You're on the highway when you catch a glimpse of a Mack truck approaching your car from behind. Its metallic grill shines in the sun, blinding you for an instant as the truck switches lanes to pull up next to you.
In the front of the truck is a driver. He appears normal. Trailing behind is the bed of the truck, full of secrets. A majority of the time, the thing in the back of the truck is just an item on its way to a warehouse. But sometimes, it is something more sinister. Sometimes, the person behind the wheel is a monster.
Truck drivers have the perfect job for serial killing. The FBI has concluded the profession is convenient for aspiring serial killers to pick up unsuspecting victims and discard them along the road in another state miles away.
While a life on the road makes many killer truckers hard to find, there have been several convicted serial killers who got caught committing murders on their dream jobs. Here is a list of some of the creepiest truck driver crimes to have occurred on the open road.
Between 1977 and 1978, over two dozen individuals were randomly murdered along the highways of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Long-haul trucker Edward Surratt would break into homes inhabited by couples, immediately shoot and kill the male, and then kidnap, rape, and kill the female.
He was arrested in 1978 for raping a mother and daughter in front of their bound husband and father; however, police suspected him of a total of 18 murders. In 2007, he finally confessed to six unsolved slayings that had plagued the Ohio area for 30 years.
Metheny was an obese, 6-foot-tall serial killer with an appetite for human flesh. In the mid-'90s, he killed two prostitutes, dismembered their bodies, and stored their body parts in his freezer. Following his eventual arrest, he claimed he used human flesh mixed in with hamburger meat and sold it to customers at his hamburger stand.
Working as a truck driver in 1994, Metheny developed a desire to kill and consume people. It was during this time that his wife left him, taking along their son, and setting off the rage-filled monster within him.
In November 1998, long-haul trucker Wayne Adam Ford calmly walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff’s office in Eureka, California, and presented them with a woman’s severed breast. He shocked authorities even further when he confessed to murdering four women between 1997 and 1998, possibly more.
Ford often picked up young, white hitchhikers during his truck routes. He would rape and kill them in his truck, then keep their bodies for several days before disposing of them. He confessed to his crimes because "God told him" to do so. He was arrested and sentenced to death for the murders.
Timothy Jay Vageades was a Minnesota truck driver who kidnapped young women and kept them in a torture room inside his truck, which he called the "Twilight Express." He wore fangs, and forced his victims to wear fake fangs, as well, before chipping their teeth down into actual fangs.
He was arrested during a routine truck stop inspection when inspectors saw bruises on his young female passenger and learned that she had a protection order against him. As it turns out, he kidnapped the 19-year-old girl - a relative - and kept her in his truck for six months.
Between 1978 and 1992, numerous women were murdered in areas of Tennessee, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. The killer remains unidentified, however, it's clear that he had a preference for redheaded women. These unsolved murders have come to be known as "The Redhead Killings."
At least six women with reddish hair were found dead along the side of highways in the United States, and many are suspected of being hitchhikers or prostitutes at the time of their deaths.
Due to the varied locations where the victims were found, authorities suspect that the killer was a truck driver. However, they have no evidence to confirm their theories at this time.
Accused serial killer and truck driver Bruce Mendenhall was arrested in June 2007 for the murder of Sara Hulbert in Tennessee. He was also charged with killing three other women at truck stops in Alabama, Indiana, and Tennessee.
Mendenhall was first suspected by police when his rig and trailer were seen by a witness near the location where Hulbert’s body was discovered. When authorities caught up to him, they found blood inside the truck. The trucker soon confessed to killing at least five other women, all at truck stop locations.
The murderer also previously ran for mayor in Illinois, but lost.
