The highway of tears is a 725 km corridor
that is apart of highway 16 between Prince
George and Prince Rupert. It is apart of British
Columbia Canada and it has been the location
of many murders and disappearance beginning
all the way back in 1970
Over the past 40 years, authorities say 18
women and girls have disappeared or have been
found murdered along this stretch of road,
and it appears as though everyone has a different
idea as to the true number of victims.
Accounts vary as to the exact number, according
to the RCMP project E pana, they list the
number of victims as less than 18. However,
aboriginal organizations estimate the number
of missing or murdered women is above 40
And if you talk to the local people, they
believe the number is 33, 43, perhaps even
more. It seems as if a consensus as to the
number of victims will never be agreed upon.
Local authorities have long been investigating
the unsolved murders along the stretch of
road— and in 2005, Project E-Pana was launched,
with the stated goal of being able to “determine
if a serial killer, or killers, is responsible
for murdering young women traveling along
major highways in BC.”
E-PANA initially took on nine of those cases,
and soon expanded it to 18 across a wider
area, re-interviewing witnesses and families,
following new leads and tips and converting
700 boxes of dusty police files into a searchable
database.
Officers have identified a suspect in three
of the murders, but that man is now dead.
A different man has been charged in the death
of Monica Jack, but that case is still before
the courts.
Still, many families are waiting for answers
and justice for their missing and murdered
loved ones.
But all of their efforts are not for naught…
In regards to the Monica Jack case…in 2014
investigations by E-pana and the provincial
unsolved homicide unit brought murder charges
against Garry Taylor Handlen for her death
in 1978.
He was found guilty by jury and sentenced
to life in prison in early 2019, making Monica
Jacks murder the first file in Project E pana
to be officially solved.
And…there has been one other recent conviction
in relation to the highway of tears.
Cody Legebokoff, one of Canada’s youngest
serial killers, was convicted in 2014 of killing
four women near the Highway, according to
the report. He was 24 at the time.
.
It is believed that this notorious stretch
of highway is the killing grounds for multiple
serial killers, and with a road-tripping couple
bring found dead in 2019 along the highway,
found murdered, and left by the side of the
road,
it may be that the highway of tears isn’t
merely a monstrous relic relegated to our
memories, but rather an active and still quite
deadly territory.
Now when I think about serial killers, I always
thought of them as a rare nature defying breed,
but as unsettling as it is, Thomas Hargrove
of the murder accountability project believes
in the US alone, there are 2,100 unidentified
serial killers out there, author and former
police detective Michael Arntfield believes
that number might be as high as 4,000. Now
in relation, there's a terrifying theory that
a group of serial killers are working together,
originally posited in 2008 by a professor
of criminal justice, Lee Gilbertson, and former
NYPD detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte
first reported on in Rolling Stone magazine.
The professionals labeled the group domestic
terrorists, and they continued on in detail
as to why they believe this to be true.
The killer or more than likely killers target
young white men, with a college education,
usually after a night of drinking. They abduct
them, murder them, and make the deaths look
like accidental drownings. At first glance,
the deaths have all the signs of an accident,
a little too much to drink and one to many
bad decisions, and honestly, I can't blame
them for thinking that originally, but as
the detectives revealed, there is quite a
bit more to the story and it will make your
blood run cold. The only sign pointing to
their involvement is an ominous smiley face
quickly spray-painted near the alleged crime
scenes. It is usually painted across a rock
face or a nearby tree. And with the symbol
showing up coincidentally near so many bodies,
it is r easonable to conclude that this is
the killers calling card.
Gilbertson, Gannon, and Duarte say they have
discovered that some of the over 40 victims
they believe to have identified, well they
have been missing for weeks, but their bodies
only show signs of begin dead for a couple
of days upon discovery. Their autopsies also
uncovered the date drug GHB, which has, in
the past, been involved in many cases, being
used as a way to incapacitate the victims,
and in this case, could have easily been used
to incapacitate the victims before kidnapping
them.
The truly unnerving and horrifying aspect
is that the trio believes the smiley face
killers may be involved in as many as 335
deaths. The victims left laying along water
banks, scattered across the northeast accidental
drownings or serial killers?
In the spring of 1992, Interstate 70 turned
into the hunting grounds for a deranged and
cold killer; there's little doubt that it
was the same man committing each of the heinous
crimes, due to each scene being so similar.
The killer used the same rifle for each kill,
a .22 caliber rifle, and he targeted a specific
type of person. The unhinged killer seemingly
searched for these particular characteristics
before carrying out the attacks, driving around
and scoping out the areas. They were exclusively
young, petite, brunette woman, working at
a retail store or a gas station, and even
the one man that was executed is thought to
have been mistaken for being a female clerk
due to how to murder was committed.
Each of the victims were shot execution-style,
and each location was robbed of a small amount
of money; investigators believe this is just
a ploy to make it seem like robbery was the
prime motive. On April 27, Michael McCown,
who was 40years old at the time, was killed
in his mother Sylvia's ceramics store in Terre
Haute, Indiana. McCown was the only man killed
during the spree, and investigators believe
that the I-70 killer chose the store because
the store's solo woman's name (Sylvia's Ceramics)
seemed to make it a good target. Because McCown
wore a ponytail and was shot from behind,
while he was kneeling to stock shelves, he
may have been mistaken for a woman.
Another curiosity relating to the people that
the killer targeted is that immediately after
executing two co-workers at La Bride d’Elegance
bridal shop in Wichita, Kansas. On April 11,
the customer that the two girls were waiting
for actually walked into the store, a little
after 6 pm, and came he face to face with
the I-70 killer, and he was let go. The witness
quickly noticed what had happened moments
before and called the police. The composite
sketch comes from this very lucky witness,
from a reliable and up-close look at the suspect.
The suspect is around 5’7 or 5’8 sandy
brown hair and has never been caught
investigators believe the I-70 killer may
be responsible for two murders in 1993 and
attempted murder in 1994, all of which occurred
in Texas this time.
The I-70 killer was described as being a white
man in his twenties or thirties; he was thin,
and having lazy eyelids and sandy blond or
reddish hair back in 1992. If he is still
alive, he would be in his late forties or
early fifties.
In 2018, DNA from the body of Neal Falls,
a suspected serial killer who was killed by
a sex worker in Charleston, West Virginia,
was tested for possible involvement. Falls
lived in Kansas at the time and did resemble
the identity of the I-70 Killer, but, so far,
there has been no conclusive proof, and there
is no way to determine if he is responsible
for any of the murders.
If, however, the killer is still out there,
it is possible that he has adapted and changed
his behaviors to throw off the authorities.
All we can do is hope that the I-70 killer
did, in fact, meet his match, and found himself
where he has placed so many other innocent
victims...6 feet under.
Alright, that’s it for me…once again,
this is HelioWave. If you like the content,
hit the subscribe button and turn on the notifications.
And feel free to reach out to me @heliodown.
Until Next Time
Stay Safe
