15 • The Invisible People

The Truck Stop Killer.

This episode was co-written by Tyler Bell of The Westside Fairytales Podcast. Visit www.westsidefairytales.com for some horror fiction in podcast form.

Research Credit: Doctor Barak

Music Credit: Tyler Jakes - Woodchips & Pouty Lips. www.tylerjakes.com

For DT Merch and more, visit www.darktopicpodcast.com

Sources:

ARTICLES:

 https://www.gq.com/story/truck-stop-killer-gq-november-2012

The author of this article was a teenage runaway hitchhiking at truck stops during the time when Rhoades was active. She had a scary encounter with a man who she later came to suspect was Rhoades, and she goes to attempt to verify her suspicion. It’s a good read with lots on insights into hitchhiking in the ‘80s

https://www.truckdrivingjobs.com/faq/the-haunting-case-of-robert-ben-rhoades-truck-stop-muderer.html

honestly, I cannot attest to the journalistic credentials of truck driver jobs, but they do have a refreshing angle, in that they don’t assume that truck drivers are, in general, a bunch of creepy psychos.

https://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/truck-stop-killer-robert-ben-rhoades-ex-wife-recounts-time-with-serial-killer-and-rapist/

basically, a link to the ID interview

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-trucker-traveling-torture-chamber-admits-murders/story?id=16037743

on the 2012 trial

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2223778/The-night-I-murdered-truck-stop-serial-killer-One-woman-tells-story-survival.html

Vanessa Veselka, who wrote the GQ article, got covered in the DM! so you know it’s true

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9175140/Torture-chamber-trucker-sentence-to-life-in-prison.html

summary of the case on after the 2012 trial

https://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/making-of-a-monster-robert-ben-rhoades/ An interview with a psychologist who specialized in childhood abuse (who did not interview Rhoades but did review the material) on the events that may have contributed to create this serial killer.

http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Rhodes,%20Robert%20Ben%20spring%202007.pdf

 Behold a timeline of his life events (that are related to his murders) recorded by students at the psychology department at Radford: (I will be checking this against the other sources to ascertain its reliability, since, just to start with, they misspelled ‘Council Bluffs, Iowa’)

VIDEOS:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21lu4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj1H3_aQhTg

Stay Paranoid