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The Truck Stop Killer (Bruce Mendenhall)
by: Todd Matthews
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Bruce Mendenhall (referred to as "The Truck Stop Killer"
was arrested in Nashville Tennessee July 12, 2007


Network
helps identify unamed victims
News Channel 5 WTVF


July 20, 2007:

LIVINGSTON, Tenn.- More than 100 agencies have contacted Metro police about suspected serial killer Bruce Mendenhall.

The 56-year-old truck driver is charged with one homicide and a suspect in at least five others. A lot of people are looking at him in other cases including a group of volunteers who are not police detectives. One of the volunteers lives in Overton County. He and others help police on the Internet, looking at other unsolved homicides. But these cases are different. The victims are Jane and John Does. For Todd Mathews holding an unidentified skull is nothing new. In fact, he's been helping families and police try to identify Jane and John Does for nearly ten years. "It came from a need," Mathews said. He got involved nearly a dozen years ago when he started using the Internet to research the identity of human remains discovered by his father-in-law in Kentucky "Tent Girl". "I was just opened up to this whole world," Mathews said. "I had no idea that there were so many other Jane Does or John Does." The research and contacts with others created what is called the Doe Network. "There were state Web sites, local Web sites with missing persons, but nothing really central," Mathews said. It's a public website listing thousands of missing and unidentified persons throughout North America, Australia and Europe. "We have 21 unidentified bodies listed for Tennessee," Mathews said. Mathews has found a couple of Jane Doe cases in East Tennessee and Kentucky that are similar to the murders allegedly committed by Bruce Mendenhall. Police said Mendenhall has implicated himself in the killings of six prostitutes, but there could be others. There's a case in Campbell County. "She was stabbed and dumped along I-75 and she was thought to be have been a prostitute," Mathews said. The Doe Network shares information with police all over the world. For Mathews, it all started with the bones discovered by his father-in-law. It took awhile but he found the victim's name. "Ten years, it took a decade to identify her," Mathews said.




Source:
http://hazel8500.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/network-helps-identify-unamed-victims/

A missing persons organization
said they may have been on the trail of
Bruce Mendenhall five years ago.
Channel 4 WSMV


July 31, 2007

Mendenhall is the trucker who police said could be a serial killer. He has been charged in the deaths of two women: one in Tennessee and one in Alabama.

Their suspicions are troubling given what a search warrant shows was found in Mendenhall's truck when he was arrested.

Police produced a list of items found in Mendenhall’s truck that ended in more than 300 items including a rifle, several weapons cartridges, knives, black tape, handcuffs, a nightstick, latex gloves, sex toys and condoms.

Several items were blacked out by investigators.

But years before Mendenhall was arrested and charged, a group out of the Cookeville area (Livingston)
said they began to suspect a killer was moving along the interstate.

Todd Matthews said when he first saw Mendenhall, a police composite sketch immediately came to mind.

"I saw that photograph and it looked like the guy in the composite,” he said.

Matthews remembered the sketch was of a truck driver believed responsible for the unsolved slaying of Belinda Cartwright in 2001.

Cartwright was among several women who were slain along Interstate 75; I-75 snakes through several states including Kentucky and Tennessee.

"I had an I-75 serial killer theory a few years ago, it made sense. We did a few blurbs in the media, but it never picked up until now. Now I'm getting calls back from it, and that was five years ago,” he said.

Channel 4 spoke with Matthews as he was leaving for a missing person's conference.

Despite years of largely being ignored by police and the media, there's no sense of "I told you so" for Matthews.

He said he just wants closure for the families of the slain women that he's in frequent contact with who keep the memories of their loved ones alive.

"I think a lot of families are hoping this is their guy. This is the answer to what they're looking for,” he said.




Source:
http://skcentral.com/print.php?type=N&item_id=2295

Cold cases thawing
Task force looks at Mendenhall
Courier Press


July 31, 2007

A federal task force has been formed to dig deeper into the background of serial killer suspect Bruce D. Mendenhall, 56, of Albion, Ill.

After his arrest more than two weeks ago for the murder of a Tennessee woman, Mendenhall allegedly implicated himself in the slayings of as many as six women in the South — a revelation that has triggered interest from as many as 75 cold case units that want to determine if Mendenhall could be implicated in open homicide cases.

An FBI task force is reconstructing Mendenhall's movements over the past several years as it attempts to develop a timeline for the suspect's travels. The biggest task is to dig through trucking company log books, credit card receipts and other records in an effort to link Mendenhall's travels to unsolved killings.

Illinois State Police has announced it and Iowa authorities want to question Mendenhall about the 1992 slaying of a 21-year-old college student who was driving cross-country from New Jersey to Grinnell College in Iowa when her car broke down along an Illinois highway.

Tammy J. Zywicki was last seen talking with a trucker on Interstate 80 in upstate LaSalle, Ill. Witnesses told troopers the trucker had apparently pulled over to help her. The driver was described as a white male between the age of 35-40, taller than 6 feet, with dark, bushy hair.

Zywicki's body was found more than two weeks later along Interstate 44 in rural Lawrence County, Mo.. She had been stabbed multiple times.

In Florida, Belinda Cartwright's family has been closely watching the news about Mendenhall, claiming his Nashville Police Department mug shot closely resembles a composite police sketch of a truck driver who allegedly killed her.

Family members say the 36-year-old mother of two was hitchhiking through Georgia in 2001, on her way home to visit family members in Florida, when she was picked up by a trucker resembling Mendenhall.

Witnesses told police Cartwright climbed out of the cab at a rest area in Lake Park, Ga. When the truck started to pull off, Cartwright jumped on the driver's side running board, yelling for the driver to stop so she could retrieve personal items.

The driver, witnesses said, shoved Cartwright off the running board and beneath the wheels of the big rig, crushing her to death. The semitrailer left the scene, and no arrests were ever made.

"To me, it's him", said Cindy Rogers, Belinda Cartwright's sister. "Something just jumped out and said, 'Hey — you've got to look into this.'"

Todd Matthews, producer of Missing Pieces, a Tennessee-based public service organization dedicated to finding missing, murdered and unidentified victims of violent crimes, says he's convinced the composite sketch is Mendenhall.

"I first saw it on Nashville TV and picked up the phone to call Belinda's sister at the same time she was sending an e-mail to me," Matthews said. "The resemblance between the two is striking. I posted the information to the cold case Web site immediately.

"We knew five years ago a predator was working across Tennessee. We had a difficult time getting authorities to follow up on our concerns. With Bruce Mendenhall's statements ... now they are."



Source:
Courtesy of: LEN WELLS
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Online Edition
Courier Press correspondent
Phone: 464-7415 or email: beckj@courierpress.com
News Source Link:
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jul/31/coldcasesthawing/
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jul/31/federal-task-force-probessuspect-in-serial/?gleaner=1/

The Truck Stop Killer (Bruce Mendenhall)
Special: July 31, 2007
49
Cindy Rogers, sister of murdered Belinda Cartwright
(Missing Pieces, Episode 31 Guest)
writes in a blog:



Cindy Says:
July 18th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
"This man is very sick (Bruce Mendenhall). Everyone has to know that there is more. My family is hoping that he is the guy who killed my sister Belinda Cartwright. My sister was killed in 2001 but the family finally found out what happen to her Dec. 20th 2006. The police knew who she was 8 hours after she died. Its a mess. And trying to get help as been really bad. We have wrote to alot of people and so far only 2 people have helped us…Anyway,
Here are 2 links that you can see about the story:"
http://www.tbo.com/news/reports/belindacase
http://missingpiecesshow.homestead.com/MissingPiecesEpisode31Archive.html
"Thank you for listing".


Source:
http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/update-bruce-mendenhall-how-many-more-victims-will-there-be/
List of victims Mendenhall confessed to killing:

Jennifer Annette Smith - April 2005 - Bucksnort, TN
Deborah Ann Glover - January 29, 2007 - Suwanee, GA
Sherry Drinkard - February 26, 2007 - Lake Station, IN
Symantha Winters O'Neal - June 06, 2007 - Lebanon, TN
Sara Nichole Hulbert - June 26, 2007 -  Nashville, TN
Lucille Gretna Carter - July 01, 2007 - Birmingham, AL


List of possible Mendenhall victims:

Tammy Zywicki - August 23, 1992 - Lawrence County, MO
Andrea Hendrix Steinert - October 29, 1997 - Evansville, IN
Belinda Cartwright - February 22, 2001 - Valdosta, GA
Dusty Shuck - May 2006 - Mount Airy, MD
Tanya Estep Robbins - October 2006 - Millersville, TN
Latisha Milliken - February 2007 - Millersville, TN
Robin Bishop - July 01, 2007 - Fairview, TN

Group Suspected Accused Trucker Years Ago
Director Says Group Had Suspicion 5 Years Ago
WSMV Nashville


July 31, 2007

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A missing persons group said they may have been on the trail of Bruce Mendenhall five years ago.

Mendenhall is the trucker who police said could be a serial killer. He has been charged in the deaths of two women: one in Tennessee and one in Alabama.

Their suspicions are troubling given what a search warrant shows was found in Mendenhall's truck when he was arrested.

Police produced a list of items found in Mendenhall's truck that ended in more than 300 items including a rifle, several weapons cartridges, knives, black tape, handcuffs, a nightstick, latex gloves, sex toys and condoms.

Several items were blacked out by investigators.

But years before Mendenhall was arrested and charged, a group out of the Cookeville area said they began to suspect a killer was moving along the interstate.

Todd Matthews said when he first saw Mendenhall, a police composite sketch immediately came to mind.

"I saw that photograph and it looked like the guy in the composite," he said.

Matthews remembered the sketch was of a truck driver believed responsible for the unsolved slaying of Belinda Cartwright in 2001.

Cartwright was among several women who were slain along Interstate 75; I-75 snakes through several states including Kentucky and Tennessee.

"I had an I-75 serial killer theory a few years ago, it made sense. We did a few blurbs in the media, but it never picked up until now. Now I'm getting calls back from it, and that was five years ago," he said.

Channel 4 spoke with Matthews as he was leaving for a missing person's conference.

Despite years of largely being ignored by police and the media, there's no sense of "I told you so" for Matthews.

He said he just wants closure for the families of the slain women that he's in frequent contact with who keep the memories of their loved ones alive.

"I think a lot of families are hoping this is their guy. This is the answer to what they're looking for," he said.




Source:
Courtesy of: Jeremy Finley
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Online Edition
WSMV Nashville News
News Source Link:
http://www.wsmv.com/news/13792102/detail.html