They are loners, traveling back and forth across the nation. With no set schedules and living in a world of anonymity, long-haul truck driver could be the perfect occupation for a serial killer. There is access to a pool of potential victims, and constant state-to-state mobility means dodging law enforcement jurisdictions.
This could explain why there have been so many documented cases of long-haul truck drivers suspected, arrested and convicted of multiple murders. The FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative estimates that long-haul truckers are behind an astonishing 850 murders—and counting.
In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. In many cases, the victims—often at-risk women—are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.
Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates.
Guest:
Frank Figliuzzi is the author of “Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers.” He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is an MSNBC columnist and a national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. He is the author of the national bestseller The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence.
"The Source" is a live call-in program airing Mondays through Thursdays from 12-1 p.m. Leave a message before the program at (210) 615-8982. During the live show, call 833-877-8255, email thesource@tpr.org.
*This interview will be recorded on Monday, June 3, 2024.
