0:00

Hi there, I'm Celeste Headley, author,

0:02

journalist, and host of the new podcast

0:05

Freeway Phantom. This incredibly

0:07

important show reinvestigates the tragic

0:10

murders of at least six young

0:12

black girls in Washington, D.C. between 1971

0:14

and 1972.

0:17

The case is significant for many

0:19

reasons. One, the case was

0:21

never solved, and these families have

0:23

been waiting for justice for over 50 years.

0:27

Two, the stories of these black girls were

0:30

never given the proper attention they deserved.

0:32

This points to an even bigger issue of bias

0:35

in both the media and police investigations,

0:38

and sadly, that's an issue that still persists

0:40

today. This case is an incredibly

0:42

important one to me and my entire

0:45

team,

0:45

who've worked tirelessly to bring this

0:48

crucial story to light. Here,

0:50

we've prepared the first episode for you to listen

0:52

to in its entirety.

0:54

We encourage you to keep listening. New

0:56

episodes drop every Wednesday.

0:58

You can find Freeway Phantom on the iHeartRadio

1:00

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1:03

you find your podcasts.

1:06

You're listening to Freeway Phantom, a production

1:08

of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot TV, and

1:10

Black Bar Mitzvah. The views and

1:12

opinions expressed in this podcast

1:15

are solely those of the podcast author

1:17

or individuals participating in the podcast,

1:20

and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,

1:22

Tenderfoot TV, Black Bar Mitzvah,

1:25

or their employees. This podcast

1:27

also contains subject matter that may

1:29

not be suitable for everyone. Listener

1:31

discretion is advised.

1:40

My

1:40

mother was very strict with us.

1:43

So the rule is, when she

1:46

leaves, the door is closed and locked,

1:49

and you don't come out that door. And

1:53

her favorite saying was, I don't

1:55

care if Jesus Christ knock on that door

1:58

and say, open it, you better. that

2:00

opened it. So that was rude.

2:04

We didn't open the door for anybody.

2:08

We were playing around.

2:10

We were watching TV.

2:12

Everybody else was playing around. When

2:15

my sister Valerie knocked on the door.

2:18

I think I told him at first don't say anything.

2:21

She knocked harder.

2:24

And I was like, what? She was like, open the door.

2:26

And I was like, no, momma

2:29

not home. Open the door.

2:32

And I was like, what do you want? She said, I want

2:34

one of you to go to the store for me. I

2:36

said, momma not home. We can't come out. Baby

2:40

said, no, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. Because she

2:42

didn't want us

2:43

to start a fight. Her

2:45

and Valerie went out. I

2:47

guess about 20, 30 minutes, I'm like,

2:50

she ain't back yet. So

2:52

I went across the hall where I knew my

2:54

sister was Valerie

2:56

to see if she was back. And she was like, no, now I'm

2:59

getting scared. Because she not home. And

3:01

my mother gonna be coming soon. And

3:04

I'm gonna get the worst of it. Because I'm the oldest.

3:07

I told him to stay in the house. I'm gonna run

3:10

up to the

3:10

store. So I took

3:12

the shortcut to go to the store

3:16

and made it back.

3:17

She still wasn't at the house. I

3:20

was hollering at Valerie

3:22

because I was upset and I was scared because

3:25

she hadn't gotten back home and she sent her to

3:27

the store. I don't know what to do.

3:30

And the next thing I know was getting

3:33

late in the evening. People

3:35

just started coming around, you

3:38

know, from the neighborhood and the neighbors. And

3:40

then somebody was like, okay, we're

3:42

gonna just go searching.

3:44

Everybody was liking groups

3:47

of fours and five, out looking. And I don't remember when

3:49

the police came,

3:51

but I remember that night detectives came. I didn't

3:54

really think about the police.

3:59

But when the detectives came, I

4:02

really realized this

4:04

was big, you know, it was serious. They

4:07

never spoke to us. They talked to my mother.

4:10

You know, I didn't really know what was happening, what was

4:13

going on. It didn't

4:15

make sense. And the only thing that

4:17

I was not understanding period was,

4:20

where is my sister? Why

4:23

nobody found her? What's

4:25

going on?

4:36

If you look up Freeway Phantom, you

4:38

might find out a little bit about this strange

4:40

and tragic case. But in all likelihood, you're

4:43

not going to find out much.

4:45

You'll learn that during the early 1970s, a

4:48

serial killer murdered at least six

4:50

young black girls in the Washington DC

4:52

area. You might learn their names.

4:55

You might hear about a strange note left by the

4:57

killer.

4:58

You may even come across a few suspects,

5:01

but not much else. And

5:03

that's what makes the case of the Freeway Phantom

5:06

so very, very strange.

5:09

My name is Celeste Headley. I'm a journalist,

5:12

author, and longtime public radio host based

5:14

in Washington, DC. Over

5:16

the years, I've covered many stories of

5:18

people of color

5:19

going missing in this city, a phenomenon

5:21

that absorbed the public consciousness

5:23

in 2017 on social media. When

5:27

the Washington DC Police Department tried

5:29

to raise awareness about missing children

5:31

and teenagers by posting their images

5:34

on social media, the campaign backfired,

5:37

sparking some national outrage

5:39

and fears of an epidemic of missing

5:41

children of color. One of the most

5:44

popular stories on our NBC app this

5:46

week is about missing girls. Our

5:48

story debunks a fake report

5:51

that 14 girls went missing

5:53

from DC in just one day. DC

5:55

police told us they're

5:56

simply sharing missing person cases

5:59

more often.

7:58

in

8:01

the nation's capital. And so then I started

8:03

researching it and saw that there had been

8:05

stories, some stories over the years, but it had mainly

8:08

faded from public view. I

8:10

asked one of our researchers at the Washington Post to go

8:12

back, I said, can you find some stories,

8:15

some microfiche from, you know, back

8:17

in the early seventies when this happened? And

8:20

there were stories, but we were really hard pressed

8:22

to find stories that focused

8:24

just on these girls. In the early 1970s, it

8:26

was the Vietnam War, and

8:29

you know, DC was the place where

8:31

protesters came. There was a lot

8:33

going on in the nation's capital during

8:35

that time. So when

8:38

murders happened, when killings happened,

8:41

it made the news, but there were so many

8:43

killings at the time that they just didn't

8:45

get the individual attention. Like

8:48

when I found one of the cases, it was lumped

8:50

in with some other homicides in

8:52

the district. But that's just the way it was. I mean,

8:54

this was the murder capital of

8:56

the country back in the day.

8:59

Cheryl decided to reach out to some people

9:01

and she says her best sources have always

9:03

been the detectives who worked on the case.

9:06

I have called some of my sources over the years

9:08

for stuff that might've happened 30 years

9:11

ago, and they remember details,

9:13

right? I'm like, how do you remember this stuff?

9:16

So I then reached out

9:18

to Detective Jenkins, Romaine

9:20

Jenkins, because I figured, man,

9:23

this is a woman, a black woman. I

9:25

know she had

9:27

to take an interest in this for a lot of reasons, and some

9:29

of which were the very ones that I mentioned.

9:32

These kids could have been her daughters.

9:36

Detective Romaine Jenkins was a name

9:39

that we kept hearing.

9:41

We spoke with one of the investigators,

9:43

Romaine Jenkins, and she was like, if it

9:45

was dictating. There was also another woman

9:48

by the name of Romaine Jenkins, who was

9:50

a sex squad detective. Take apart

9:52

those files that Romaine's got.

9:56

It would be an exciting interview. Romaine Jenkins,

9:58

she was one of them.

9:59

She knew all the dope dealers,

10:02

she knew all her girlfriends, she was friends with all of

10:04

them. She got the latest scoop. She

10:07

knew who pulled the trigger.

10:09

We decided to give Romaine Jenkins a call.

10:12

Hello, is this Romaine Jenkins? Yes.

10:16

And we soon realized just how much

10:18

she knew about this case. I

10:21

investigated many serial rape cases,

10:23

and none of them are like us. Usually, there's

10:28

a similar pattern somewhere, but

10:30

the only pattern you have with these cases

10:32

is the fact that they were young black females.

10:36

As it turns out, Romaine was the lead

10:38

investigator on the Freeway Phantom case in

10:40

the 1980s. That was almost 10

10:43

years after the case went cold.

10:45

And she was the right person for the job. Romaine

10:47

had an impressive resume up to that point.

10:50

As a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Department

10:53

in Washington, D.C., back in the 70s,

10:55

she was the first woman, and the only

10:58

woman, for a long time, in homicide. We

11:01

told Romaine that we were looking into the Freeway

11:03

Phantom case, and she agreed to sit down

11:05

with us. But before we made a trip to

11:07

D.C. to see her, we wanted to

11:09

learn more about her life, and how she

11:11

eventually came to investigate

11:13

this case. I

11:15

am a native person from Washington,

11:18

D.C. I attended school

11:20

here. I joined the Metropolitan

11:22

Police Department June 21, 1965. And

11:29

at that time, there were only about

11:31

maybe 30 police females

11:34

on the department, and they were housed

11:36

at something called the Woman's Bureau.

11:39

And they did mostly social work,

11:42

abandoned children,

11:42

missing children. Then

11:45

they joined us with something called the Youth

11:47

Division, and that was the male

11:49

counterpart of the Woman's Bureau.

11:52

And I stayed there for two years, and

11:54

I basically investigated

11:56

cases involving battered children,

11:58

juvenile offenders, and the police. We

12:01

did missing persons and things like that. And

12:03

then Homicide decided they needed

12:05

a female to handle their

12:07

baby deaths and abortion cases

12:10

because at that time abortion was illegal in

12:13

the District of Columbia.

12:15

So Romaine went to work in Homicide. She

12:17

was there for approximately four years investigating

12:20

battered children and abortion cases.

12:22

After about

12:24

four years in the Homicide squad, I

12:27

went to the seventh district because at

12:29

that time they decided they wanted to put

12:31

police women in uniform and

12:34

put them in the patrol division.

12:36

And at that time I was a supervisor,

12:39

I was a sergeant, because I made sergeant when

12:41

I was in Homicide. So they wanted

12:44

to see if females could supervise

12:46

males in the patrol division.

12:49

I went to the seventh district and that was

12:52

quite an experience. Everything was totally

12:54

new to me, but I made it through.

12:57

During this time Romaine got married and started

12:59

a family. She eventually decided being

13:01

a patrol officer wasn't what she wanted.

13:04

So she applied for sex squad, which

13:06

investigates sexually

13:08

heinous crimes. And I

13:10

stayed there ten years as a supervisor

13:13

and from there I went to the U.S. Attorney's

13:15

Office where I supervised seven detectives

13:18

and we handled cases. We worked up cases

13:21

for the U.S. Attorney's Office. And

13:23

that's basically what I did. That's basically

13:26

my career. It was while

13:28

in Homicide in the early 70s that

13:30

Romaine first heard about the so-called Freeway

13:32

Phantom murders. Though other officers

13:35

were assigned to the case, she helped canvas

13:37

neighborhoods and became intimately familiar

13:39

with the case details. Years

13:41

passed

13:42

and Romaine heard little about

13:44

the Freeway Phantom. Fifteen

13:46

years after the murders in 1987, Romaine

13:49

decided to reopen the case herself while

13:51

working in the U.S. Attorney's Office. And

13:53

it ended up becoming the case that would

13:55

consume Romaine's career and life

13:58

to

13:58

this day. When

14:02

we told Romaine we were investigating the Freeway

14:04

Phantom case, she revealed to us

14:07

that she had held on to boxes and boxes

14:09

of evidence, case files and other documents,

14:12

even after retiring from the MPD.

14:15

Now, at 80 years old, Romaine

14:17

still has those stacks of boxes

14:20

sitting in her bedroom or scattered across

14:22

her living room floor. We asked her

14:24

if we could talk to her in person and look through

14:26

some of the boxes. At first, she

14:29

was hesitant. But after we talked

14:31

about our mutual desire to solve these

14:33

murders, she started to open up, and

14:36

eventually, she agreed to

14:38

an in-person interview. So,

14:40

the Tenderfoot team met up with me in DC, and

14:43

we headed to her house.

14:56

What's the number one reason

14:58

you should try Instacart? Shopping over 1.5

15:00

million unique products from over 1,000 retailers and

15:05

get everything delivered right to your door in

15:07

as fast as one hour, all in

15:10

one app. So you can spend more time

15:12

with the ones who matter most. Visit Instacart.com

15:15

to get free delivery on your first three orders.

15:18

Offer valid for a limited time. $10 minimum

15:20

per order. Additional terms apply.

15:30

Oh, he bring two at a time. Okay.

15:33

We got you. And we can take them back up if

15:35

that's... No, you can leave them. Now

15:37

that you got them down here, leave them here.

15:40

Okay. Because they'll either go downstairs,

15:42

or they'll probably end up going downstairs.

15:45

Okay, you want her to sit at the table? No, sit them

15:47

right here on the floor. Okay. I'm

15:50

in Romaine Jenkins' home in Washington,

15:52

DC, not far from where I live.

15:55

In her home, Romaine has what's likely

15:57

the largest collection of documents on

15:59

the Freeway Phantom. case. Open

16:01

those up. Okay, I'm gonna open them up for you. All

16:05

right. I will just pull them out and we can

16:07

take a look at what's here. This

16:12

is Brenda Crockett. Oh

16:16

my God, she looks, this is the one that, was she the one

16:18

that was barefoot? That's a 10 year old. She's

16:20

tiny. Just a tiny

16:22

baby. She was the one that went to

16:25

the store barefoot. And

16:28

the only, the only way she was identified

16:30

was her mother identified with the clothing.

16:33

That's all they had.

16:36

The amount of information we came across was

16:39

astounding. She had crime

16:41

scene photos, original police reports,

16:43

suspect lists. Most of this

16:46

we had never seen before. We

16:49

asked Romaine how she came to acquire all

16:52

of these documents.

16:53

Basically by talking to detectives

16:56

who were on the actual scenes of the

16:58

cases, a lot of them gave me their

17:00

notebooks, their notes. Some

17:02

had copies of files. They gave me

17:05

that going to the police department

17:07

like Prince George's County. They

17:09

turned over all their files to me because

17:11

they microfished the file. So they didn't

17:13

need the hard copies and they were going to dispose

17:16

of them. So I said, well, I'll take

17:18

them. So that's how I inherited a lot

17:20

of that information.

17:23

Then with the cooperation of the FBI,

17:25

they assigned a case agent to work

17:27

with me and I was allowed to go into

17:30

their files.

17:31

Well, they assigned me an office at a desk

17:33

and one of their investigators and I would go

17:36

to the FBI building every

17:38

day and read through documents

17:40

and they'd make copies of whatever I needed.

17:43

Also with Naval Investigative Services,

17:45

they were getting ready to get rid of

17:48

some files. So

17:49

I was able to make copies of the

17:51

things that they had. Nobody told me

17:53

no, even the Metropolitan Police

17:55

Department, there

17:56

were people who still had information and

17:58

they turned it over to me. I amass

18:01

the information in the files. As

18:05

Romaine said, law enforcement was disposing

18:08

of the original case files. Had Romaine

18:10

not tracked down and preserved these files,

18:13

we would have no original documents to

18:15

view today. This is significant

18:17

because information in those boxes

18:20

may provide new insight into

18:22

the case. But

18:23

throughout this podcast, we're going

18:25

to reveal what we found in

18:27

those boxes,

18:29

and maybe get one step closer

18:32

to finding the Freeway Phantom. But

18:37

first we need to take a step back to talk about

18:39

the basics. What were the Freeway Phantom

18:41

murders? What happened? We need to go

18:43

back to the beginning to fully understand

18:45

this story. The truth is,

18:48

there's not a ton of existing scholarship on

18:50

this case. In our research, we came

18:52

across only two books written about

18:54

the Freeway Phantom.

18:56

Most people have never heard of the first

18:58

book, called The Mystery of the Freeway

19:00

Phantom, published in 1983

19:02

by Wilma W. Harper.

19:04

Ms. Harper is closely related

19:06

to these cases, which you'll hear about later.

19:09

In the book's preface, Harper explains

19:12

why she wrote it, saying, quote, When

19:15

I first undertook the task of writing

19:17

a social study of the families and friends associated

19:20

with the Freeway Phantom cases in September 1972,

19:22

my one objective was to assist

19:26

the police department in apprehending the

19:28

killer or killers of the seven black

19:30

girls who'd been raped, murdered, and

19:32

their bodies placed on the various highways

19:34

around the city of Washington, D.C.

19:37

It was my belief that the secret

19:39

of who had killed the girls could be found in one

19:42

or more of the social institutions

19:44

frequented by these girls

19:46

or by their parents. Throughout

19:49

this podcast, Harper's words will take us

19:51

back in time and provide us with a

19:53

firsthand account of what it was like to live

19:55

through these serial murders.

20:00

The second book we found was called Tantamount,

20:03

The Pursuit of the Freeway Phantom Serial

20:06

Killer, published in 2019. This

20:08

book was written by a father-daughter team

20:11

of true crime authors.

20:13

I'm Blaine Pardo. I've written over 80

20:15

books. I write primarily

20:17

science fiction, true crime, military

20:20

history, political thrillers,

20:22

things along those lines. This

20:24

is a topic we've been writing a lot about,

20:26

which is true crimes, and we tend to focus

20:29

on the unsolved cases, especially

20:32

serial killing cases that remain open

20:35

over

20:36

the years. And I'm Victoria Hester. I've

20:38

written a total of four true crime

20:40

books alongside my dad and

20:42

co-author Blaine.

20:44

The thing that really got me into true crime was

20:46

actually my dad growing up. Our bonding

20:48

moment was over the Zodiac, which

20:51

go figure that's a normal father-daughter thing.

20:54

But ever since then, I've been kind of hooked on

20:56

true crime, and it's fun to research.

20:58

We enjoy the journey of research and then putting

21:00

it all on the paper.

21:02

We had just finished our book on the Colonial

21:04

Parkway murders, and we

21:07

were looking for the next project to get into,

21:09

and it was really a matter of

21:12

let's look in the local vicinity

21:14

because we like dealing with people we can

21:17

go interview and spend time

21:19

with.

21:20

So we started looking in Virginia, Maryland,

21:22

Washington, D.C. to see

21:25

what open cold cases were out there. There

21:27

were a lot of them. I outlined a number

21:29

of them for Victoria and said, okay, you get

21:31

to pick.

21:33

This one was kind of an easy one to do

21:35

in the case of the freeway phantom. Looking

21:37

at this one, it was like, okay, this one's got some

21:39

meat to it. This is an interesting case.

21:43

We asked Blaine and Victoria to walk us through

21:45

the basics of the case, starting with

21:47

the first victim. First

21:50

one that disappeared was a 13-year-old,

21:53

Carol D. Spinks. She

21:55

disappeared on April 25, 1971. She's

21:58

found on the Anaconda.

21:59

Costia Freeway, which is I-295. She's

22:03

about 200 yards south of the Sootland

22:05

Parkway, and her body's found by a group

22:07

of children.

22:08

It's a major freeway cutting right

22:10

through the city.

22:12

She had disappeared on the 25th,

22:14

but wasn't found until April

22:16

30th. So

22:19

the next victim is Darlenia Denise

22:21

Johnson. The reason why we put

22:23

the middle names in with each girl

22:26

is because it does play a huge role down the

22:28

role in the investigation of the middle name Denise.

22:31

So that's why we make a point to mention

22:33

that.

22:34

She was 16 when she disappeared on

22:36

July 8th, 1971. Her

22:39

body was found July 19th, 1971 in the evening. Her

22:44

mother filed a missing persons report

22:47

and her body was actually found on the

22:49

Anacostia Freeway, so the same

22:51

freeway that Carol Spinks

22:53

was found off of.

22:55

Brenda Fay Crockett was 10 years old.

22:58

She disappeared on July 27th, 1971. Her

23:03

body was found off of Route 50,

23:06

which is one of the major thoroughfares in

23:08

Chevrolet. She had been sexually assaulted

23:11

and strangled. She had been left on

23:13

the grassy shoulder of the John Hanson Highway.

23:16

She was found face up,

23:17

and it was really only

23:20

a short period of time after she

23:22

had disappeared. So the killer

23:24

had kind of shifted, at least from

23:26

the first case. He's not spending as much

23:29

time with the victims. He's killing them and

23:31

now just dumping them.

23:33

Just over two months later, the fourth victim

23:35

was discovered. Her name was

23:37

Nina Moshe Yates. She

23:40

was 12 years old and she was

23:42

found on October 1st, 1971. She

23:45

was a seventh grader and she was a very

23:48

quiet and well-behaved

23:50

child. In the evening, she went

23:52

to the Safeway that was a few blocks

23:54

away from her home to buy a bag of sugar

23:56

at 8.45 p.m.

23:59

Then, a month and a half later, the

24:02

fifth victim. Brenda Denise

24:05

Woodard was 18 years old, November

24:08

15th, 1971. She

24:10

disappeared. In the evening, she had

24:13

gone to a night class, left with a young

24:15

man. They went to Ben's Chili Bowl

24:17

in D.C., which is this iconic

24:20

restaurant. And she rode

24:22

the bus to go home, and she

24:25

was last seen around the 8th and

24:27

H Street intersections.

24:30

But her roommate reported by 1130 that

24:32

she hadn't come home.

24:34

She was found along the

24:36

Baltimore-Washington Parkway as

24:38

well by a Chevrolet police officer.

24:41

She had been strangled, and what

24:44

was different with her is she had also been stabbed.

24:48

And finally, the following year, the

24:50

sixth and last confirmed victim.

24:53

Diane Williams is 17. She

24:57

was found on September 5th, 1972, 10 months

25:01

after the last case with

25:04

Brenda.

25:05

Her body was found the very next day.

25:08

She was reported missing

25:10

by her father when he came home at 8 a.m.

25:12

that morning. She had visited her boyfriend,

25:15

which was a pretty normal thing for her to do,

25:18

and was told to be home by 1030 the

25:21

night before. Her boyfriend

25:24

escorted her to the bus stop, so we know

25:26

that she got at least to the bus.

25:29

If you think about it, so many of them are caught

25:31

going to a grocery store,

25:33

running an errand.

25:34

It's not like something that's a routine, where

25:37

he's following them for several days

25:39

and knows their pattern and how to intercept

25:41

them.

25:42

These are all victims of opportunity.

25:48

Six victims, all young black girls

25:50

from around the same area, all

25:52

disposed of in identical ways.

25:55

When we sat down with Romaine

25:57

Jenkins, we asked her about her first involvement in the

25:59

case.

27:59

It's time to be in the house. It's close and dark. I

28:04

mean, and people look out for each other, you know? I've

28:13

spent my entire career working in public media as

28:16

a radio journalist and national talk

28:18

show host. One of the things that

28:20

I love about working for public radio is that I rarely have to report

28:23

on crime. While

28:27

we never neglect a story about terrorism mass

28:29

shootings or corporate malfeasance, individual

28:32

crime stories don't generally get coverage.

28:35

And I like that. I

28:38

like that I don't have to dig into personal stories of

28:41

infidelity or rage or greed or

28:43

interview family members who've just lost a loved

28:45

one to a drive-by shooting. So

28:48

you might wonder what I'm doing hosting a

28:50

podcast series about a string of murders

28:53

in Washington,

28:54

D.C. a city that had so

28:56

many homicides in the early 1990s that

28:58

it was known as the murder capital of

29:01

the United States.

29:03

There's one easy answer to that question and

29:06

one more complicated answer.

29:08

The easy answer is that

29:10

I'm so afraid of serial killers

29:13

that I'm fascinated by them. They

29:16

terrify me. I simply

29:18

can't understand the kind of mind that

29:20

would take a stranger's life for

29:23

no reason other than because they enjoy

29:25

it.

29:26

That seems more than deranged to me. It

29:28

seems inhuman. Serial

29:32

killers are incredibly rare. According

29:35

to the FBI, less than 1% of murders are committed

29:37

by a serial killer, but

29:40

we're also not very good at catching them. The

29:42

founder of the Murder Accountability Project,

29:45

a nonprofit that collects information

29:47

about murders, believes that a good number

29:50

of unsolved homicides may have

29:52

been committed by serial killers.

29:55

So the chance to dig into both the mindset

29:57

of such a killer and the techniques for fighting the murder capital of

29:59

the United States finding them

30:01

was very tempting.

30:03

More importantly, though, I

30:05

couldn't understand why the freeway phantom

30:07

had never been caught and why most

30:10

people have never heard of him.

30:12

The phantom killed at least six

30:14

young girls, probably more. The

30:17

so-called son of Sam also killed

30:19

six people, and there are a bunch

30:22

of movies about him and even an episode of

30:24

Seinfeld.

30:25

Eugene, the Plainfield Ghoul who

30:27

inspired the killers in Psycho, Silence

30:29

of the Lambs, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

30:32

was convicted of killing two people

30:34

and may have killed as many as seven.

30:37

This is not admiration for perpetrators

30:39

with high body counts, but a legitimate

30:42

question. How could someone

30:44

kill so many young girls

30:46

and be forgotten?

30:48

The freeway phantom is worth talking about because

30:50

the larger issues that surrounded his killing

30:53

spree still endanger the lives

30:55

of girls and especially black girls.

31:01

And before we go any further, we want to make

31:03

an important announcement. After

31:05

over 50 years of waiting, we believe

31:08

the victim's families deserve answers. That's

31:10

why Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia are matching

31:13

the $150,000 reward offered by the

31:16

Metropolitan Police Department. This

31:18

brings the total reward for information

31:21

leading to the arrest and conviction of the person

31:23

or persons responsible for these murders to $300,000.

31:28

If you have information that may lead

31:30

to the identification

31:31

of the freeway phantom, it's

31:33

time to speak up. Tips can be provided

31:35

to MPD or Tenderfoot

31:38

TV at tips at tenderfoot.tv.

31:42

With all of that said, it's time we dig deep

31:44

into this case. So to fully understand

31:46

these murders, we need to examine the crimes

31:49

individually, starting with the very

31:51

first victim, Carol Spinks.

32:15

We grew up in 1034 Waller

32:17

Place, Southeast. Waller

32:19

Place is on the top part of

32:22

Valley Green, infamous

32:25

Valley Green. Very

32:27

well known for a lot of activity,

32:30

negative activity, but

32:33

there are good people in the worst

32:35

of places.

32:37

This is Evander Spinks, the older

32:39

sister of Carol Spinks, the first victim.

32:42

At the top of the episode, you heard Evander talk

32:44

about the night that her sister Carol went missing. I

32:48

can't say my mother was the best person

32:50

in the world, but my mother

32:53

took care of us. We

32:55

could not rip and run the street. We

32:57

could not go anywhere. You

33:00

better not talk about no boy.

33:02

You stay very close to home.

33:05

We played outside like any normal

33:07

kids, have races in the street,

33:10

played kickball, double

33:12

Dutch, boy games

33:15

outside. Waller Place

33:17

was a well-known street,

33:20

but there were a lot of good families

33:22

on that street.

33:24

Things happened on that street

33:26

that were bad, but we never

33:28

witnessed anything because

33:29

we weren't out at night.

33:31

Whatever happened, we would find out the next day

33:33

or through your friends. If they

33:36

saw something or their parents saw something

33:38

and they was disgusting it with their girlfriend, boyfriend,

33:40

or do you know how adults talk? There's always

33:43

one or two kids hanging around listening,

33:46

getting a scoop so that everybody else

33:48

could know what was going on. But

33:50

that's how we found out things. Remember

33:54

that we were involved around or

33:56

near because my mother didn't play

33:58

that. On April 25, 1971, the

34:00

day Carol would go missing, the

34:04

entire Spinks family, with the exception

34:06

of their mother, was home. I

34:09

was home, 14. Carlyn,

34:12

Carlyn was home, 13.

34:13

Tonya

34:16

was home, 12. Warren

34:19

was home, 11. And

34:22

Joseph was home, more

34:24

than two years old. Carol

34:27

and Carlyn Spinks were twin sisters. Their

34:30

nicknames were Baybay and Yayay,

34:32

respectively.

34:34

They looked identical. They

34:37

were identical. They

34:39

could sometimes fool us, but

34:43

me, not that much, because they

34:45

had different personalities. Baybay

34:48

Carol was

34:50

more laid back and quiet. Carol

34:53

and Yayay, a mouthpiece

34:56

and a social butterfly. But

34:59

they stuck together. You

35:02

wouldn't see one 10 feet

35:04

further from the other one. They were

35:07

always together.

35:10

My mom and all of our brothers

35:12

and sisters, they knew us apart. But some

35:14

of our own friends that we had outside

35:17

of the house, some of them knew, some of them didn't.

35:20

Now, if we dress tonight, you can forget it. This

35:23

is Carlyn Spinks. She was incredibly

35:26

close with her twin sister, Carol. Oh,

35:28

we did, OK. We, of course,

35:30

played dolls, did each other's hair. We

35:33

dressed alike. We fooled the teachers. We jumped

35:35

double dutch, played jacks, all

35:37

kinds of stuff. We did everything

35:40

together. She was smart.

35:42

She was very smart. She wasn't as smart

35:44

mouthpiece as I was. She

35:47

was smart. It was funny. She

35:50

was my friend. That was my left hand,

35:52

because I'm right here. So she was my left hand. That

35:56

day, I wish, oh my God,

35:58

I wish I could take it back. I was like,

36:00

I could take that day back.

36:03

That day, my mom told us, do

36:06

not go outside. So

36:08

we always in a house. I

36:10

don't even remember what we were doing, but

36:13

I know it was me, Evan, and baby,

36:15

and my baby brother was home, because he was

36:18

a baby, and my other brother. All

36:20

of us, all

36:21

six of us was in the house. And

36:23

I remember when battery knocked on the door. She

36:26

said, she want somebody to go to the store, and like, no,

36:28

mom said, no. Mom said,

36:30

don't go out. I don't know what made

36:33

her say, I'll go. I don't know.

36:37

But I was like, I ain't going. No,

36:39

I'm gonna get up. I ain't getting no beating.

36:41

And my mother didn't play. But

36:43

for whatever reason, Carol volunteered

36:46

to go to the store. And so,

36:48

off she went.

36:50

Didn't think nothing of it right then and there.

36:53

The next thing I knew, I was like,

36:56

wait a minute. She didn't come

36:58

back. And I remember I said

37:00

that. I went out that door. I'm

37:02

like, no, I gotta go to a bathroom.

37:04

She didn't come back. We gotta go to the store. And I remember

37:06

me and battery went to the store, and we asked the

37:08

man, did he see it? And he said, yeah, he seen the

37:10

girl look just like me. And she got

37:13

her stuff, and that was it. We

37:16

came back home. We called my mother.

37:18

And then she came home. And

37:20

then she called the police. I remember she called

37:22

the police. And they said,

37:25

they can't do nothing.

37:26

Do you remember why they said they couldn't

37:28

do anything?

37:30

Because they said you gotta be 24 hours.

37:33

I remember that. Well,

37:35

in like a couple of hours, no,

37:38

something ain't right. Mm-mm. I

37:40

knew something was wrong. I knew it. I

37:42

told Valerie something wrong, something wrong. Mm-mm.

37:47

During that time when you didn't know what

37:49

had happened to her, when she was just missing,

37:52

what were you thinking had happened?

37:55

I thought somebody had gathered and did something to

37:57

her. You did. I

37:59

knew that.

39:53

Just

40:00

to our right, you can see in the distant

40:03

Suitland Parkway. And the police reports

40:05

say that Carol Spinks' body was found about 1,500

40:07

feet south of

40:09

Suitland, which is about where we

40:12

are. The thing is, is that, you

40:14

know, Romaine brought up the idea that why

40:16

were there people near here to find the

40:18

body? And I gotta say,

40:20

she has a point. I mean, even 50

40:23

years ago, this would have still

40:26

been an industrial park. There's nothing here. There's

40:28

no stores. There's no homes.

40:30

This is clearly an highway

40:32

access road with nothing but industrial

40:35

buildings. And you can look at these buildings and even

40:37

though Verizon is in them now, these

40:40

buildings have been here for 50 years. So

40:43

what were they doing here?

40:45

Why were they walking along the highway? And

40:47

again, remember, we're talking about a highway that

40:49

didn't have these lights. It

40:51

would have been dark. And

40:54

I just, she really

40:56

has a point. How could they have stumbled

40:59

on this body? It just over

41:01

and over in this case, you think somebody

41:03

knew something. Someone

41:06

did. It

41:07

seems impossible. But here we are.

41:10

And you have to imagine as you're standing at

41:12

I-295, and obviously I-295 did not have this many

41:15

lanes back then. We saw the photos. But

41:17

you have to imagine someone just driving up

41:20

this highway with a dead

41:22

girl's body in their car, stopping

41:25

the car right here, pulling

41:27

her body out of his car and then placing

41:30

it. It's distressing

41:32

and incomprehensible. Yeah.

41:38

Carolyn Spinks says she doesn't remember much

41:40

about hearing that Carol was dead,

41:42

only that she remembers feeling it.

41:46

My family was killing her. She was gone all

41:48

them days. I felt everything. What

41:50

did your family say to you?

41:52

They knew something was wrong with me. They knew something

41:55

was wrong. Because

41:56

I used to sit and walk. Just sit

41:58

on the bed and walk.

42:00

and walk and cry and

42:03

hold myself. And then something was

42:05

wrong, something was hurting. A

42:08

few days later, the family held a public funeral

42:10

for Carol. Oh my

42:12

God, that was the worst day of my life. I

42:16

didn't know what it was. I had never

42:18

been to a funeral before, so we did. I didn't

42:20

know what it

42:22

was. We went to this funeral

42:24

home. First, I remember they

42:27

took us to get these

42:28

white dresses and shoes

42:30

and stuff. And then we

42:33

went in this funeral home, and they had this noise. I

42:35

guess it was the piano or whatever it is.

42:37

And that noise, oh,

42:40

terrible. And then they had a big gray casket. I didn't

42:42

know what it was, but it was clothes.

42:45

I remember that. It was clothes. And

42:48

I remember all these people. It was so

42:50

many people. I remember

42:53

there were so many

42:54

people. And then

42:57

we opened the casket, and I said, I

42:59

asked them, who was that? And

43:01

they said, that was my sister. I said, no, it's not.

43:04

When I looked at that face, I was

43:06

like, oh my God, who is that?

43:09

He looked like a monster. And

43:11

they said, I passed out or something.

43:13

Something happened to me. I don't

43:15

know what

43:16

happened. Well, when

43:18

I woke up, the next time I remember,

43:20

we was back at home. I don't remember

43:22

anything else. So

43:25

you said your family never talked about

43:27

it. After the funeral, nobody

43:29

even mentioned her? They

43:32

did, but I never want to hear it. I

43:34

didn't want to hear it.

43:36

And you think that it was until you were

43:38

an adult that you were able to

43:42

hear about her or talk about her?

43:44

Yeah.

43:45

Actually, it was after I got

43:47

married to my husband, who lived

43:50

on our block. He knew my

43:52

sister. When he told me one

43:54

day we talked about it, because we never even talked about

43:56

it for a long time. When

43:59

he told me he couldn't.

43:59

my sister came and said, no, you didn't?

44:02

He said, yes, I did.

44:02

My mother had a book, a whole

44:05

book of the funeral. And I was

44:07

always, I never wanted to look at it. But

44:09

this one, my mother was still living.

44:12

So one day I just went over, went

44:14

to look at the book and I saw him curd her case.

44:18

And when he told me that, that's

44:20

when I said, I need to talk.

44:22

I needed to talk to somebody because I just can't,

44:24

couldn't keep holding it because I know it was hurting. It

44:27

was hurting me. After

44:29

a while, after I had my kids and my

44:31

sister told my kids, that's when I just started

44:33

to try to talk about it. Me and my husband were

44:35

talking a little bit from time to time, but

44:38

I didn't want to talk about it. There

44:40

was nothing to talk about.

44:42

Have you talked with others in your family

44:44

since then?

44:46

Yes. Mostly me

44:48

and my sister, Evann, talk about it more than anybody,

44:51

but not nobody else, really. Evann

44:55

is Evander Spinks. My

44:58

brothers have never mentioned it one way

45:00

or the other. Curling,

45:02

it hurts her. She's has never

45:05

wanted to talk about it. And

45:07

I've always wanted to talk about it because

45:10

I can't forget. Sister

45:12

Valerie has never

45:15

talked or spoke about it that I know

45:17

of. So I had

45:19

to, over the years,

45:21

keep talking, yeah,

45:23

yeah, curling about

45:26

it. And I

45:28

know she can't forget, but I know she hurts

45:30

behind it. That's

45:32

why her entire life changed.

45:35

And it wasn't for the better. Totally

45:39

the wrong way.

45:41

I think the first time

45:45

all of us got together was

45:47

a couple of years ago, because

45:50

it bothered me all my life that

45:53

I could go and sit where

45:55

I knew my sister's body was.

45:59

But there was nothing nothing there to show me that

46:01

she was there. So

46:03

we got to talk about it. It's

46:06

a hurtful thing, but we got to do it. And

46:08

you just never know. Something

46:10

could pop up. Something

46:13

just might get triggered, or

46:16

you may have seen something or heard

46:18

something. We don't want

46:20

to do it. It's not like

46:22

we want to be recognized

46:25

because we still get recognized.

46:28

As soon as somebody hear the

46:29

name Spinks, oh, Spinks, Spinks. Oh,

46:32

I know about the Spinks family. You don't

46:34

know about the Spinks family. You don't even know about the incident

46:37

that happened to the Spinks family.

46:40

My sister was an innocent little girl.

46:43

People say, you know, these

46:46

kids fast, they grown. She

46:48

was out there having sex. Not

46:52

with my mother.

46:54

That's a no. She was

46:57

an innocent little

46:59

girl

47:00

that was taken from her family and

47:03

abused.

47:05

We want to know why.

47:11

As a young teenager,

47:14

I don't think the police did a good

47:16

job. I didn't

47:18

feel as though they actually cared during

47:21

that time. And as an

47:23

adult, I know they didn't

47:25

do a good job. And

47:27

I know down where they didn't care.

47:30

And today, I'll

47:32

be 65 years old this month. And

47:37

I still feel like they don't give a damn.

47:41

It probably was the police, or

47:43

somebody that worked with the police.

47:46

That's the only thing really made sense to

47:48

me. People

47:51

are everywhere. Somebody

47:53

saw it. And we

47:55

still want to know. And it

47:57

still hurts. We

48:00

just want to know why and

48:02

what happened.

48:11

The homicide detectives termed

48:13

the cases the little girl cases.

48:16

This child was laying on the side

48:18

of the road. I wouldn't go

48:20

nowhere. I would call my house. Those

48:23

first five murders should have

48:25

been a huge warning bell for the police. We

48:28

just want to know what happened. This person

48:30

must have saw that they were thinking that maybe it's just

48:32

one person, and he says, uh-uh, they

48:34

need to know. This is me. I

48:37

thought that they would catch him. I

48:40

thought it was just a matter of time. I'm

48:42

Celeste Headley, and this is

48:45

Freeway Phantom.

48:50

Next time on Freeway Phantom. People

48:53

were scared. I mean, parents were scared,

48:55

children were scared. They wanted

48:57

to know what more police could do, what

48:59

were they doing.

49:00

He kept her for several days

49:03

as a prisoner. When

49:07

the first victims went missing, there

49:09

was a really kind of a muted police

49:12

response.

49:13

You follow a lead until it takes

49:15

you nowhere. They got all kinds

49:17

of leads. Everybody was a suspect.

49:20

I got home from the store about 6-10 p.m.

49:22

and asked the kids if Darlene had been home, and they

49:25

said they hadn't seen her. I sent the kids around

49:27

in the next court, and they asked the people if they had

49:29

seen Darlene yet, and they said no.

49:31

Roy said that there was a body of a dead lady out

49:33

there. He told us that he

49:35

notified the police, but the body was still out

49:37

there.

49:45

Freeway Phantom

49:45

is a production of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot

49:47

TV, and Black Bar Mitzvah. Our host is Celeste Headley.

49:52

The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie

49:54

Albright, and Celeste Headley. Executive

49:56

producers on behalf of iHeartRadio

49:58

include Matt Frederick, Alex Williams

50:00

with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive

50:03

producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include

50:06

Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey with

50:08

producers Jamie Albright and Tracy

50:10

Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf

50:12

of Black Bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay

50:15

Ellis, and Aaron Bergman with

50:17

producer Sydney Fuse. Lead researcher

50:19

is Jamie Albright. Artwork by MrSoul216.

50:23

Original music by Makeup and Vanity

50:26

Set. Special thanks to the team

50:28

at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing,

50:31

and The Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV

50:33

and iHeartMedia, as well as Black Bar Mitzvah,

50:35

have increased the reward for information

50:38

leading to the arrest and conviction of the person

50:40

or persons responsible for the Freeway

50:42

Phantom murders. The previous reward

50:45

of up to $150,000 offered

50:47

by the Metropolitan Police Department has

50:50

been matched. A new total reward

50:52

of up to $300,000 is now being offered. If

50:55

you have any information relating to these unsolved

50:58

crimes, contact the Metropolitan Police

51:00

Department at area code 202-727-9099. For

51:06

more information, please visit freeway-phantom.com.

51:10

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and

51:13

Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio

51:15

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

51:17

to your favorite shows.

51:19

Thanks for listening.