The Disappearance of Elizabeth Ann Campbell Part 2

Part 2 of 2. Twenty-year-old Elizabeth Campbell’s family didn’t know how to find  their daughter, a missing person, but at first, they did a far better job than police. Still, the efforts led nowhere. After four years with nothing to show, physical evidence materialized out of the blue in Ozona, Texas in a lost and found box at the Crockett County Sheriff’s Office: Elizabeth’s purse. Only, no one knew how or when it got there. Also, when the crimes of Robert Ben Rhoades, AKA the Truck Stop Killer, became widely known, the public began wondering if he could be responsible for Elizabeth’s disappearance.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Elizabeth Ann Campbell, please call the Copperas Cove Crime Stoppers at [phone] or Bell County Crime Stoppers at [phone]. You can also submit a tip online at https://copperascovecrimestoppers.com/team/missing-elizabeth-ann-campbell

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The Austin American Statesman, kxxv.com, kcentv.com, kwtx.com, Unsolved Mysteries Season 2 Episode 8, and charleyproject.org/case/elizabeth-ann-campbell were used as sources for this episode. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, y'all, before we get started, I need to make
a correction. Last episode, I misspoke and said that Tom
and Samsuon Campbell originally reported Elizabeth missing to police in
Copper's Cove, which is incorrect. They reported her missing to
the Lampasas police, who themselves later involved law enforcement in

(00:22):
Copper's Cove. By the time you're hearing this, I've already
made the changes to the episode, but I wanted to
let those of you who have already listened know as
to avoid any confusion it might cause this episode. Sorry
about that. The Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or
graphics subject matter. Listener discretion is advised. After their daughter

(00:48):
Elizabeth disappeared, Tom and Samsoon Campbell spent years trying to
find her. They searched extensively along Highway one ninety between Lampassas,
where they live and Copper's Cove, where Elizabeth was last seen,
but found little more than a deer bone. No sign

(01:08):
of their missing daughter could be found, no clothing, no jewelry,
school books, or purse, all items Elizabeth was known to
be carrying as she tried to make her way home
from Colleen to Lampassas. Though they had a heated argument
the night Elizabeth vanished. Her boyfriend, Ricky Ray was never
a suspect in the eyes of law enforcement, and though

(01:31):
the rumor mill cast its doubts about his innocence, Ricky's
alibi was as solid as they come. In fact, he'd
been at work alongside Elizabeth's sister later that night, and
it even mentioned their fight to her. His involvement was
virtually impossible when a young woman matching Elizabeth's description was

(01:53):
seen in various places from Copper's Cove to Garland. Samsoon
and Tom searched strip club ubs, massage parlors, and stopped
to sex workers to see if they had any information.
No one did. They'd written politicians and various law enforcement
agencies across the United States hung up flyers from Lampasas

(02:15):
to El Paso and from San Antonio to Dallas. At
some point, the case left the hands of the Lampasas
police and the Copper's Cove police took over the investigation entirely.
The Campbells attempted to look into every lead that came
in over the toll free tip line they had put
in at the house. After the television show unsolved Mysteries

(02:39):
ran a segment on Elizabeth's case. There were plenty to
check out. Early on, the family began selling property, cattle,
and other possessions to pay for their efforts. Still, no
sign of their daughter was ever found, or so Tom
and Samson thought for more than three years after their

(03:00):
lives and the lives of Elizabeth's four siblings were turned
upside down. At three thousand or so residents in nineteen ninety,

(03:35):
the unincorporated West Texas community Ozona is small. As the
one and only town in Crockett County, a sign welcomes
visitors or far more likely passers through Ozona, the biggest
little town in the world. On May sixth, nineteen ninety two,
for the family of a missing Lampassas woman, that motto

(03:58):
became truer than it had ever been. That Wednesday, at
the Crockett County Sheriff's office in Ozona, as they did
some last minutes scrounging for items to sell at a
county wide surplus goods auction, deputies rummaged through a lost
and Found box, a catch all for items unclaimed that
the department had been using since the nineteen seventies. In

(04:22):
the lost and found they stumbled upon something they weren't
quite sure what to make of, a maroon leather clutch
purse filled with identifying items. It was in good condition,
appearing to have never been left out in the elements
inside the purse were the credit card, social security card,

(04:42):
and driver's license of a woman named Elizabeth Ann Campbell.
Other unnamed items found inside were all dated prior to
April twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight, the day this young
woman vanished without a trace, but now finally there was.
After entering Elizabeth's information into a computer, Crockett County Chief

(05:06):
Deputy Alton Davis discovered that the bag belonged to a
person missing from Copper's Cove, almost two hundred and thirty
miles to the east. Chief Deputy Davis immediately called the
police department there and reported what he had found. Soon
after the discovery, Samson and Tom Campbell were informed, and

(05:27):
when they learned what was found inside the purse, they
told police that it appeared a hairbrush, lipstick, and her
keys were missing. Over the next couple weeks, Crockett County
Sheriff Jim Wilson had a photo of the purse printed
in the local paper to see if anyone remembered giving
it to police, since there was no record of such.

(05:48):
In fact, by every indication, it appeared as though Elizabeth's
name had never been checked. After the purse was turned
over to police. The Crockett County Sheriff said he felt
certain and it was turned in before he had taken
office and had implemented a new property room record keeping
process at that time. If he was right, that meant

(06:09):
the purse was found and turned in sometime between April
twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight and January first, nineteen eighty nine.
The Campbell family was frustrated. Why hadn't Elizabeth's name been
checked when the purse was first turned in. Why hadn't
the contents of the lost and Found box been revisited

(06:30):
when Sheriff Wilson's new policies were put in place at
the beginning of nineteen eighty nine. In June of nineteen ninety,
sam Soon had even stopped at the Crockett County Sheriff's
office and personally gave deputies a flyer that not only
described Elizabeth Campbell by name, but also had a description
of her purse. The mother had been standing mere feet

(06:54):
from the only physical evidence in her daughter's missing person's case.
She wouldn't know it for two more year. Now, more
than four years after Elizabeth was last seen, and her
case was as cold as they come. The cops, three
and a half hours away and Copper's Cove desperately needed
to find out when and by whom the purse was found.

(07:16):
Tom and Samsuon Campbell's minds were reeling with possibilities. They
wondered why the deposit slips were missing from Elizabeth's checkbook,
which was also inside the purse. Perhaps she had left
a trail behind her using them, Tom theorized, Speaking of
the purse, he continued, there's a good chance that she

(07:38):
left it in a restroom or roadside park just to
bring attention to herself. However, the checkbook and its missing contents,
along with all the other items found inside, provided no
clues as to the whereabouts of Elizabeth. Shortly after it
was found, and after the Copper's Cove police took custody

(07:58):
of it, the purse was sent to a Texas Department
of Public Safety crime lab to check for prints and
undergo other tests. Eventually, several sets of fingerprints were found
and sent to the FBI for further examination. They apparently
did little good. Sergeant Dan Austen, who was the Copper's

(08:20):
cove detective working the case at that point, knew that
knowing when and where the purse was found would offer
the greatest potential for clues, but it never happened. No
one ever came forward. It was the very first solid
clue in the case, but with the context of its
discovery unknown, the purse meant little in terms of followable

(08:44):
leads or workable theories. Six months later, Sergeant Austin told
reporters that the department hadn't received so much as a
crank call concerning the purse. While the Crockett County Sheriff's
Office wrapped up their te trubbling involvement in the Elizabeth
Ann Campbell case, one of their own cold cases was

(09:06):
heating up. When they left Seattle, Washington in nineteen eighty eight,
newlywed's Patricia Candice Walsh and Douglas Scott Ziskowski, twenty three

(09:28):
and twenty six years old, respectively, didn't bring any identification along.
They'd given up their belongings to travel and deliver the
word of Jesus Christ and this time, they were going
to Georgia. Hitchhiking to Georgia. After Patricia and Douglas's time there,
they felt it was their duty to continue to spread

(09:49):
the gospel out west, so they began traveling again. The
minister of Everyday Church in Seattle spoke with the couple
in January of nineteen as they were making their way
from Georgia. They were in El Paso, Texas, Patricia and
Douglas told him, and on their way to Arizona. No

(10:10):
one ever heard from them again. Two years later, in
April of nineteen ninety two, Douglas's parents, Mary and Gerald
Ziskowski visited El Paso to hand out missing persons flyers
and visit with law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Department
of Public Safety office there. Crockett County Sheriff's Office Deputy

(10:33):
Alton Davis had recently visited the DPS offices in El Paso,
following up on a lead in the case of an
unidentified male body they had found two years before in
nineteen ninety about three miles inside the Eastern County line
off Interstate ten West, about thirty miles east of Ozona,

(10:54):
when the Zeiskowskis handed the flyer to a Texas ranger
in El Paso. He reckeded that the descriptions in the
two cases matched. The following month, the John Doe in
Crockett County was identified by dental records as Douglas Ziskowski.
Since they now had a second missing person connected to

(11:15):
Douglas his wife, Patricia, they searched the area where his
body was found again but discovered nothing new. Patricia's mom
came to El Paso the June following Douglas's identification, but
would receive no answers. Neither she nor law enforcement knew.
Deer hunters had found Patricia near an isolated canyon off

(11:38):
Interstate fifteen in Utah in October nineteen ninety ten, months
after she and her husband were last heard from for years.
She would be listed as a Jane Doe there. When
she and Douglas's story aired on America's Most Wanted in
September of nineteen ninety two, the television show received a

(11:58):
call from someone who said Patria Tricia's body would be
found off mile marker forty nine in West Texas, though
they failed to specify whether that meant off of Interstate
ten near Van Horn or I twenty near Odessa. Neither,
of course, was true. Finally, in two thousand and three,

(12:18):
the body found in Utah was positively identified as belonging
to Patricia Walsh. Years before, and just months after Crockett
County John Doe was identified as Douglas Ziskowski. On September eleventh,
nineteen ninety two, a man named Robert Ben Rhodes was
convicted in Illinois for the murder of a fourteen year

(12:41):
old girl named Regina k Walters. Regina ran away from
her mom's house in Pasadena, Texas, in early February of
nineteen ninety. Rhodes, a long haul trucker whose routes took
him across the western portion of the United States, all
over Texas, Flora, the Midwest, East Coast, and everywhere in between.

(13:05):
Was also known over the Cebee radio as Dusty and
Whips and Chains. At some point along their way, probably
not far from Pasadena, he picked up Regina and her
new boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones. More than a month later,
Regina's parents began receiving mysterious and ominous phone calls about

(13:26):
their daughter, one specifying that her hair had been cut
off and that she'd been left in the loft of
an old barn. Was she alive, Regina's father, who lived
in Houston, wondered, but the caller hung up without answering
the question. Later traced that call came from a gas
station payphone in Ennis, Texas. More calls came in, including

(13:50):
some to Regina's mother in Pasadena. On September twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety, a farmer in Greenville, Illinois found human scale
remains in an old barn on his property. They were
quickly identified as belonging to a teenaged girl or young woman.
There was no clothing on the victim or anywhere nearby,

(14:12):
though there was still some hair on the head and
evidence of a recent haircut. Strangulation was the cause of death.
Bailing wire had been twisted around the victim's neck sixteen times,
then tightened using a tourniquet, nearly decapitating her. The dental
records of fourteen year old Regina Walters were eventually compared

(14:35):
to those of the unidentified skull, and they matched. Later,
her boyfriend Ricky's remains were found off Highway fifty nine
in Lamar County, Mississippi. Although they were not identified until
two thousand and eight. There was a bullet hole in
his skull. It wasn't until October nineteen ninety one that

(14:56):
a Houston detective saw the photos that the FBI cap
in their Robert Benrood's file. Images of a young teen naked,
shackled and cuffed with a choke chain around her neck
immediately caught his eye. She had very short hair, but
looked like his missing teenager turned murder victim, Regina Walters.

(15:19):
Her hair was still long in the detective's photo, but
he recognized her nonetheless, and the three birthmarks on her
neck matched. Since there was such a dramatic change to
her appearance, he had to verify. He showed the photo
to Regina's father, Jerry. Jerry joylessly confirmed they now knew

(15:40):
Rhodes was their guy. Trucker logs and fuel receipts from
work revealed that the dates and location of Rhodes's stops
coincided with the calls made to Regina's parents. Regina's mother's
phone number had been posted on missing persons flyers, and
Jerry's number was written in a small spiral bound notebook

(16:02):
that belonged to Regina that was found among Rhodes's possessions.
The notebook contained careless bits of evidence, a juvenile drawling
of a gun and blood droplets, and little notes that
seemed to suggest plans things like water tank and fun
and hide. Rhodes was so nonchalant about all the depravity

(16:25):
he was getting away with he had even written out
the phrase Ricky is a dead man. This was all
evidence that had been collected from his apartment. When a
search warrant was carried out by the FBI on April sixth,
nineteen ninety, after they'd all but proven Rhodes was responsible
for Regina and Ricky's murders, he wasn't too difficult to find.

(16:48):
On April first, nineteen ninety, Rhodes had been arrested for
kidnapping and torturing a woman he picked up at Rip
Griffin's truck stop north of Phoenix, Arizona and Buckeye, after
a state troopers stopped to inspect his semi parked with
its hazards on just off Interstate ten. Inside the sleeper
of the truck, the woman was naked and shackled. Immediately

(17:12):
upon seeing the trooper, she began screaming frantically. For help.
Rhodes had welded rings to the back of the sleeper
compartment and attached chains to them. Instruments of torture surrounded
the woman. Leashes, handcuffs, whips, alligator clips, and dildos. Everything

(17:32):
was placed neatly. There were long hooked sticks for trapping victims,
bloody towels, a camera, a briefcase, and a horse bit.
The scene was appalling. In December nineteen ninety, Robert Ben
Rhodes accepted a generous plea bargain in Arizona. He pleaded
guilty to kidnapping and torturing and agreed to serve only

(17:56):
six years. The charges were sexual assault, aggravated assault, and
unlawful imprisonment. The sentence was light, but he was still
in prison when detectives working the Regina Walters and Ricky
Lee Jones cases discovered Regina's photo in his confiscated possessions,
and it gave them plenty of time to gather what

(18:17):
they needed to put him away for good, including her
fingerprint in the cab of his truck, a lucky break
because it had been steam cleaned since his arrest. Almost
two years later, he pleaded guilty to the murder of
Regina K. Walters in Illinois. He was never tried for
the murder of her boyfriend. Rhodes was required to give

(18:41):
his DNA in two thousand and three while imprisoned up North,
which matched previously unknown male DNA lifted from the body
of Patricia Candace Walsh. After a thorough investigation, authorities in
Utah placed charges against Rhodes, who was fifty nine years
old at the time time. Crockett County, Texas law enforcement

(19:03):
quickly followed suit and charged Roads with the murder of
Patricia's husband, Douglas Scott Ziskowski. By two thousand and nine,
the charges for Patricia's case were transferred to Crockett County,
and in October of that year, Rhodes was booked into
the Reagan County Jail to await trial for her and
Douglas's murders. In March of twenty twelve, after spending three

(19:28):
years in the Texas jail, he pleaded guilty to both
to avoid the death penalty, the same reason he had
pleaded out in the Regina Walters case. On January thirteenth,
nineteen ninety, somewhere near El Paso on Interstate ten Rhodes
had picked up Douglas and Patricia later that day. Most likely,

(19:49):
Rhodes shot Douglas three times in the head on the
side of I ten West in Crockett County and rolled
him down an embankment off the side of the highway.
After that, it's believed he held Patricia captive, raping and
torturing her for more than a week before ultimately shooting
her with a twenty two caliber rifle four times in

(20:10):
the head and neck and dumping her off the side
of the road in a remote area of Millard County, Utah.
Some believe Robert Ben Rhodes, who came to be known
as the truck Stop Killer, is responsible for the disappearance
of Elizabeth Ann Campbell because the body of one of

(20:41):
his victims was found near Ozona, Texas, where at the
Crockett County Sheriff's Office the purse of Elizabeth Ann Campbell
was discovered in nineteen ninety two. Some speculate that serial
killer Robert Ben Rhodes is responsible for her disappearance. His
known trucking routes in Texas at the time consisted of

(21:02):
Interstate ten from El Paso to Houston, a ride which
directly passes Ozona. Usually, it appears roads might take either
Interstate thirty five or I forty five to the Dallas
Fort Worth area, a trail that does not pass Coppera's
Cove from where Elizabeth went missing. However, there are routes

(21:23):
such as Highway one ninety that might have served the
killer as off the beaten path, hunting grounds of which
led to other highways where he could get back on track.
Strange phone calls in the case also mirror those roads
made to the families of his victims or, in this case,
the police. On the night Elizabeth disappeared, a caller reported

(21:47):
seeing a juvenile female matching her description walking down Highway
one ninety toward Colleen, the opposite way Elizabeth was supposed
to have been going, which was back home to Lampassas.
When the cops tried to follow up on this tip,
it turned out the caller gave them a bad address
and false name. They claimed they were making the call

(22:09):
from a residence, but police later found out it came
from a payphone located on Clark Road in Copper's Cove.
While the idea of Robert ben Rhoades as Elizabeth Campbell's
killer appears to have been first speculated by the public.
The Copper's Cove Police have confirmed that they've looked into him,

(22:29):
they've never publicly released their findings. Alongside the human trafficking possibility,
Roads appears to be on a short list of theories.
Although Rhodes appears to be a viable suspect in Elizabeth's disappearance,
one important witness report perhaps makes it unlikely. In an

(22:51):
October nineteen eighty eight Austin American Statesman piece about the case,
a witness at the seven eleven where she was last
seen reported they saw her outside near the payphone before
getting into a white car with a maroon landau roof,
a description that later expanded to white or silver possibly

(23:11):
later descriptions say a Pontiac or GMC. Oddly, the car
was reported as heading back to Colleen, which is the
same direction she was seen walking down the highway according
to the person who called and provided a false name
and address the night Elizabeth was last seen. Had the

(23:32):
information about the maroon topped car been louder at the
time of Elizabeth's disappearance, it might have led to further leads. Instead,
it was only mentioned once or twice. In July of
two thousand and one, the Copper's Cove Police received a
tip after a rerun of the Unsolved Mysteries episode with

(23:52):
a segment about Elizabeth Campbell aired just one The department
never expounded upon the name of the call or whether
the lead was exhausted. One of the stranger tips that
came along over the years involved a phone call to
a Lampasas hospital. The tipster was a former hospital worker

(24:13):
when they called it in apparently about a week after
Elizabeth's disappearance, a male caller to the hospital asked if
her body had arrived in the ambulance. Yet it's unclear what,
if anything, came of this lead. Beginning in the early
two thousands, however, the tips slowed to a near stop.

(24:36):
Stories about Elizabeth's disappearance were few and far in between,
but when the media coverage did come, the pain the
family still felt was palpable and fresh with every anniversary article.
Her sister, carol Anne carries unwarranted guilt. Elizabeth would have
had her car that night if Carol Anne hadn't borrowed it.

(24:58):
Tom Elizabeth's father, seems to have lost the desire to
speak with the press, often relying on Sam Soon, Elizabeth's mother,
to do the talking. He died at age eighty three
on June thirteenth, twenty eighteen, without any answers. Tom muttered
these last words to sam Soon, you find anything about Elizabeth.

(25:22):
Her reply was no, to which he could only respond
with tears. Sam Soon often wonders aloud if she's a
bad person and asks why she's being punished, constantly haunted
and tormented by the uncertainty, but most of all the
pain of losing her youngest child. Still, she continues to

(25:44):
look for her daughter. If you have any information about
the disappearance of Elizabeth Ann Campbell, please call the Copper's
Cove Crimestoppers at two five four five four seven one
one or Belle Cams crime Stoppers at two five four
five two six eight four seven seven. You can also

(26:06):
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(26:26):
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