.

21:56

How come because

21:58

they're black.

22:01

Even today we had

22:03

a six year old murder

22:06

walking to the store with her father and

22:08

mother and they get caught in a

22:10

drive by The mother

22:12

and father wounded, two more people

22:14

wounded, the little baby gets dead. The

22:18

media, they show up, they

22:20

do a press conference, and then

22:23

they go by.

22:25

It's like sensationalism exactly

22:28

what it is.

22:29

That's what they do. Don't do you

22:31

have any what they call invest

22:33

investigative reporters

22:36

anymore? And if they do

22:38

investigate, they don't investigate

22:41

when it comes to black people, you know,

22:43

unless it's something that that that's

22:45

juicy, you know, like the

22:48

government. But as far as

22:50

the community is concerned, since

22:53

another day in the park.

22:58

This frustration was evident in community

23:00

throughout the murders. Community

23:02

member Wilma Harper wrote about it in her

23:04

book The Mystery of the Freeway

23:07

Phantom.

23:09

The bizarre murders of these black girls

23:11

had not aroused the press to an acceptable

23:14

degree. The communities seemed

23:16

to have forgotten. Families

23:18

of the victims bore their sorrow alone

23:21

in hopelessness and terror.

23:24

Harper writes that at one point,

23:26

members of the Congress Heights neighborhood took

23:28

it upon themselves to hold a press

23:31

conference. They wanted to protest

23:33

what they called poor police protection

23:35

and a lack of media coverage.

23:38

The press conference was called by Calvin

23:40

Rolark, editor publisher of

23:43

the Weekly Washington Informer and

23:45

president of the Washington Highland Civic

23:47

Association. He accused

23:49

the police and news media of failing to give

23:52

equal attention to crimes in the Southeast.

23:55

He condemned newspapers for bearing news

23:57

of the deaths of the three girls.

24:00

If it was a blue eyed, white girl from Silver

24:02

Spring, her picture would have been all

24:05

over page one. About

24:07

seventy five persons attended the press

24:09

conference at one zero five

24:11

eight Waller Place, Southeast.

24:15

Harper remembers that just before Ninomosia

24:17

Gates was murdered, the media went entirely

24:20

dark on the case.

24:22

During the months of August and September,

24:25

the news media made no reports of

24:27

the progress in the investigation of the

24:29

murders. I was recuperating

24:31

from an automobile accident and was free to

24:34

diligently watch for information. My

24:36

interest in the cases had been heightened because

24:38

I knew family members of two of the victims.

24:41

I was also in accord with the earlier

24:43

interest taken by citizens of the Southeast

24:46

community to protect their children

24:48

from such crimes. The lull

24:50

ended on October second, nineteen seventy

24:53

one, not with the announcement

24:55

of a solution, but with the headline

24:57

of yet another black girl's murder.

25:04

If you'd look through news releases and police

25:06

departments, I mean, you're not gonna find a whole lot

25:08

of photos from fifty

25:10

years ago.

25:12

This is NPR investigative correspondent

25:14

Cheryl Thompson who we heard from at the top

25:16

of the episode. When she thoroughly

25:18

investigated this case in twenty eighteen,

25:21

she says it was difficult to find any

25:23

substantial news coverage.

25:25

Initially at some of the microfish

25:28

I looked at, it was lobbed in with

25:30

you know, like, Okay, a girl's body was found

25:32

here, and then you know, some guy found across

25:35

town. You know, it was just sort of like in

25:37

passing. So there was

25:39

coverage, but again then it just sort of faded.

25:43

You know, in the early seventies, Vietnam was

25:45

all the daily, NonStop

25:47

coverage, right every single

25:49

day, day in and day out. And you had these

25:52

May Day protesters, thousands

25:54

of them on the nation's capitol, and so

25:56

that was the coverage. I mean, you know, Detective

25:58

Jenkins will tell you that even

26:00

at the time when they found the first body,

26:02

that they were going to the scene, the supervisor

26:04

pulled them office said no, no, I need for you to go down

26:07

down to the mall and deal

26:09

with the protesters. And murder always

26:11

took homicide always took precedence, but not in

26:14

this instance, So I think that was probably

26:16

part of it.

26:18

However, there was one major

26:21

piece of news coverage following the murder

26:23

of Ninamoshi Gates, the Daily

26:25

News published an article about the now connected

26:28

murders and they named the killer the

26:30

Freeway Phantom. We

26:32

haven't been able to find this news clipping. There

26:34

are some conflicting reports as to the

26:37

exact date of this article, but we

26:39

know it came before the killer's next victim

26:41

was found. But they still didn't refer

26:43

to the Freeway Phantom as a serial killer,

26:46

and Romaine Jenkins explains why.

26:49

Well, at the time, the term serial

26:52

killers was not even in existence.

26:54

The FBI didn't even have its profiling

26:57

unit. So if we had a pat and

26:59

of cases, we call them pattern cases.

27:02

The reason you.

27:03

Said pattern because there was something about

27:05

the cases that linked them together. Either the

27:07

suspect wore the same clothing or said

27:10

the same thing in these instances.

27:13

They weren't sure that it was the same person.

27:16

It was hard for them to believe that one person

27:18

could have committed all of these crimes. So a

27:20

lot of times you had investigators

27:23

going off in their own direction, you

27:25

know, looking for suspects you know

27:27

that they felt might fit the profile

27:30

of the person.

27:32

They might not have had a name for it at the time,

27:34

but the Freeway Phantom was likely Washington,

27:37

DC's first serial killer.

27:41

Let me just say, I really

27:43

hate the way that we give these killers

27:45

these names. I know we have

27:48

to do it like you know, just that's what it

27:50

is. But I think that

27:52

naming them, giving them this quasi

27:54

mythological status, just elevates them.

27:56

And these are despicable human beings, you

27:59

know.

28:00

Doctor Jean Murley is an author and professor

28:02

of English at Queensborough Community College.

28:05

She specializes in true crime and has

28:07

studied the history and psychology of serial

28:09

killers. To get a clear picture

28:11

of the Freeway Phantom, we need to understand

28:14

what a serial killer is. So

28:16

I sat down with doctor Murley and asked her to

28:18

fill in some missing pieces on that front.

28:22

The standard definition of serial killing for a

28:24

long time was three or more victims

28:26

with a kind of.

28:27

A cooling off period between

28:29

each.

28:30

That's been revised, right, That's

28:32

been changed to two victims

28:35

at two different times for any

28:38

reason.

28:39

What were these killers

28:41

called before we I mean, we

28:43

clearly had serial killers before the nineteen seventies,

28:46

right, I mean, if nothing else, everybody

28:48

knows about Jack the Ripper. But

28:51

what were they called? What did we how

28:53

did we or law enforcement make sense

28:56

of them.

28:57

Before we had this language

29:00

to comprehend and to articulate

29:03

this phenomenon, we use

29:05

a more gothic terminology of the

29:07

monstrous. Right, these

29:09

people were monsters. They were wicked,

29:13

evil, demonic even

29:15

And so you're moving from a

29:17

more emotional rhetoric

29:20

into one that's more scientific and

29:22

objective in a way.

29:24

Can I put to you some of the most

29:26

common myths about serial killers and have you respond

29:28

to each one? The first one, I think,

29:31

shows like Criminal Minds makes us think that

29:33

there are way more serial

29:35

killers than there are. I

29:37

mean, they have someone to catch every week, and

29:39

the FBI says, I mean

29:41

every murder is awful, but no more than

29:43

one percent of all murders were committed

29:45

by a serial killer. Why

29:49

do we think they're so ubiquitous? Is it only

29:51

the true crime shows.

29:53

It's not true that the country

29:56

is sort of crawling with serial

29:58

killers. It never really was

30:00

true. What is true

30:03

is that serial killing as

30:05

a phenomenon goes

30:07

through waves and troughs, right,

30:10

and so in the post

30:12

war period, right in the nineteen

30:14

fifties to the nineteen

30:16

nineties, there was a

30:19

very large uptick in the number.

30:21

Of serial killers who were.

30:23

Apprehended who were active

30:25

and apprehended. In nineteen

30:28

fifty, there were seventy two known

30:31

serial killers in the country. Nineteen

30:34

sixty there were two hundred and seventeen,

30:36

nineteen seventy wow, six hundred

30:39

eighty, seven hundred and sixty eight,

30:41

nineteen ninety six sixty nine, two

30:44

thousand and three, seventy one, twenty

30:46

ten, which is the latest statistic,

30:49

one hundred and seventeen.

30:52

So next myth serial killers

30:54

are almost all white men.

30:56

That's a good one too, and similar

30:59

to the ways that the numbers of killers

31:02

sort of peaks and troughs, race

31:05

and serial killing is a very interesting

31:07

thing. Early on, there were

31:09

more white men than

31:12

any other race. It was about

31:14

sixty percent white men, thirty

31:17

or thirty five percent black men, the

31:20

rest Hispanic Asian Native

31:22

Americans, very very very small numbers

31:25

that started to become more even

31:27

more fifty to fifty as the

31:30

seventies, eighties, and nineties rolled

31:32

on. And that's a very

31:34

interesting thing that you know,

31:36

it is true that serial killers

31:39

do tend to victimize

31:41

members of their own race, but the

31:44

fact is that the racial categories

31:46

of black and white seemed to become more even

31:48

as the decades were on.

31:51

What about the myth that serial

31:53

killers are isolated

31:56

dysfunctional, Well.

31:58

That isn't actually, I wouldn't say on

32:00

myth. I would say that's pretty true. We're

32:02

talking about people who are psychopathic,

32:06

and that means they

32:08

have trouble with long term relationships

32:11

of any type. They have trouble keeping jobs,

32:13

they have trouble fitting in antisocial

32:15

personality disorder. They

32:17

tend to also commit

32:20

a range of sort of lesser

32:22

crimes and so interactions

32:25

with the system, whether it's misdemeanors

32:28

or smaller felonies. These are

32:30

not people who you

32:32

know, generally, you would want to be friends with and

32:34

have.

32:35

A lot of friends.

32:36

They are people who are.

32:37

Just like, oh, you know, that guy's weird. I don't

32:39

want to you know.

32:41

The charming, charismatic,

32:43

seemingly normal guys

32:45

are the outliers, right, And that's what

32:47

true crime has fed us, and that's what a

32:49

lot of the movies and fiction television

32:52

feeds us. So I would say

32:55

that the majority of serial killers are not

32:57

people who are successful human

32:59

beings.

33:01

The term serial killer wouldn't come around

33:03

until the late seventies, but the killer

33:05

took notice of the attention that this new Moniker

33:08

Freeway Phantom gave him. Not

33:11

long after Ninomosia Yates he would

33:13

attack again, and this time

33:16

emboldened.

33:39

I grew up. As I said in Washington, d C. I

33:41

wasn't far from the freeway to ninety five.

33:44

And when I was in elementary

33:47

school, Harris Elementary School, one

33:49

of the victims was in the class with

33:51

my sister in the fifth grade, and I remember

33:53

in the school they announced it and

33:55

we would devastate. My sister was crushed.

33:58

It was just a really scary time.

34:01

And I remember my mom. You know, she

34:03

was from the South, so you know, she wasn't playing anyway,

34:05

but it just heightened the

34:08

fear.

34:09

This is Rita McCoy who we heard from an episode

34:11

two. She's now a retired

34:14

detective from the Metropolitan Police Department.

34:16

But she went to school with Nenomoshia Gates

34:19

and remembers when she was murdered.

34:23

So when that happened with her, I

34:25

think I was about eleven

34:28

or twelve. When I was in

34:30

junior high school. There was an incident.

34:33

It was about four thirty in the afternoon, and

34:35

I'm you know, I'm a teenage girl, and

34:38

I had another little kid in my neighborhood. We

34:40

were going to get some can d

34:42

and stuff for her and just hanging out after

34:45

school. And we were walking up

34:47

this hill off of Benning Road, just

34:50

walking along, laughing. It was a beautiful day.

34:52

And all of a sudden I saw this white

34:55

Cadillac were on the sidewalk

34:57

and it pulled up and like it was parking, and

35:00

all of a sudden, the guy he comes out of the driver's

35:02

side and he comes around the front of

35:04

the car and snatches me,

35:07

and he's not saying anything, and

35:09

he grabbed my arm and

35:11

he's holding me and he's pulling open his

35:13

passenger door. And I'm looking at

35:15

this guy and there's no emotion on his

35:17

face none, And I'm like, you

35:20

know, screaming and hollering, and the little girl

35:22

is hollering. Her name is Wanda, and

35:25

I'm trying to grab stuff. I grabbed a

35:27

piece of brick off the ground and hit him,

35:29

and nothing deterred him, and he just was

35:31

strong, and I was kicking

35:33

and fighting, and I was almost in the

35:35

car, and people were driving up and

35:37

down the road broad daylight. So

35:40

all of a sudden, coming down the hill, that

35:43

good old God, there were some friends

35:45

of my older brother named

35:47

Roosevelt and his friends were coming down the hill

35:49

and they said, isn't that Rose sister,

35:52

And I mean for them to even see me over

35:54

his car, it blows me away.

35:57

But they saw guests coming down the hill. They could see

35:59

it, and they say, hey. They screamed

36:01

to the guy because it was warm out and the windows were down,

36:03

and the guy dropped me and I fell

36:06

to the ground and I'm telling you, almost

36:08

slammed the door on my leg. And

36:10

I jumped up, you know, because I just was

36:12

so scared. And he closed the door and jumped in the car and

36:14

drove off. So the guys

36:17

flagged down the police officer. I

36:19

don't know what they said to the police. They were older

36:21

than me. They had to be like sixteen,

36:24

seventeen, eighteen, whatever, and

36:26

so they told the police what they saw and everything,

36:28

and the police officer let him go because the police

36:30

officer wanted to see if he can catch the guy. So

36:33

we got in the car police car. Next

36:35

thing I know, the police officer, I

36:38

guess he got a radio call or something,

36:40

because I gave him the description of car and everything,

36:42

and they found him instill on Benning rude.

36:45

So we just went down to where

36:47

he was and there was another officer

36:50

already talking to him. And this officer got out

36:52

and he said, you stay in the car. Next thing I

36:54

know, I see him cuff him and put him

36:56

in a police call and then took

36:58

me also to the station with my mom came

37:01

and got me. I don't

37:03

know what they did with him. I know they

37:05

took him that day, but I don't know what

37:07

happened as a result, because I never was called,

37:10

so I don't know what they did or whatever. But

37:12

when we were talking about this

37:15

case, when I was talking with others

37:17

about it years later, as matter of fact,

37:19

I mean we're talking about maybe a couple of years

37:21

ago, it hit me. Could

37:24

this have been the freeway

37:27

phantom. I don't know. It

37:30

made me wonder because this guy

37:32

was very fierce and he was very

37:35

determined, and I mean it was

37:37

no conversation, just snatching

37:39

off the street. And when you look at those

37:41

cases, that's what happened in each one

37:44

of those cases, they were just snatched

37:46

off the street. So it's just something

37:48

to ponder. Thank

37:50

god it was saved from that.

37:55

It's unclear if the man who tried to abduct

37:57

Rita was the Freeway Phantom,

38:00

but it's very possible she

38:02

was the exact demographic that the phantom

38:04

was targeting, black, young and petite.

38:07

She was also on Bending Road that's

38:10

the same road that nine Moosha was snatched

38:12

off of. And there was one other

38:14

strange similarity.

38:16

Back then, they had this in school.

38:19

It was one piece like

38:22

shorts that we used for our gym

38:24

class and it was like a one piece jumper

38:27

but the shorts and I had

38:29

that on and you know, it wasn't provocative

38:32

or anything, you know.

38:33

So you were in the gym outfit, which

38:36

is one of the other girls.

38:37

Was in as well. Did you know that?

38:38

No?

38:38

I didn't. I did not know that. Are

38:40

you kidding me? I never knew

38:42

that. Well, you

38:45

know, it was issued and I could see

38:47

myself in it actually because

38:49

there were different colors and minds

38:51

was the part the top part is

38:54

as pin stripe and

38:56

it was in the pants were like gold.

38:59

You know.

38:59

The thing is, I don't know that I've award again.

39:03

As it turns out, Rita had worn DC

39:05

Public School issue jim shorts, the

39:08

same shorts that Carol Spinx had

39:10

on when she was killed. The

39:13

coincidences in Rita's case are just

39:15

too many to ignore. And so

39:18

if this man she's describing was

39:20

in fact the killer, we thought we

39:22

should learn a little bit more about who he was.

39:28

He was dark skinned. He wasn't

39:30

very tall. I'd say it was probably about

39:33

between maybe five eight five

39:35

nine. He was strong,

39:38

very strong. He looked like he could

39:41

have been either in his late thirties

39:43

or early forties, mid forties. He

39:45

had like cyburns. He was kind of scruffy.

39:48

He wasn't dirty, but like you

39:50

know, wasn't neat. But he had

39:53

facial hair, not a beard,

39:55

but he had cydeburns, and he had a mustache

39:57

and it was dark. He wasn't

39:59

like he had no gut or anything. He was pretty

40:02

fit. I wouldn't even doubt

40:04

that he could have been military or

40:08

some type of job at that age

40:10

to keep you know, in pretty good shape.

40:13

You know, now with my police

40:15

skills, I can really break it down a little

40:17

bit. I really believe I was being stalked.

40:20

The whole thing was I wonder how

40:23

long he was stalking,

40:26

because when he pulled up, he pulled up farther

40:28

enough so that he was literally by the time

40:30

he got out, it was like pre playing. By

40:32

the time he got out of his car, he met

40:35

me. You see, as I was walking.

40:40

We asked to reader how this event impacted

40:42

her life.

40:44

It was mostly mental. I

40:47

was definitely fearful after

40:49

that. I don't remember ever walking

40:51

up there again that way ever again,

40:54

you know, I remember even after that years

40:56

later, driving you know, and I never

40:58

talked about it. I mean even within my family,

41:01

we didn't talk about it. And the girl

41:03

Wanda, she lived next door,

41:05

and we were recently talking about it because we're

41:07

still friends, and she

41:10

said, oh yeah, she said it was terrifying.

41:13

And I never really talked to her even

41:15

about her perspective because

41:17

it had to traumatize her because she was younger

41:20

than me, about about three or four years.

41:22

But they didn't go after her.

41:25

Rita says that afterwards she was expecting

41:27

to learn more about the man or what happened,

41:30

but she never heard anything else about the incident.

41:34

After that day. I was never called.

41:36

There was never anything after that. I don't know

41:39

what happened to that guy. The

41:41

only thing I had learned was it was his birthday.

41:44

I don't know his name or anything like that, but it was his

41:46

birthday, which really creaked

41:49

me out a lot. What was

41:51

his plans?

41:53

Rita could have been the fifth victim of

41:56

the Freeway Phantom, if there was any connection at

41:58

all. Either way, she

42:00

was lucky,

42:05

but not everyone was so lucky. Soon

42:08

another girl would go missing. Just

42:11

a little over a month after Nina Moosi

42:13

Yates was murdered, eighteen year old

42:15

Brenda Woodard was found dead and

42:18

in her coat pocket police

42:20

found a handwritten letter, the

42:22

first communication from the killer.

42:26

I hund hand him out to my own sons and him

42:28

and two people of not howing

42:30

women. I one met the other

42:33

when you catch me and canna

42:36

how freeway Haando.

42:50

Next time on Freeway Phantom. When

42:52

I got home today, my wife was crying.

42:55

She said she got off from work and she couldn't

42:57

catch the bus because of all the police tape.

43:00

We live basically in the same neighborhood,

43:03

I mean the same type of apartments, the

43:05

same people, and I used to hang

43:07

out where she lived. I had friends up

43:09

there.

43:09

She had been strangled, and what was

43:12

different with her is she had also been stabbed.

43:15

So I've liked previous victims.

43:17

She put up a serious struggle with

43:20

her as Sam.

43:21

And it makes you wonder too, did

43:23

she fight back because

43:25

she basically wrote her own

43:28

killer's note.

43:30

Here he is. He's taunting the police.

43:31

He knows enough to know not to write

43:34

the note himself because he could potentially

43:36

be connected to it.

43:44

Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio,

43:47

Tenderfoot TV and Black bar Mitzvah.

43:49

Our host is CELESE.

43:50

Hiley.

43:51

The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie

43:53

Albright and Celes Hiley. Executive

43:56

producers on behalf of Our Heart Radio include

43:58

Matt Frederick and Alexilliams, with supervising

44:01

producer Trevor Young. Executive

44:03

producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include

44:05

Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, with

44:07

producers Jamie Albright and Tracy

44:10

Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf

44:12

of Black bar Mitzvah include myself,

44:14

Jay Ellis and Aaron Bergman, with

44:16

producer Sidney Fools. Lead researcher

44:19

is Jamie Albright. Artwork by Mister

44:21

Soul two one six, original

44:23

music by Makeup and Vanity Set

44:26

special thanks to a teammate, Uta

44:29

Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord

44:31

Group. Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia,

44:33

as well as Black bar Mitzvah have increased

44:36

the reward for information leading to the

44:38

arrest and conviction of the person or

44:40

persons responsible for their Freeway

44:42

Fan of murders. The previous reward of

44:44

up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars

44:47

offered by the Metropolitan Police Department

44:49

has been matched. A new total reward

44:51

of up to three hundred thousand dollars is

44:53

now being offered. If you have any information

44:56

relating to these unsolved crimes, contact

44:58

the Metropolitan Police Department at area

45:00

code two zero two seven two

45:03

seven nine zero ninety nine.

45:05

For more information, please visit freeway

45:08

dashfanom dot com. For

45:10

more podcasts from iHeartRadio and

45:12

Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio

45:15

app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen

45:17

to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.