May 31, 2023 • 45 mins
On October 1st, 1971, a fourth victim was taken and later found dead: 12-year-old Nenomoshia Yates. Finally, news outlets begin to pick up the story of these murdered black girls. And the media gives the killer a name...
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Freeway Fanom, a production of iHeartRadio,
Tenderfoot TV, and Black Bar METSVHAH. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, Black Bar, MITZVAH, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter that may
(00:24):
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
DC had never had a serial killing before, and so
it wasn't something not that you ever get used to it,
but it wasn't something they were familiar with. And so
if there's a body found here, and then you know,
a few weeks later, there's a body found here and
some months later, and they don't connect it until the
fourth one or so, then it sort of spirals and
people take notice and then they said, oh, Houston, we've
(00:54):
got a problem here. These deaths may be connected. And
I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because you know,
there were different detectives assigned to each of the cases.
Maybe because you know, one of the bodies or so
was found across the district line in Maryland and they
didn't communicate Maryland in d C. Or again, maybe it's
because there were so many homicides in the city and
(01:18):
six little black girls from not the best parts of town.
You know, did anyone really care outside of their families.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl cases.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
I wouldn't go no way, I wouldn't come up my house.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Those first five murders should have been a huge warning
bell for the police.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This person must have saw that. They were thinking that
maybe it's just one person, and he says, they need
to know.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
This is me.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
I thought that they would catch him.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I thought it just a matter of time.
Speaker 8 (02:02):
I'm Celeste Hedley and this is Freeway Phantom. In the
last episode, we learned about the third and fourth victims
of the Freeway Phantom, Brenda Crockett and Nina Mosha Yates.
Up until this point, these murders were largely considered by
(02:22):
law enforcement to be unconnected, but the murder of Yates
was a big turning point.
Speaker 9 (02:28):
She was twelve years old and she was found on
October first, nineteen seventy one. She was a seventh grader,
and she was a very quiet and well behaved child.
In the evening, she went to the safeway that was
a few blocks away from her home to buy a
bag of sugar.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
This is author Victoria Hester, who co wrote a book
with her father Blaine Pardo, on the Freeway Phantom Murders.
She reminds us that Nina Mosha Yates walked to a
nearby safeway around seven pm one night to pick up
some groceries, and then after leaving, she was somehow abducted.
She was found dead just over two hours later in
(03:07):
Prince George's County.
Speaker 9 (03:10):
Her body was found by a fifteen year old hitchhiker
beside Pennsylvania Avenue, just sixteen hundred feet beyond the district line.
Her body was still warm when it was found, so
she had been dumped and killed very recently. She was
literally just dumped on the side of the road.
Speaker 8 (03:29):
Co writer Blaine Pardo told us about the evidence gathering
process that law enforcement went through for Ninemosha.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
They would have looked under fingernails, et cetera, not for
DNA traceable, but to see if she had scraped her
victim or fought back and that was done, but you
don't get that tangible piece of Oh you've got somebody's skin,
we can run DNA on it, etc. So while they
(03:59):
may have found things like that, unfortunately those things usually
wouldn't have been preserved and they didn't have the means
to preserve those things. But they said the problem was
at the time, the police always had kind of a
standard blanket in the back of their car for when
they found dead bodies, and they throw that blanket on them.
And it's not like the blanket went off, got sterilized,
(04:21):
completely cleaned before it was used again. It was a
blanket that they used over and over. So the contamination
could have come from any number of sources. And I
think that's one of the complicating factors when it comes
to the DNA is how this evidence was physically handled.
These guys didn't put on rubber gloves when they touched
(04:41):
things that you know, they just picked it up and
you're going to pick up trace DNA of everybody that's
ever touched that piece of clothing. So it's a real
tricky thing.
Speaker 8 (04:52):
But police were able to identify and preserve a few
pieces of evidence. They found what they called negroid hair
on her sanitary napkin hairs that did not belong to her.
They also found green fibers, much like the ones that
had been found on previous victims.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
No one knew about the green synthetic fibers until Detective
Lloyd Davis. When Davis had requested that all the evidence
be sent to the FBI. That's when they came back
about the green synthetic fibers, which aren't really green if
you see them visually.
Speaker 8 (05:30):
This is retired MPD Detective Romaine Jenkins.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, this is what the FBI technician told me, the
guy who handled the cases. To the naked eye, they're
a different color. They're only green if you look at
them under microscott. Then what are the sources of the fibers?
That's what I wanted to know about the fiber evidence,
I asked him. I said, well, you know, what's the
source of the fibers? He said he thought they came.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
From an auto.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He said, but let me get my notes that I'll
get back to you. Well, it took for ages for
him to get back to me. Fine, he didn't. He said, nah,
I think they came from an auto. But I talked
to Detective Lloyd Davis, who had all the evidence submitted.
He said he was told that the fibers came from
a bathroom mate like a bath mat and a bathroom,
(06:20):
and that goes along with these victims being washed and cleaned.
I said, that sounds about right, You know that as
far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
We'll explore the possible sources of these fibers in a
later episode, but for now, there are two important things
to keep in mind. Technology at the time just wasn't
advanced enough to properly examine these fibers, so they were
stored away, possibly in the boxes that Romayne has stored
in her home.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Oh, these are glass slides, don't don't bother that. No,
I'm not gonna open them.
Speaker 8 (06:54):
For sure, but these are hairs and fire. These are
actual glass slides with the hairs and fibers. It's possible
that today we could revisit the fibers to learn more
about their origin, but the evidence would need to be
resubmitted for processing. The other significant matter, as Romaine alluded to,
is that the FBI was now involved. After the murder
(07:16):
of Ninomosia Yates, law enforcement finally started to recognize that
these cases were connected, and that expanded the scope of
the investigation.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
The fourth body that brought more people in because where's
the body found. You're talking about PG County, right, You're
talking about crossing jurisdictional lines, So then he is PG
County coming into play.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
By the time we get to Ninomosia, people are beginning
to think this is the same perpetrator. They didn't have
a phrase of serial killer. They may be called it
a pattern killer.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Ye pattern case.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
The homicide detectives term the case is the Little Girl
cases because they didn't know anything about Freeway pantom.
Speaker 8 (08:04):
Up until this point. The FBI was only vaguely aware
of the first few murders in the Little Girl cases.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I would hear them talk about the first two is
I recall the bodies were found with only about fifteen
feet of each other, and that kind of peaked their
interest what we got going on. We've never had a
serial murder here, but we've had multiple murders, and I thought,
there's something in here that would be interesting to get
(08:33):
into and see how you would how you would work
it out, how you could figure out who did it.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
This is retired Special Agent Barry Culvert, one of the
FBI investigators who worked the case. He says that once
victims started turning up both in DC and over the
state line in PG County, the FBI officially got involved.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
At the time of this case in nineteen seventy, I'd
been working fugitives and bank robberies four or five years,
and that lets you know just about every corner in
their dark alley and Washington, d C.
Speaker 8 (09:08):
If you work those kind of cases, Colvert says, the
Freeway phantom murders felt different to him. He was struck
by the innocence and youth of the victims and felt
compelled to work their cases.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
All of these girls were not from runaway families. These girls,
from what I can remember just hearing from the detectives,
these were families that went to churchs and watched after
their girls and wanted to know where they were. They
were good families. They didn't take chances that would have
led them to that kind of death. I don't think.
(09:44):
I don't know that they would have taken a chance
of getting in a car with somebody that they didn't
know to get a ride home or something. I don't
think they would have.
Speaker 8 (09:53):
Colvert remembers when they got the call to join the investigation.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I think the Chief of Police in Washington re down
to our agent in charge of the Washington office. They
had so many leads and so many things to cover,
they just didn't have the manpower. There was a lot
of things going on in Washington then. This was only
two or three years after Martin Luther King and Stokely
Carmichael had killed the pigs, burned the pigs, and we
(10:19):
were pigs, so they were really shorthanded. And the fact
that it was a federal crime, we could assist the
Metropolitan Police in leads that were just over the line
in Maryland or in Virginia because we had jurisdiction on
those places. And I think the Boss came around and
he was taking agents off of various squads to see
(10:40):
if they wanted to work on the homicide case, this
particular case, and I immediately offered my services. I said,
I like the detectives that I worked with over there.
I'll be one of the volunteers for it. And that's
how I got involved in this case.
Speaker 8 (10:55):
Colvert says the FBI's investigation of the Freeway phantom murders
was broad, intense, and incredibly hands on.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
We figured there had to be someone that got away,
someone that was lured to the car, and we even
had a couple of cases where they were forced into
the car, duct taped, but they got away. So you
would take that thinking maybe that could be our guy.
There has to be someone that he's not successful with
when working those cases, because we actually had evidence and witnesses.
(11:27):
There was one that was dropped on the side of
the highway. It seemed like a truck driver went by
and thought he saw a white van or a white
pickup truck or something. If you had a partial tag number,
you couldn't go on a computer. You had to go
through files. We got leads from psychics that were weird,
but you were almost afraid to discount any of them.
(11:50):
The one good suspect that we developed, the young girl
was coming out of a drug store, I think on
Minnesota Avenue, and a white man called to her to
come to the window, and I think when she backed away,
thinking he was just asking for information and he was
really trying to get her in the car either, he
reached out for her and she pulled back and screamed,
(12:13):
and other witnesses came forward and gave us a tag number,
and when we identified this person, he was a contractor
that either built houses, apartments, main building schools in all
not only the district, but in Maryland and Virginia. If
he was working on those buildings and offices, he had
(12:35):
a place because I know at least two of our
victims were kept for a day or two and then bathed.
He could tell he had been washed before they were
dropped on the side of the road, so we figured
that would fit. He'd have a place to take them.
He was not a threatening looking person at all, so
I thought this guy looks good. They did a polygraph
(12:56):
exam on it him and I think he passed. I
thought he was a good match.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
Culvert didn't provide the name of his suspect, but we
reviewed the FBI case file. He was thoroughly investigated and
cleared of suspicion, and so it was just one of
many dead ends.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
That was the kind of leads we got. Mostly they
would come in by the phone or they would give
you a nickname. We heard that bow Ray had done
something like this. He had raped the girl and got
mad at her or something, and he was afraid she
was going to go back and rat on him because
she knew him and he killed her. We didn't have
an internet to look. We had to go through hand files,
(13:37):
these index cards. Bow Ray, Who's bow Ray out there?
Because everybody went by street name in DC, so you
never got a name. It was bou Ray or Mumpsy
Bumps or Niani or something like that. So you go
through the moniker file, you never have one. You'd have
six bow Rays in there.
Speaker 8 (13:55):
As a result, Culvert says, their investigation became both frustrating
and exhausting.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
We had spent so many nights away from home, so
many weekends, so many holidays, out on the street, either
in a surveillance or just trying to catch somebody. If
you had a suspect, you didn't have any evidence. The
only chance you had maybe was following some night and
catch him in the act of trying to get a
(14:23):
little girl in the car, pull him over, charging with
a misdemeanor. Till you could get prints and hair samples
or something. That's what you were hoping for, And it
was labor intensive. You sat in cars with these guys
all night long and the worst weather, hoping we'd get
a line on somebody, somebody that's going to call up
(14:45):
here and try to do this, and we're going.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
To get them.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
At the end of the day, you thought, is there
something else we could do right now? Your shift is up,
you've done your eight ten hours, and you're ready to
go home. Man, if we could swinging by that corner
one more time and look and see if we see
a white man, let's do it. Let's do it now.
You were bone tired the next day, but no one
(15:11):
was looking at their watch, no one was looking to see,
all right this time, let's cut it off. Let's go home.
There's nothing else we can do. Is there something else
we could do right now that we couldn't do tomorrow?
It's one o'clock in the morning, But sometimes that's the
most advantageous time to find this kind of person doing this,
(15:33):
And sometimes it meant driving way the heck out in
PG County to just see where my friend was. At
that time, there was no doubt these guys were committed
to solving this thing, and I really thought we might.
I believed it at that time. I believed it. I said,
he's going to do something stupid. Somebody's going to get away,
and we'll get him.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
The work of retired FBI Special Agent Barry Culvert was impressive.
Up until this point, it seemed like law enforcement wasn't
taking these cases seriously, but Culvert's team appeared to be different.
He says they were dedicated to solving these murders. Culvert
and his detective Jimmy Owens interviewed dozens of people from
the community and talked to numerous family members of the victims.
(16:38):
Culvert remembers one night when they visited a family member
to show her some evidence they'd found at a suspect's residence.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
We were going out to a woman's house and I
think it might have been the aunt of one of them,
and I was going to take this picture to show
her these items like ring, ear rings, maybe some little
trinkets that a teenage girl would have. And I remember
that because it was the one that made that the
hardest to get off of this case. Jimmy was on
(17:07):
the phone and the police cruiser and he said, you
just take it in there, and usually the police there
were the evidence custodians of these things, says you go
in and do it. So I can remember knocking on
her door and she came to the door and I
told her this is. My name is Barry, Barry covered.
I'm an FBI is't and I'm trying to find who
killed your niece cousin. And she said come in. As
(17:31):
soon as I came in the door, she took my
arm and she led me over to the dining table
to sit down, and I said, I have this picture
if you've ever seen any of these things on that
she had and she put that paper down like she
was she was being so gentle with that picture of
(17:53):
those items, and she kept rushing the edges, looking and
then she'd pick it up, and then she'd away and
put it back down. And I noticed that her eyes
were tearing up when she looked at the picture. And
then she said, I don't recognize any of these. It
must be one of the other girls. Boy, that just
(18:15):
I didn't know what to say after that, I know,
I said, well, we'll do the best we can. We're
going to try to find this person. We got up,
and she held my arm all the way back to
the front door, and I turned around and stopped and
I said, just took her by the shoulder. I said,
we're going to find out who did this. We are
going to find out who did this. And I gave
(18:36):
her a hug, and then we walked out the front
and it was hard because she just stood by that
front door, that glass door, watching me get in that car.
And when I got in the car, Jimmy Owen said, hey,
you know you've got lipstick on your shirt. Let me
get a get me get a clean next that. And
I said, you know, Jimmy, let's don't wipe it off
(18:57):
for a while. Let's leave that on here. I don't
know that I ever. I'm sure I sent the suit
to the cleaners, but I think I wanted it on
there for a while. I think I did just because
of that interview with that woman. I'd made a pledge.
And from the South, we touch and hug a lot
of people, and I'm a hugger, but in this case
(19:20):
it was more than just a hug. It was like,
this is me promising. This is more than a promise.
I just want you to know I mean what I say.
We're going to find the person that did this. And
I wanted her to know that and not some perfunctory
handshake or i'll see you later. It meant more than
(19:41):
that to me. And then later, when our role stopped,
I remembered that promise to that woman and it just
kind of hard to walk away from it. That's why
this was different. I could not do this three months
six months that we did this. This was this was hard.
(20:03):
This was a hard step.
Speaker 8 (20:07):
Meanwhile, public perceptions about the murders were shifting. Now that
the cases had all been connected, things were changing in
the neighborhood.
Speaker 11 (20:16):
I think, just like during the DC stipe of time
doing that when we talk about mass murders or killings,
the communities started to close ranks a little more, be
more watchful.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
This is Derek Davis who we talked to in episode two.
His family has owned a barbershop in the neighborhood since
the sixties.
Speaker 11 (20:37):
People were more watchful of our youth then. Okay, they
were looking out for him. People were talking about it more.
It was more talk. For instance, what I mean when
people came to barber shop, that was that was the
discussion in the barbershop. And people were saying, well, watch out,
you know, watch out and doing it this and that that.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Yeah, you know, we're doing this. I'm getting off.
Speaker 11 (20:58):
At this time, you know, people were kind of like
somewhat forming their own groups or own not like police school,
but something like neighborhood watches or the orange chat watches
when you said these orange hat where communities were started
to walk.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
The blocks and stuff like that.
Speaker 11 (21:16):
So the community were kind of like somewhat policing the
sells the best way they could to stop what was happening.
We couldn't stop what already happened for surely, and we
didn't necessarily see where that support was coming from.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
Also sitting with us was Derek's friend, Reverend Anthony Motley,
and we got to talking about why it is that
there was practically no media coverage on this case. It's
astonishing to me that someone could snatch and murder young
black girls and now we can't even find coverage.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
How come because they're black.
Speaker 12 (22:01):
Even today we had a six year old murder walking
to the store with her father and mother and they
get caught in a drive by The mother and father wounded,
two more people wounded, the little baby gets dead. The media,
they show up, they do a press conference, and then
(22:23):
they go by.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's like sensationalism exactly what it is.
Speaker 12 (22:29):
That's what they do. Don't do you have any what
they call invest investigative reporters anymore? And if they do investigate,
they don't investigate when it comes to black people, you know,
unless it's something that that that's juicy, you know, like
the government. But as far as the community is concerned,
(22:53):
since another day in the park.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
This frustration was evident in community throughout the murders. Community
member Wilma Harper wrote about it in her book The
Mystery of the Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 13 (23:09):
The bizarre murders of these black girls had not aroused
the press to an acceptable degree. The communities seemed to
have forgotten. Families of the victims bore their sorrow alone
in hopelessness and terror.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
Harper writes that at one point, members of the Congress
Heights neighborhood took it upon themselves to hold a press conference.
They wanted to protest what they called poor police protection
and a lack of media coverage.
Speaker 13 (23:38):
The press conference was called by Calvin Rolark, editor publisher
of the Weekly Washington Informer and president of the Washington
Highland Civic Association. He accused the police and news media
of failing to give equal attention to crimes in the Southeast.
He condemned newspapers for bearing news of the deaths of
the three girls. If it was a blue eyed, white
(24:02):
girl from Silver Spring, her picture would have been all
over page one. About seventy five persons attended the press
conference at one zero five eight Waller Place, Southeast.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
Harper remembers that just before Ninomosia Gates was murdered, the
media went entirely dark on the case.
Speaker 13 (24:22):
During the months of August and September, the news media
made no reports of the progress in the investigation of
the murders. I was recuperating from an automobile accident and
was free to diligently watch for information. My interest in
the cases had been heightened because I knew family members
of two of the victims. I was also in accord
(24:43):
with the earlier interest taken by citizens of the Southeast
community to protect their children from such crimes. The lull
ended on October second, nineteen seventy one, not with the
announcement of a solution, but with the headline of yet
another black girl's murder.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
If you'd look through news releases and police departments, I mean,
you're not gonna find a whole lot of photos from
fifty years ago.
Speaker 8 (25:12):
This is NPR investigative correspondent Cheryl Thompson who we heard
from at the top of the episode. When she thoroughly
investigated this case in twenty eighteen, she says it was
difficult to find any substantial news coverage.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Initially at some of the microfish I looked at, it
was lobbed in with you know, like, Okay, a girl's
body was found here, and then you know, some guy
found across town. You know, it was just sort of
like in passing. So there was coverage, but again then
it just sort of faded. You know, in the early seventies,
Vietnam was all the daily, NonStop coverage, right every single day,
(25:50):
day in and day out. And you had these May
Day protesters, thousands of them on the nation's capitol, and
so that was the coverage. I mean, you know, Detective
Jenkins will tell you that even at the time when
they found the first body, that they were going to
the scene, the supervisor pulled them office said no, no,
I need for you to go down down to the
mall and deal with the protesters. And murder always took
(26:12):
homicide always took precedence, but not in this instance, So
I think that was probably part of it.
Speaker 8 (26:18):
However, there was one major piece of news coverage following
the murder of Ninamoshi Gates, the Daily News published an
article about the now connected murders and they named the
killer the Freeway Phantom. We haven't been able to find
this news clipping. There are some conflicting reports as to
the exact date of this article, but we know it
(26:39):
came before the killer's next victim was found. But they
still didn't refer to the Freeway Phantom as a serial killer,
and Romaine Jenkins explains why.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, at the time, the term serial killers was not
even in existence. The FBI didn't even have its profiling unit.
So if we had a pat and of cases, we
call them pattern cases.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
The reason you.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Said pattern because there was something about the cases that
linked them together. Either the suspect wore the same clothing
or said the same thing in these instances. They weren't
sure that it was the same person. It was hard
for them to believe that one person could have committed
all of these crimes. So a lot of times you
had investigators going off in their own direction, you know,
(27:25):
looking for suspects you know that they felt might fit
the profile of the person.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
They might not have had a name for it at
the time, but the Freeway Phantom was likely Washington, DC's
first serial killer.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Let me just say, I really hate the way that
we give these killers these names. I know we have
to do it like you know, just that's what it is.
But I think that naming them, giving them this quasi
mythological status, just elevates them. And these are despicable human beings,
you know.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
Doctor Jean Murley is an author and professor of English
at Queensborough Community College. She specializes in true crime and
has studied the history and psychology of serial killers. To
get a clear picture of the Freeway Phantom, we need
to understand what a serial killer is. So I sat
down with doctor Murley and asked her to fill in
some missing pieces on that front.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
The standard definition of serial killing for a long time
was three or more victims with a kind of.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
A cooling off period between each.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
That's been revised, right, That's been changed to two victims
at two different times for any reason.
Speaker 8 (28:39):
What were these killers called before we I mean, we
clearly had serial killers before the nineteen seventies, right, I mean,
if nothing else, everybody knows about Jack the Ripper. But
what were they called? What did we how did we
or law enforcement make sense of them.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Before we had this language to comprehend and to articulate
this phenomenon, we use a more gothic terminology of the monstrous. Right,
these people were monsters. They were wicked, evil, demonic even
And so you're moving from a more emotional rhetoric into
(29:20):
one that's more scientific and objective in a way.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
Can I put to you some of the most common
myths about serial killers and have you respond to each one?
The first one, I think, shows like Criminal Minds makes
us think that there are way more serial killers than
there are. I mean, they have someone to catch every week,
and the FBI says, I mean every murder is awful,
but no more than one percent of all murders were
(29:45):
committed by a serial killer. Why do we think they're
so ubiquitous? Is it only the true crime shows.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
It's not true that the country is sort of crawling
with serial killers. It never really was true. What is
true is that serial killing as a phenomenon goes through
waves and troughs, right, and so in the post war period,
right in the nineteen fifties to the nineteen nineties, there
(30:18):
was a very large uptick in the number.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Of serial killers who were.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
Apprehended who were active and apprehended. In nineteen fifty, there
were seventy two known serial killers in the country. Nineteen
sixty there were two hundred and seventeen, nineteen seventy wow,
six hundred eighty, seven hundred and sixty eight, nineteen ninety
six sixty nine, two thousand and three, seventy one, twenty ten,
(30:47):
which is the latest statistic, one hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
So next myth serial killers are almost all white men.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
That's a good one too, and similar to the ways
that the numbers of killers sort of peaks and troughs,
race and serial killing is a very interesting thing. Early on,
there were more white men than any other race. It
was about sixty percent white men, thirty or thirty five
(31:18):
percent black men, the rest Hispanic Asian Native Americans, very
very very small numbers that started to become more even
more fifty to fifty as the seventies, eighties, and nineties
rolled on. And that's a very interesting thing that you know,
it is true that serial killers do tend to victimize
(31:41):
members of their own race, but the fact is that
the racial categories of black and white seemed to become
more even as the decades were on.
Speaker 8 (31:51):
What about the myth that serial killers are isolated dysfunctional, Well.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
That isn't actually, I wouldn't say on myth. I would
say that's pretty true. We're talking about people who are psychopathic,
and that means they have trouble with long term relationships
of any type. They have trouble keeping jobs, they have
trouble fitting in antisocial personality disorder. They tend to also
(32:19):
commit a range of sort of lesser crimes and so
interactions with the system, whether it's misdemeanors or smaller felonies.
These are not people who you know, generally, you would
want to be friends with and have.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
A lot of friends.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
They are people who are.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
Just like, oh, you know, that guy's weird. I don't
want to you know.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
The charming, charismatic, seemingly normal guys are the outliers, right,
And that's what true crime has fed us, and that's
what a lot of the movies and fiction television feeds us.
So I would say that the majority of serial killers
are not people who are successful human beings.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
The term serial killer wouldn't come around until the late seventies,
but the killer took notice of the attention that this
new Moniker Freeway Phantom gave him. Not long after Ninomosia
Yates he would attack again, and this time emboldened.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I grew up. As I said in Washington, d C.
I wasn't far from the freeway to ninety five. And
when I was in elementary school, Harris Elementary School, one
of the victims was in the class with my sister
in the fifth grade, and I remember in the school
they announced it and we would devastate. My sister was crushed.
It was just a really scary time. And I remember
(34:02):
my mom. You know, she was from the South, so
you know, she wasn't playing anyway, but it just heightened
the fear.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
This is Rita McCoy who we heard from an episode two.
She's now a retired detective from the Metropolitan Police Department.
But she went to school with Nenomoshia Gates and remembers
when she was murdered.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
So when that happened with her, I think I was
about eleven or twelve. When I was in junior high school.
There was an incident. It was about four thirty in
the afternoon, and I'm you know, I'm a teenage girl,
and I had another little kid in my neighborhood. We
were going to get some can d and stuff for
her and just hanging out after school. And we were
(34:46):
walking up this hill off of Benning Road, just walking along, laughing.
It was a beautiful day. And all of a sudden
I saw this white Cadillac were on the sidewalk and
it pulled up and like it was parking, and all
of a sudden, the guy he comes out of the
driver's side and he comes around the front of the
car and snatches me, and he's not saying anything, and
(35:09):
he grabbed my arm and he's holding me and he's
pulling open his passenger door. And I'm looking at this
guy and there's no emotion on his face none, And
I'm like, you know, screaming and hollering, and the little
girl is hollering. Her name is Wanda, and I'm trying
to grab stuff. I grabbed a piece of brick off
the ground and hit him, and nothing deterred him, and
(35:30):
he just was strong, and I was kicking and fighting,
and I was almost in the car, and people were
driving up and down the road broad daylight. So all
of a sudden, coming down the hill, that good old God,
there were some friends of my older brother named Roosevelt
and his friends were coming down the hill and they said,
isn't that Rose sister, And I mean for them to
(35:53):
even see me over his car, it blows me away.
But they saw guests coming down the hill. They could
see it, and they say, hey. They screamed to the
guy because it was warm out and the windows were down,
and the guy dropped me and I fell to the
ground and I'm telling you, almost slammed the door on
my leg. And I jumped up, you know, because I
just was so scared. And he closed the door and
(36:14):
jumped in the car and drove off. So the guys
flagged down the police officer. I don't know what they
said to the police. They were older than me. They
had to be like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, whatever, and so
they told the police what they saw and everything, and
the police officer let him go because the police officer
wanted to see if he can catch the guy. So
we got in the car police car. Next thing I know,
(36:36):
the police officer, I guess he got a radio call
or something, because I gave him the description of car
and everything, and they found him instill on Benning rude.
So we just went down to where he was and
there was another officer already talking to him. And this
officer got out and he said, you stay in the car.
Next thing I know, I see him cuff him and
put him in a police call and then took me
(36:58):
also to the station with my mom came and got me.
I don't know what they did with him. I know
they took him that day, but I don't know what
happened as a result, because I never was called, so
I don't know what they did or whatever. But when
we were talking about this case, when I was talking
with others about it years later, as matter of fact,
(37:19):
I mean we're talking about maybe a couple of years ago,
it hit me. Could this have been the freeway phantom.
I don't know. It made me wonder because this guy
was very fierce and he was very determined, and I
mean it was no conversation, just snatching off the street.
(37:40):
And when you look at those cases, that's what happened
in each one of those cases, they were just snatched
off the street. So it's just something to ponder. Thank
god it was saved from that.
Speaker 8 (37:55):
It's unclear if the man who tried to abduct Rita
was the Freeway Phantom, but it's very possible she was
the exact demographic that the phantom was targeting, black, young
and petite. She was also on Bending Road that's the
same road that nine Moosha was snatched off of. And
there was one other strange similarity.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Back then, they had this in school. It was one
piece like shorts that we used for our gym class
and it was like a one piece jumper but the
shorts and I had that on and you know, it
wasn't provocative or anything, you know.
Speaker 13 (38:33):
So you were in the gym outfit, which is one
of the other girls.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Was in as well. Did you know that?
Speaker 11 (38:38):
No?
Speaker 5 (38:38):
I didn't. I did not know that. Are you kidding me?
I never knew that. Well, you know, it was issued
and I could see myself in it actually because there
were different colors and minds was the part the top
part is as pin stripe and it was in the
pants were like gold.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
The thing is, I don't know that I've award again.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
As it turns out, Rita had worn DC Public School
issue jim shorts, the same shorts that Carol Spinx had
on when she was killed. The coincidences in Rita's case
are just too many to ignore. And so if this
man she's describing was in fact the killer, we thought
we should learn a little bit more about who he was.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
He was dark skinned. He wasn't very tall. I'd say
it was probably about between maybe five eight five nine.
He was strong, very strong. He looked like he could
have been either in his late thirties or early forties,
mid forties. He had like cyburns. He was kind of scruffy.
(39:48):
He wasn't dirty, but like you know, wasn't neat. But
he had facial hair, not a beard, but he had cydeburns,
and he had a mustache and it was dark. He
wasn't like he had no gut or anything. He was
pretty fit. I wouldn't even doubt that he could have
been military or some type of job at that age
(40:10):
to keep you know, in pretty good shape. You know,
now with my police skills, I can really break it
down a little bit. I really believe I was being stalked.
The whole thing was I wonder how long he was stalking,
because when he pulled up, he pulled up farther enough
so that he was literally by the time he got out,
(40:31):
it was like pre playing. By the time he got
out of his car, he met me. You see, as
I was walking.
Speaker 8 (40:40):
We asked to reader how this event impacted her life.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
It was mostly mental. I was definitely fearful after that.
I don't remember ever walking up there again that way
ever again, you know, I remember even after that years later,
driving you know, and I never talked about it. I
mean even within my family, we didn't talk about it.
And the girl Wanda, she lived next door, and we
(41:05):
were recently talking about it because we're still friends, and
she said, oh yeah, she said it was terrifying. And
I never really talked to her even about her perspective
because it had to traumatize her because she was younger
than me, about about three or four years. But they
didn't go after her.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Rita says that afterwards she was expecting to learn more
about the man or what happened, but she never heard
anything else about the incident.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
After that day. I was never called. There was never
anything after that. I don't know what happened to that guy.
The only thing I had learned was it was his birthday.
I don't know his name or anything like that, but
it was his birthday, which really creaked me out a lot.
What was his plans?
Speaker 8 (41:53):
Rita could have been the fifth victim of the Freeway Phantom,
if there was any connection at all. Either way, she
was lucky, but not everyone was so lucky. Soon another
girl would go missing. Just a little over a month
after Nina Moosi Yates was murdered, eighteen year old Brenda
(42:15):
Woodard was found dead and in her coat pocket police
found a handwritten letter, the first communication from the killer.
Speaker 7 (42:26):
I hund hand him out to my own sons and
him and two people of not howing women. I one
met the other when you catch me and canna how
freeway Haando.
Speaker 8 (42:50):
Next time on Freeway Phantom. When I got home today,
my wife was crying. She said she got off from
work and she couldn't catch the bus because of all
the police tape.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
We live basically in the same neighborhood, I mean the
same type of apartments, the same people, and I used
to hang out where she lived. I had friends up there.
Speaker 10 (43:09):
She had been strangled, and what was different with her
is she had also been stabbed. So I've liked previous victims.
She put up a serious struggle with her as Sam.
Speaker 9 (43:21):
And it makes you wonder too, did she fight back
because she basically wrote her own killer's note.
Speaker 5 (43:30):
Here he is. He's taunting the police.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
He knows enough to know not to write the note
himself because he could potentially be connected to it.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV
and Black bar Mitzvah. Our host is CELESE.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright and
Celes Hiley. Executive producers on behalf of Our Heart Radio
include Matt Frederick and Alexilliams, with supervising producer Trevor Young.
Executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay, with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan.
Executive producers on behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself,
(44:14):
Jay Ellis and Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Fools. Lead
researcher is Jamie Albright. Artwork by Mister Soul two one six,
original music by Makeup and Vanity Set special thanks to
a teammate, Uta Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group.
Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia, as well as Black bar Mitzvah
(44:35):
have increased the reward for information leading to the arrest
and conviction of the person or persons responsible for their
Freeway Fan of murders. The previous reward of up to
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan
Police Department has been matched. A new total reward of
up to three hundred thousand dollars is now being offered.
If you have any information relating to these unsolved crimes,
(44:58):
contact the Metropolitan Police Department at area code two zero
two seven two seven nine zero ninety nine. For more information,
please visit freeway dashfanom dot com. For more podcasts from
iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
You're listening to the Freeway Fanom, a production of iHeartRadio,
Tenderfoot TV, and Black Bar METSVHAH. The views and opinions
expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, Black Bar, MITZVAH, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter that may
(00:24):
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
DC had never had a serial killing before, and so
it wasn't something not that you ever get used to it,
but it wasn't something they were familiar with. And so
if there's a body found here, and then you know,
a few weeks later, there's a body found here and
some months later, and they don't connect it until the
fourth one or so, then it sort of spirals and
people take notice and then they said, oh, Houston, we've
(00:54):
got a problem here. These deaths may be connected. And
I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because you know,
there were different detectives assigned to each of the cases.
Maybe because you know, one of the bodies or so
was found across the district line in Maryland and they
didn't communicate Maryland in d C. Or again, maybe it's
because there were so many homicides in the city and
(01:18):
six little black girls from not the best parts of town.
You know, did anyone really care outside of their families.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl cases.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
I wouldn't go no way, I wouldn't come up my house.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Those first five murders should have been a huge warning
bell for the police.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This person must have saw that. They were thinking that
maybe it's just one person, and he says, they need
to know.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
This is me.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
I thought that they would catch him.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I thought it just a matter of time.
Speaker 8 (02:02):
I'm Celeste Hedley and this is Freeway Phantom. In the
last episode, we learned about the third and fourth victims
of the Freeway Phantom, Brenda Crockett and Nina Mosha Yates.
Up until this point, these murders were largely considered by
(02:22):
law enforcement to be unconnected, but the murder of Yates
was a big turning point.
Speaker 9 (02:28):
She was twelve years old and she was found on
October first, nineteen seventy one. She was a seventh grader,
and she was a very quiet and well behaved child.
In the evening, she went to the safeway that was
a few blocks away from her home to buy a
bag of sugar.
Speaker 8 (02:46):
This is author Victoria Hester, who co wrote a book
with her father Blaine Pardo, on the Freeway Phantom Murders.
She reminds us that Nina Mosha Yates walked to a
nearby safeway around seven pm one night to pick up
some groceries, and then after leaving, she was somehow abducted.
She was found dead just over two hours later in
(03:07):
Prince George's County.
Speaker 9 (03:10):
Her body was found by a fifteen year old hitchhiker
beside Pennsylvania Avenue, just sixteen hundred feet beyond the district line.
Her body was still warm when it was found, so
she had been dumped and killed very recently. She was
literally just dumped on the side of the road.
Speaker 8 (03:29):
Co writer Blaine Pardo told us about the evidence gathering
process that law enforcement went through for Ninemosha.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
They would have looked under fingernails, et cetera, not for
DNA traceable, but to see if she had scraped her
victim or fought back and that was done, but you
don't get that tangible piece of Oh you've got somebody's skin,
we can run DNA on it, etc. So while they
(03:59):
may have found things like that, unfortunately those things usually
wouldn't have been preserved and they didn't have the means
to preserve those things. But they said the problem was
at the time, the police always had kind of a
standard blanket in the back of their car for when
they found dead bodies, and they throw that blanket on them.
And it's not like the blanket went off, got sterilized,
(04:21):
completely cleaned before it was used again. It was a
blanket that they used over and over. So the contamination
could have come from any number of sources. And I
think that's one of the complicating factors when it comes
to the DNA is how this evidence was physically handled.
These guys didn't put on rubber gloves when they touched
(04:41):
things that you know, they just picked it up and
you're going to pick up trace DNA of everybody that's
ever touched that piece of clothing. So it's a real
tricky thing.
Speaker 8 (04:52):
But police were able to identify and preserve a few
pieces of evidence. They found what they called negroid hair
on her sanitary napkin hairs that did not belong to her.
They also found green fibers, much like the ones that
had been found on previous victims.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
No one knew about the green synthetic fibers until Detective
Lloyd Davis. When Davis had requested that all the evidence
be sent to the FBI. That's when they came back
about the green synthetic fibers, which aren't really green if
you see them visually.
Speaker 8 (05:30):
This is retired MPD Detective Romaine Jenkins.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, this is what the FBI technician told me, the
guy who handled the cases. To the naked eye, they're
a different color. They're only green if you look at
them under microscott. Then what are the sources of the fibers?
That's what I wanted to know about the fiber evidence,
I asked him. I said, well, you know, what's the
source of the fibers? He said he thought they came.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
From an auto.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He said, but let me get my notes that I'll
get back to you. Well, it took for ages for
him to get back to me. Fine, he didn't. He said, nah,
I think they came from an auto. But I talked
to Detective Lloyd Davis, who had all the evidence submitted.
He said he was told that the fibers came from
a bathroom mate like a bath mat and a bathroom,
(06:20):
and that goes along with these victims being washed and cleaned.
I said, that sounds about right, You know that as
far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
We'll explore the possible sources of these fibers in a
later episode, but for now, there are two important things
to keep in mind. Technology at the time just wasn't
advanced enough to properly examine these fibers, so they were
stored away, possibly in the boxes that Romayne has stored
in her home.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Oh, these are glass slides, don't don't bother that. No,
I'm not gonna open them.
Speaker 8 (06:54):
For sure, but these are hairs and fire. These are
actual glass slides with the hairs and fibers. It's possible
that today we could revisit the fibers to learn more
about their origin, but the evidence would need to be
resubmitted for processing. The other significant matter, as Romaine alluded to,
is that the FBI was now involved. After the murder
(07:16):
of Ninomosia Yates, law enforcement finally started to recognize that
these cases were connected, and that expanded the scope of
the investigation.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
The fourth body that brought more people in because where's
the body found. You're talking about PG County, right, You're
talking about crossing jurisdictional lines, So then he is PG
County coming into play.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
By the time we get to Ninomosia, people are beginning
to think this is the same perpetrator. They didn't have
a phrase of serial killer. They may be called it
a pattern killer.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Ye pattern case.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
The homicide detectives term the case is the Little Girl
cases because they didn't know anything about Freeway pantom.
Speaker 8 (08:04):
Up until this point. The FBI was only vaguely aware
of the first few murders in the Little Girl cases.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I would hear them talk about the first two is
I recall the bodies were found with only about fifteen
feet of each other, and that kind of peaked their
interest what we got going on. We've never had a
serial murder here, but we've had multiple murders, and I thought,
there's something in here that would be interesting to get
(08:33):
into and see how you would how you would work
it out, how you could figure out who did it.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
This is retired Special Agent Barry Culvert, one of the
FBI investigators who worked the case. He says that once
victims started turning up both in DC and over the
state line in PG County, the FBI officially got involved.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
At the time of this case in nineteen seventy, I'd
been working fugitives and bank robberies four or five years,
and that lets you know just about every corner in
their dark alley and Washington, d C.
Speaker 8 (09:08):
If you work those kind of cases, Colvert says, the
Freeway phantom murders felt different to him. He was struck
by the innocence and youth of the victims and felt
compelled to work their cases.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
All of these girls were not from runaway families. These girls,
from what I can remember just hearing from the detectives,
these were families that went to churchs and watched after
their girls and wanted to know where they were. They
were good families. They didn't take chances that would have
led them to that kind of death. I don't think.
(09:44):
I don't know that they would have taken a chance
of getting in a car with somebody that they didn't
know to get a ride home or something. I don't
think they would have.
Speaker 8 (09:53):
Colvert remembers when they got the call to join the investigation.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I think the Chief of Police in Washington re down
to our agent in charge of the Washington office. They
had so many leads and so many things to cover,
they just didn't have the manpower. There was a lot
of things going on in Washington then. This was only
two or three years after Martin Luther King and Stokely
Carmichael had killed the pigs, burned the pigs, and we
(10:19):
were pigs, so they were really shorthanded. And the fact
that it was a federal crime, we could assist the
Metropolitan Police in leads that were just over the line
in Maryland or in Virginia because we had jurisdiction on
those places. And I think the Boss came around and
he was taking agents off of various squads to see
(10:40):
if they wanted to work on the homicide case, this
particular case, and I immediately offered my services. I said,
I like the detectives that I worked with over there.
I'll be one of the volunteers for it. And that's
how I got involved in this case.
Speaker 8 (10:55):
Colvert says the FBI's investigation of the Freeway phantom murders
was broad, intense, and incredibly hands on.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
We figured there had to be someone that got away,
someone that was lured to the car, and we even
had a couple of cases where they were forced into
the car, duct taped, but they got away. So you
would take that thinking maybe that could be our guy.
There has to be someone that he's not successful with
when working those cases, because we actually had evidence and witnesses.
(11:27):
There was one that was dropped on the side of
the highway. It seemed like a truck driver went by
and thought he saw a white van or a white
pickup truck or something. If you had a partial tag number,
you couldn't go on a computer. You had to go
through files. We got leads from psychics that were weird,
but you were almost afraid to discount any of them.
(11:50):
The one good suspect that we developed, the young girl
was coming out of a drug store, I think on
Minnesota Avenue, and a white man called to her to
come to the window, and I think when she backed away,
thinking he was just asking for information and he was
really trying to get her in the car either, he
reached out for her and she pulled back and screamed,
(12:13):
and other witnesses came forward and gave us a tag number,
and when we identified this person, he was a contractor
that either built houses, apartments, main building schools in all
not only the district, but in Maryland and Virginia. If
he was working on those buildings and offices, he had
(12:35):
a place because I know at least two of our
victims were kept for a day or two and then bathed.
He could tell he had been washed before they were
dropped on the side of the road, so we figured
that would fit. He'd have a place to take them.
He was not a threatening looking person at all, so
I thought this guy looks good. They did a polygraph
(12:56):
exam on it him and I think he passed. I
thought he was a good match.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
Culvert didn't provide the name of his suspect, but we
reviewed the FBI case file. He was thoroughly investigated and
cleared of suspicion, and so it was just one of
many dead ends.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
That was the kind of leads we got. Mostly they
would come in by the phone or they would give
you a nickname. We heard that bow Ray had done
something like this. He had raped the girl and got
mad at her or something, and he was afraid she
was going to go back and rat on him because
she knew him and he killed her. We didn't have
an internet to look. We had to go through hand files,
(13:37):
these index cards. Bow Ray, Who's bow Ray out there?
Because everybody went by street name in DC, so you
never got a name. It was bou Ray or Mumpsy
Bumps or Niani or something like that. So you go
through the moniker file, you never have one. You'd have
six bow Rays in there.
Speaker 8 (13:55):
As a result, Culvert says, their investigation became both frustrating
and exhausting.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
We had spent so many nights away from home, so
many weekends, so many holidays, out on the street, either
in a surveillance or just trying to catch somebody. If
you had a suspect, you didn't have any evidence. The
only chance you had maybe was following some night and
catch him in the act of trying to get a
(14:23):
little girl in the car, pull him over, charging with
a misdemeanor. Till you could get prints and hair samples
or something. That's what you were hoping for, And it
was labor intensive. You sat in cars with these guys
all night long and the worst weather, hoping we'd get
a line on somebody, somebody that's going to call up
(14:45):
here and try to do this, and we're going.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
To get them.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
At the end of the day, you thought, is there
something else we could do right now? Your shift is up,
you've done your eight ten hours, and you're ready to
go home. Man, if we could swinging by that corner
one more time and look and see if we see
a white man, let's do it. Let's do it now.
You were bone tired the next day, but no one
(15:11):
was looking at their watch, no one was looking to see,
all right this time, let's cut it off. Let's go home.
There's nothing else we can do. Is there something else
we could do right now that we couldn't do tomorrow?
It's one o'clock in the morning, But sometimes that's the
most advantageous time to find this kind of person doing this,
(15:33):
And sometimes it meant driving way the heck out in
PG County to just see where my friend was. At
that time, there was no doubt these guys were committed
to solving this thing, and I really thought we might.
I believed it at that time. I believed it. I said,
he's going to do something stupid. Somebody's going to get away,
and we'll get him.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
The work of retired FBI Special Agent Barry Culvert was impressive.
Up until this point, it seemed like law enforcement wasn't
taking these cases seriously, but Culvert's team appeared to be different.
He says they were dedicated to solving these murders. Culvert
and his detective Jimmy Owens interviewed dozens of people from
the community and talked to numerous family members of the victims.
(16:38):
Culvert remembers one night when they visited a family member
to show her some evidence they'd found at a suspect's residence.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
We were going out to a woman's house and I
think it might have been the aunt of one of them,
and I was going to take this picture to show
her these items like ring, ear rings, maybe some little
trinkets that a teenage girl would have. And I remember
that because it was the one that made that the
hardest to get off of this case. Jimmy was on
(17:07):
the phone and the police cruiser and he said, you
just take it in there, and usually the police there
were the evidence custodians of these things, says you go
in and do it. So I can remember knocking on
her door and she came to the door and I
told her this is. My name is Barry, Barry covered.
I'm an FBI is't and I'm trying to find who
killed your niece cousin. And she said come in. As
(17:31):
soon as I came in the door, she took my
arm and she led me over to the dining table
to sit down, and I said, I have this picture
if you've ever seen any of these things on that
she had and she put that paper down like she
was she was being so gentle with that picture of
(17:53):
those items, and she kept rushing the edges, looking and
then she'd pick it up, and then she'd away and
put it back down. And I noticed that her eyes
were tearing up when she looked at the picture. And
then she said, I don't recognize any of these. It
must be one of the other girls. Boy, that just
(18:15):
I didn't know what to say after that, I know,
I said, well, we'll do the best we can. We're
going to try to find this person. We got up,
and she held my arm all the way back to
the front door, and I turned around and stopped and
I said, just took her by the shoulder. I said,
we're going to find out who did this. We are
going to find out who did this. And I gave
(18:36):
her a hug, and then we walked out the front
and it was hard because she just stood by that
front door, that glass door, watching me get in that car.
And when I got in the car, Jimmy Owen said, hey,
you know you've got lipstick on your shirt. Let me
get a get me get a clean next that. And
I said, you know, Jimmy, let's don't wipe it off
(18:57):
for a while. Let's leave that on here. I don't
know that I ever. I'm sure I sent the suit
to the cleaners, but I think I wanted it on
there for a while. I think I did just because
of that interview with that woman. I'd made a pledge.
And from the South, we touch and hug a lot
of people, and I'm a hugger, but in this case
(19:20):
it was more than just a hug. It was like,
this is me promising. This is more than a promise.
I just want you to know I mean what I say.
We're going to find the person that did this. And
I wanted her to know that and not some perfunctory
handshake or i'll see you later. It meant more than
(19:41):
that to me. And then later, when our role stopped,
I remembered that promise to that woman and it just
kind of hard to walk away from it. That's why
this was different. I could not do this three months
six months that we did this. This was this was hard.
(20:03):
This was a hard step.
Speaker 8 (20:07):
Meanwhile, public perceptions about the murders were shifting. Now that
the cases had all been connected, things were changing in
the neighborhood.
Speaker 11 (20:16):
I think, just like during the DC stipe of time
doing that when we talk about mass murders or killings,
the communities started to close ranks a little more, be
more watchful.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
This is Derek Davis who we talked to in episode two.
His family has owned a barbershop in the neighborhood since
the sixties.
Speaker 11 (20:37):
People were more watchful of our youth then. Okay, they
were looking out for him. People were talking about it more.
It was more talk. For instance, what I mean when
people came to barber shop, that was that was the
discussion in the barbershop. And people were saying, well, watch out,
you know, watch out and doing it this and that that.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Yeah, you know, we're doing this. I'm getting off.
Speaker 11 (20:58):
At this time, you know, people were kind of like
somewhat forming their own groups or own not like police school,
but something like neighborhood watches or the orange chat watches
when you said these orange hat where communities were started
to walk.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
The blocks and stuff like that.
Speaker 11 (21:16):
So the community were kind of like somewhat policing the
sells the best way they could to stop what was happening.
We couldn't stop what already happened for surely, and we
didn't necessarily see where that support was coming from.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
Also sitting with us was Derek's friend, Reverend Anthony Motley,
and we got to talking about why it is that
there was practically no media coverage on this case. It's
astonishing to me that someone could snatch and murder young
black girls and now we can't even find coverage.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
How come because they're black.
Speaker 12 (22:01):
Even today we had a six year old murder walking
to the store with her father and mother and they
get caught in a drive by The mother and father wounded,
two more people wounded, the little baby gets dead. The media,
they show up, they do a press conference, and then
(22:23):
they go by.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's like sensationalism exactly what it is.
Speaker 12 (22:29):
That's what they do. Don't do you have any what
they call invest investigative reporters anymore? And if they do investigate,
they don't investigate when it comes to black people, you know,
unless it's something that that that's juicy, you know, like
the government. But as far as the community is concerned,
(22:53):
since another day in the park.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
This frustration was evident in community throughout the murders. Community
member Wilma Harper wrote about it in her book The
Mystery of the Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 13 (23:09):
The bizarre murders of these black girls had not aroused
the press to an acceptable degree. The communities seemed to
have forgotten. Families of the victims bore their sorrow alone
in hopelessness and terror.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
Harper writes that at one point, members of the Congress
Heights neighborhood took it upon themselves to hold a press conference.
They wanted to protest what they called poor police protection
and a lack of media coverage.
Speaker 13 (23:38):
The press conference was called by Calvin Rolark, editor publisher
of the Weekly Washington Informer and president of the Washington
Highland Civic Association. He accused the police and news media
of failing to give equal attention to crimes in the Southeast.
He condemned newspapers for bearing news of the deaths of
the three girls. If it was a blue eyed, white
(24:02):
girl from Silver Spring, her picture would have been all
over page one. About seventy five persons attended the press
conference at one zero five eight Waller Place, Southeast.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
Harper remembers that just before Ninomosia Gates was murdered, the
media went entirely dark on the case.
Speaker 13 (24:22):
During the months of August and September, the news media
made no reports of the progress in the investigation of
the murders. I was recuperating from an automobile accident and
was free to diligently watch for information. My interest in
the cases had been heightened because I knew family members
of two of the victims. I was also in accord
(24:43):
with the earlier interest taken by citizens of the Southeast
community to protect their children from such crimes. The lull
ended on October second, nineteen seventy one, not with the
announcement of a solution, but with the headline of yet
another black girl's murder.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
If you'd look through news releases and police departments, I mean,
you're not gonna find a whole lot of photos from
fifty years ago.
Speaker 8 (25:12):
This is NPR investigative correspondent Cheryl Thompson who we heard
from at the top of the episode. When she thoroughly
investigated this case in twenty eighteen, she says it was
difficult to find any substantial news coverage.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Initially at some of the microfish I looked at, it
was lobbed in with you know, like, Okay, a girl's
body was found here, and then you know, some guy
found across town. You know, it was just sort of
like in passing. So there was coverage, but again then
it just sort of faded. You know, in the early seventies,
Vietnam was all the daily, NonStop coverage, right every single day,
(25:50):
day in and day out. And you had these May
Day protesters, thousands of them on the nation's capitol, and
so that was the coverage. I mean, you know, Detective
Jenkins will tell you that even at the time when
they found the first body, that they were going to
the scene, the supervisor pulled them office said no, no,
I need for you to go down down to the
mall and deal with the protesters. And murder always took
(26:12):
homicide always took precedence, but not in this instance, So
I think that was probably part of it.
Speaker 8 (26:18):
However, there was one major piece of news coverage following
the murder of Ninamoshi Gates, the Daily News published an
article about the now connected murders and they named the
killer the Freeway Phantom. We haven't been able to find
this news clipping. There are some conflicting reports as to
the exact date of this article, but we know it
(26:39):
came before the killer's next victim was found. But they
still didn't refer to the Freeway Phantom as a serial killer,
and Romaine Jenkins explains why.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, at the time, the term serial killers was not
even in existence. The FBI didn't even have its profiling unit.
So if we had a pat and of cases, we
call them pattern cases.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
The reason you.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Said pattern because there was something about the cases that
linked them together. Either the suspect wore the same clothing
or said the same thing in these instances. They weren't
sure that it was the same person. It was hard
for them to believe that one person could have committed
all of these crimes. So a lot of times you
had investigators going off in their own direction, you know,
(27:25):
looking for suspects you know that they felt might fit
the profile of the person.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
They might not have had a name for it at
the time, but the Freeway Phantom was likely Washington, DC's
first serial killer.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Let me just say, I really hate the way that
we give these killers these names. I know we have
to do it like you know, just that's what it is.
But I think that naming them, giving them this quasi
mythological status, just elevates them. And these are despicable human beings,
you know.
Speaker 8 (28:00):
Doctor Jean Murley is an author and professor of English
at Queensborough Community College. She specializes in true crime and
has studied the history and psychology of serial killers. To
get a clear picture of the Freeway Phantom, we need
to understand what a serial killer is. So I sat
down with doctor Murley and asked her to fill in
some missing pieces on that front.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
The standard definition of serial killing for a long time
was three or more victims with a kind of.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
A cooling off period between each.
Speaker 6 (28:30):
That's been revised, right, That's been changed to two victims
at two different times for any reason.
Speaker 8 (28:39):
What were these killers called before we I mean, we
clearly had serial killers before the nineteen seventies, right, I mean,
if nothing else, everybody knows about Jack the Ripper. But
what were they called? What did we how did we
or law enforcement make sense of them.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Before we had this language to comprehend and to articulate
this phenomenon, we use a more gothic terminology of the monstrous. Right,
these people were monsters. They were wicked, evil, demonic even
And so you're moving from a more emotional rhetoric into
(29:20):
one that's more scientific and objective in a way.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
Can I put to you some of the most common
myths about serial killers and have you respond to each one?
The first one, I think, shows like Criminal Minds makes
us think that there are way more serial killers than
there are. I mean, they have someone to catch every week,
and the FBI says, I mean every murder is awful,
but no more than one percent of all murders were
(29:45):
committed by a serial killer. Why do we think they're
so ubiquitous? Is it only the true crime shows.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
It's not true that the country is sort of crawling
with serial killers. It never really was true. What is
true is that serial killing as a phenomenon goes through
waves and troughs, right, and so in the post war period,
right in the nineteen fifties to the nineteen nineties, there
(30:18):
was a very large uptick in the number.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Of serial killers who were.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
Apprehended who were active and apprehended. In nineteen fifty, there
were seventy two known serial killers in the country. Nineteen
sixty there were two hundred and seventeen, nineteen seventy wow,
six hundred eighty, seven hundred and sixty eight, nineteen ninety
six sixty nine, two thousand and three, seventy one, twenty ten,
(30:47):
which is the latest statistic, one hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
So next myth serial killers are almost all white men.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
That's a good one too, and similar to the ways
that the numbers of killers sort of peaks and troughs,
race and serial killing is a very interesting thing. Early on,
there were more white men than any other race. It
was about sixty percent white men, thirty or thirty five
(31:18):
percent black men, the rest Hispanic Asian Native Americans, very
very very small numbers that started to become more even
more fifty to fifty as the seventies, eighties, and nineties
rolled on. And that's a very interesting thing that you know,
it is true that serial killers do tend to victimize
(31:41):
members of their own race, but the fact is that
the racial categories of black and white seemed to become
more even as the decades were on.
Speaker 8 (31:51):
What about the myth that serial killers are isolated dysfunctional, Well.
Speaker 6 (31:58):
That isn't actually, I wouldn't say on myth. I would
say that's pretty true. We're talking about people who are psychopathic,
and that means they have trouble with long term relationships
of any type. They have trouble keeping jobs, they have
trouble fitting in antisocial personality disorder. They tend to also
(32:19):
commit a range of sort of lesser crimes and so
interactions with the system, whether it's misdemeanors or smaller felonies.
These are not people who you know, generally, you would
want to be friends with and have.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
A lot of friends.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
They are people who are.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
Just like, oh, you know, that guy's weird. I don't
want to you know.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
The charming, charismatic, seemingly normal guys are the outliers, right,
And that's what true crime has fed us, and that's
what a lot of the movies and fiction television feeds us.
So I would say that the majority of serial killers
are not people who are successful human beings.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
The term serial killer wouldn't come around until the late seventies,
but the killer took notice of the attention that this
new Moniker Freeway Phantom gave him. Not long after Ninomosia
Yates he would attack again, and this time emboldened.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I grew up. As I said in Washington, d C.
I wasn't far from the freeway to ninety five. And
when I was in elementary school, Harris Elementary School, one
of the victims was in the class with my sister
in the fifth grade, and I remember in the school
they announced it and we would devastate. My sister was crushed.
It was just a really scary time. And I remember
(34:02):
my mom. You know, she was from the South, so
you know, she wasn't playing anyway, but it just heightened
the fear.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
This is Rita McCoy who we heard from an episode two.
She's now a retired detective from the Metropolitan Police Department.
But she went to school with Nenomoshia Gates and remembers
when she was murdered.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
So when that happened with her, I think I was
about eleven or twelve. When I was in junior high school.
There was an incident. It was about four thirty in
the afternoon, and I'm you know, I'm a teenage girl,
and I had another little kid in my neighborhood. We
were going to get some can d and stuff for
her and just hanging out after school. And we were
(34:46):
walking up this hill off of Benning Road, just walking along, laughing.
It was a beautiful day. And all of a sudden
I saw this white Cadillac were on the sidewalk and
it pulled up and like it was parking, and all
of a sudden, the guy he comes out of the
driver's side and he comes around the front of the
car and snatches me, and he's not saying anything, and
(35:09):
he grabbed my arm and he's holding me and he's
pulling open his passenger door. And I'm looking at this
guy and there's no emotion on his face none, And
I'm like, you know, screaming and hollering, and the little
girl is hollering. Her name is Wanda, and I'm trying
to grab stuff. I grabbed a piece of brick off
the ground and hit him, and nothing deterred him, and
(35:30):
he just was strong, and I was kicking and fighting,
and I was almost in the car, and people were
driving up and down the road broad daylight. So all
of a sudden, coming down the hill, that good old God,
there were some friends of my older brother named Roosevelt
and his friends were coming down the hill and they said,
isn't that Rose sister, And I mean for them to
(35:53):
even see me over his car, it blows me away.
But they saw guests coming down the hill. They could
see it, and they say, hey. They screamed to the
guy because it was warm out and the windows were down,
and the guy dropped me and I fell to the
ground and I'm telling you, almost slammed the door on
my leg. And I jumped up, you know, because I
just was so scared. And he closed the door and
(36:14):
jumped in the car and drove off. So the guys
flagged down the police officer. I don't know what they
said to the police. They were older than me. They
had to be like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, whatever, and so
they told the police what they saw and everything, and
the police officer let him go because the police officer
wanted to see if he can catch the guy. So
we got in the car police car. Next thing I know,
(36:36):
the police officer, I guess he got a radio call
or something, because I gave him the description of car
and everything, and they found him instill on Benning rude.
So we just went down to where he was and
there was another officer already talking to him. And this
officer got out and he said, you stay in the car.
Next thing I know, I see him cuff him and
put him in a police call and then took me
(36:58):
also to the station with my mom came and got me.
I don't know what they did with him. I know
they took him that day, but I don't know what
happened as a result, because I never was called, so
I don't know what they did or whatever. But when
we were talking about this case, when I was talking
with others about it years later, as matter of fact,
(37:19):
I mean we're talking about maybe a couple of years ago,
it hit me. Could this have been the freeway phantom.
I don't know. It made me wonder because this guy
was very fierce and he was very determined, and I
mean it was no conversation, just snatching off the street.
(37:40):
And when you look at those cases, that's what happened
in each one of those cases, they were just snatched
off the street. So it's just something to ponder. Thank
god it was saved from that.
Speaker 8 (37:55):
It's unclear if the man who tried to abduct Rita
was the Freeway Phantom, but it's very possible she was
the exact demographic that the phantom was targeting, black, young
and petite. She was also on Bending Road that's the
same road that nine Moosha was snatched off of. And
there was one other strange similarity.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Back then, they had this in school. It was one
piece like shorts that we used for our gym class
and it was like a one piece jumper but the
shorts and I had that on and you know, it
wasn't provocative or anything, you know.
Speaker 13 (38:33):
So you were in the gym outfit, which is one
of the other girls.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Was in as well. Did you know that?
Speaker 11 (38:38):
No?
Speaker 5 (38:38):
I didn't. I did not know that. Are you kidding me?
I never knew that. Well, you know, it was issued
and I could see myself in it actually because there
were different colors and minds was the part the top
part is as pin stripe and it was in the
pants were like gold.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
The thing is, I don't know that I've award again.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
As it turns out, Rita had worn DC Public School
issue jim shorts, the same shorts that Carol Spinx had
on when she was killed. The coincidences in Rita's case
are just too many to ignore. And so if this
man she's describing was in fact the killer, we thought
we should learn a little bit more about who he was.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
He was dark skinned. He wasn't very tall. I'd say
it was probably about between maybe five eight five nine.
He was strong, very strong. He looked like he could
have been either in his late thirties or early forties,
mid forties. He had like cyburns. He was kind of scruffy.
(39:48):
He wasn't dirty, but like you know, wasn't neat. But
he had facial hair, not a beard, but he had cydeburns,
and he had a mustache and it was dark. He
wasn't like he had no gut or anything. He was
pretty fit. I wouldn't even doubt that he could have
been military or some type of job at that age
(40:10):
to keep you know, in pretty good shape. You know,
now with my police skills, I can really break it
down a little bit. I really believe I was being stalked.
The whole thing was I wonder how long he was stalking,
because when he pulled up, he pulled up farther enough
so that he was literally by the time he got out,
(40:31):
it was like pre playing. By the time he got
out of his car, he met me. You see, as
I was walking.
Speaker 8 (40:40):
We asked to reader how this event impacted her life.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
It was mostly mental. I was definitely fearful after that.
I don't remember ever walking up there again that way
ever again, you know, I remember even after that years later,
driving you know, and I never talked about it. I
mean even within my family, we didn't talk about it.
And the girl Wanda, she lived next door, and we
(41:05):
were recently talking about it because we're still friends, and
she said, oh yeah, she said it was terrifying. And
I never really talked to her even about her perspective
because it had to traumatize her because she was younger
than me, about about three or four years. But they
didn't go after her.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Rita says that afterwards she was expecting to learn more
about the man or what happened, but she never heard
anything else about the incident.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
After that day. I was never called. There was never
anything after that. I don't know what happened to that guy.
The only thing I had learned was it was his birthday.
I don't know his name or anything like that, but
it was his birthday, which really creaked me out a lot.
What was his plans?
Speaker 8 (41:53):
Rita could have been the fifth victim of the Freeway Phantom,
if there was any connection at all. Either way, she
was lucky, but not everyone was so lucky. Soon another
girl would go missing. Just a little over a month
after Nina Moosi Yates was murdered, eighteen year old Brenda
(42:15):
Woodard was found dead and in her coat pocket police
found a handwritten letter, the first communication from the killer.
Speaker 7 (42:26):
I hund hand him out to my own sons and
him and two people of not howing women. I one
met the other when you catch me and canna how
freeway Haando.
Speaker 8 (42:50):
Next time on Freeway Phantom. When I got home today,
my wife was crying. She said she got off from
work and she couldn't catch the bus because of all
the police tape.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
We live basically in the same neighborhood, I mean the
same type of apartments, the same people, and I used
to hang out where she lived. I had friends up there.
Speaker 10 (43:09):
She had been strangled, and what was different with her
is she had also been stabbed. So I've liked previous victims.
She put up a serious struggle with her as Sam.
Speaker 9 (43:21):
And it makes you wonder too, did she fight back
because she basically wrote her own killer's note.
Speaker 5 (43:30):
Here he is. He's taunting the police.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
He knows enough to know not to write the note
himself because he could potentially be connected to it.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV
and Black bar Mitzvah. Our host is CELESE.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
Hiley.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright and
Celes Hiley. Executive producers on behalf of Our Heart Radio
include Matt Frederick and Alexilliams, with supervising producer Trevor Young.
Executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright
and Payne Lindsay, with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan.
Executive producers on behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself,
(44:14):
Jay Ellis and Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Fools. Lead
researcher is Jamie Albright. Artwork by Mister Soul two one six,
original music by Makeup and Vanity Set special thanks to
a teammate, Uta Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group.
Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia, as well as Black bar Mitzvah
(44:35):
have increased the reward for information leading to the arrest
and conviction of the person or persons responsible for their
Freeway Fan of murders. The previous reward of up to
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan
Police Department has been matched. A new total reward of
up to three hundred thousand dollars is now being offered.
If you have any information relating to these unsolved crimes,
(44:58):
contact the Metropolitan Police Department at area code two zero
two seven two seven nine zero ninety nine. For more information,
please visit freeway dashfanom dot com. For more podcasts from
iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
Host
Celeste Headlee
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!