FRANK FIGLIUZZI-LONG HAUL

Episode Transcript

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This is Later with Lee Matthews theLee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Frank fickLucy was an Assistant director for counter Intelligence
at the FBI, where he servedtwenty five years as a special agent and
directed all espionage investigations across the government. He's also written the national bestseller The

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FBI Way Inside the Bureau's Code ofExcellence. His newest creation is long Haul
Hunting the Highway Serial Killers and FrankFigliuzy, good to have you along here
today. Oh, it's my pleasure. And boy does Oklahoma play an essential
part in this book. I imaginewe do as we kind of are the

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crossroads of the entire nation when itcomes to long haul truck or traffic.
Yeah, it's true, but manycities are intersections of several interstate highways.
But you guys are special because thewhole FBI Highway Serial Killings initiative was birthed
in Oklahoma because of a hero inmy book by the name of Terry Turner

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with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. So it wasn't the FBI who really
came up with this idea. Theywere dragged into it by Terry Turner,
who was kind of figuratively pounding herfist on the desk years ago, back
in two thousand and three, whenshe said, we've got ten young ladies
missing from Oklahoma who are turned updead in other states. I believe they're

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trafficking victims. I believe long haultruckers have done this. The FBI showed
up, said you're absolutely right,and started this initiative long Haul Hunting the
Highway serial Killers, and Frankfiglusia iswith us. So this was the perfect
crime for a long haul trucker,wasn't it. You're always on the go,

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you're kind of in the shadows anyway, you work a lot of odd
hours at night, and you movestealthily through the United States. You know,
there's a reason why long haul truckingis the number one profession of serial
killers. It's because of what youjust said. You've got a mobile crime

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scene in an eighteen wheeler, andthese truckers are grabbing their victim in one
jurisdiction, they're raping and murdering herin a second jurisdiction, and they're dumping
the remains in a third and theywent by names like that. US law
enforcement has a huge town, Iwas going to say, and they go
by names like truck stop killer andothers. Yeah. Some of the most

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notorious serial killing truckers are featured inthe book, including Robert Ben Rhodes,
who was good for probably fifty fiftymurder victims. He was stopped only because
an Arizona State troopers saw his truckalong the side of the road, walked
up to it, began to heara woman screaming. Turns out she was

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shackled to a torch and a torturechamber rigged in the back of the truck,
and that began the unraveling of RobertBen Rhodes. But I'm telling you
there's many, many more out there, and Oklahoma has just suffered immeasurably with
young women missing and murdered at thehands of truckers. Thank goodness for Terry

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Turner. I feature one victim inthe book who is Casey Joe Pipe stem
from the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma,very young girl who was trafficked and then
found dead in Grapevine, Texas.Wow. Yeah, So when did this
all begin? Well, I thinkas long as there have been truckers and

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sex trafficking. We've had this readymade kind of victim pool with a ready
made suspect pool. But the FBIstarted this initiative in two thousand and four
and only publicly acknowledged it in twothousand and nine because they had to.
There are two men murders, andby the way, this hasn't stopped.
When you've got two hundred unsolved casesand four hundred and fifty suspects, that

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means we still have serial killers amongstthe long haul community on our highways.
Thank god. By the way,we're only talking about a tiny fraction of
long haul truckers because ninety nine percentof them are decent, hard working people
just trying to put food on theirfamily's table. I didn't want to indict

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the entire industry either, Frank Iglusy, because so many listen to this program,
both on the terrestrial signal end onour iHeart radio app when they're out
of town. They like to keepup with what's going on at home,
and it makes them feel a littlemore connected than they always There's that other
thing too, the psychology of beinga long haul trucker. You're always disconnected.

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I do get deep into that.I ask the question nature or nurture?
These are these killers attracted to thejob, is what it allows them
to do? When does it start? And of course the age old question
of how do you make a serialkiller? Often these truckers have severe abuse
in their childhood, but then thelight bulb goes on when they get into

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that isolated world of trucking that theypretty much can do whatever they want without
getting caught at it. So thatis the problem. It's been going on
for decades and we need to bringan into it. It's shifted a lot.
I get into that the times oftrafficking that go on today are not
so much physically at the truck stopparking lot, but now online advertising.

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The transaction occurs at a nearby motelor massage parlor. That makes it even
harder and more dangerous for the victims. I was also going to ask about
I mean, there was a timewhen a lot of the truckers were abusing
drugs to keep going and to logmore time. I don't know that that's

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so much of a problem, butdoes that factor into the whole criminal aspect
of this. Yeah. I askedsome of the women that I spoke with
the victims who survived violent encounters withtruckers, and they said, without a
doubt that alcohol and drugs does fuelthe violent rage sometimes that they encounter with

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a trucker. But I'm pleased toreport that some of the drug use has
gone down. There was a period, you're right, seventies eighties, lots
of amphetamine used to stay awake,even meth, and then to come down.
You know, you take downers,you drink alcohol. The statistics right
now are that ten percent of longhaul truckers drink alcohol every day, twenty

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percent binge drink five or more drinksat a time, and forty four percent
of truckers say they are suffering signsof major depression. Oh, I can
see that easily. I've had friendswho really weren't I think suitable for the
job, and they were attracted tothe amount of money they were going to

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be making. And then I realized, well, what good is all this
money if you're never home to spendany of it? You know, you
know, speaking of the money,the guy I rode with, he's in
the six figures. I mean heleft was a He was a graduate of
the Culinary Institute of America. Heworked as a chef, but he left
that job to make more money inlong haul truck. Yeah, it's a

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very especially now. The other thingI wanted to ask about is the new
technological advances that the trucking industry hasadopted, for instance, transponders. It's
very difficult for a trucker these daysto stop for a long period of time
without his dispatch. You're noticing technologyhas played a role, and law enforcement

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does believe some of the numbers ofkilling are going down because of the constant
electronic monitoring that goes on. Thisis particularly true at the big corporations.
Right, the names were all familiarwith we see them emblazoned on the trail.
But let me tell you something.As I worked through that theory in
the book, Hey, maybe probablynot a corporate trucker very tracked. Maybe

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it's owner operators. Well, thenI find chases where the corporate trucker has
parked his rig on his mandatory thirtysix hours of downtime. So he gets
in an uber or a rental carand he goes out and kills on his
downtime. So you can track itall you want, but it's sitting at
the parking lot. Yeah, formerFBI special agent Frank fig Lucy. The

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book is long haul Hunting the Highwayserial Killers has a lot to do with
here in Oklahoma, as a lotof this story was born here, so
that is a fascinating part of theread. Frank, I got to tell
you too. The Matthews office buildingused to reside in the same building as
our local FBI headquarters. In fact, we would keep our radio station vehicles
in the former FBI motor pool downstairs. So we're no longer in that building,

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but it was great fun to thinkof all the lore of everything that
had happened in that particular office.Oh for sure. Yeah, there's a
that's a great office. I've actuallybeen there a couple of times and I
do occasional work for the Oklahoma CityBombing Memorial and Foundation. Great people in
that Thanks for listening to Later withLee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and

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remember to listen to The Drive Liveweekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation