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Speaker 2: Brenda Woodard, who was actually the fifth victim. You know,
Speaker 2: she was older. She was actually going to night school
Speaker 2: and she was taking the bus home as she always
Speaker 2: did when she disappeared. When she was found, she had
Speaker 2: not only been strangled, but she had been stabbed through
Speaker 2: her clothing. And it was apparent that she had been
Speaker 2: undressed and sexually assaulted and then had been redressed because
Speaker 2: her shirt or sweater or whatever she was wearing was
Speaker 2: on inside out at the time and she was stabbed
Speaker 2: through the sweater. Now, she was the one where he
Speaker 2: left the note. What he actually did was he had
Speaker 2: her write the note. It was in her handwriting, but
Speaker 2: it was from him, and he basically was taunting the
Speaker 2: police saying that this is tantamount to how I feel
Speaker 2: about women. If you catch me, I will admit to
Speaker 2: the others. And he signed it the Freeway Phantom. The
Speaker 2: Freeway Phantom wasn't a name that the police gave him.
Speaker 2: That was a name that the press gave him after
Speaker 2: his fourth victim, right before Brenda. So here he is.
Speaker 2: He's taunting the police. He knows enough to know not
Speaker 2: to write the note himself because he could potentially be
Speaker 2: connected to it. And then our theory is is that
Speaker 2: at that time she realized that, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get out of this, and she
Speaker 2: probably fought him and that's why he had to resort
Speaker 2: so killing her.
Speaker 3: The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl cases.
Speaker 2: This child was laying on the side of the road
Speaker 2: as wouldn't go no way, I.
Speaker 4: Would call out my house.
Speaker 5: Those first five murders should have been a huge warning
Speaker 5: bell for the police.
Speaker 3: We just want to know what happened. This person must
Speaker 3: have saw that they were thinking that maybe it's just
Speaker 3: one person, and he says, oh, they need to know
Speaker 3: this is me.
Speaker 2: I thought that they would catch him. I thought it
Speaker 2: was just a matter of time.
Speaker 6: I'm Celeste Hedley and this is Freeway Phantom. On November fifteenth,
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy one, eighteen year old Brenda Woodard became the
Speaker 6: fifth victim of the Freeway Phantom. It had been a
Speaker 6: month and a half since the discovery of his fourth victim,
Speaker 6: Ninomosha Yates, but the case of Brenda was different from
Speaker 6: the rest of previous victims. Brenda was older, her life's
Speaker 6: circumstances were divergent from the rest of the girls, and
Speaker 6: the evidence that police found was unlike anything they'd seen before.
Speaker 6: Brenda Denise Woodard was born in nineteen fifty eight. Her
Speaker 6: parents were Mary and Edward Woodard. She was the eldest
Speaker 6: of six children. We know that Brenda enjoyed music and
Speaker 6: spending time with her friends. She had several jobs in
Speaker 6: high school, but she struggled in her classes and had
Speaker 6: been held back two years. However, leading up to her death,
Speaker 6: Brenda's life was somewhat tumultuous, and that fact would become
Speaker 6: important later on in the case, so we'll go into
Speaker 6: it here briefly. Until about three weeks before her murder,
Speaker 6: Brenda was living with her family in Baltimore, Maryland, but
Speaker 6: just before Halloween she moved out. The FBI interviewed her
Speaker 6: father about the situation at home. Here's what the reports say,
Speaker 6: as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 7: Mister Woodard advised his daughter had been somewhat of a
Speaker 7: disciplinary problem to him because he had been forced to
Speaker 7: reprimand her several times because of the late hours she
Speaker 7: had been keeping, and because of her reluctance to inform
Speaker 7: him or her mother concerning where she was going when
Speaker 7: she left the house or the name of the person
Speaker 7: she planned to meet. He further recalled that approximately three
Speaker 7: weeks ago, shortly before Halloween weekend, she had been asked
Speaker 7: to help with the housework, particularly to wash dishes. She
Speaker 7: failed to do this, and upon returning home from his
Speaker 7: job with the Giant Food Company Beltsville, Maryland, he talked
Speaker 7: to his daughter and asked her why she had failed
Speaker 7: to do so. Miss Woodard had no real excuse, and
Speaker 7: her father informed her at this time that she was
Speaker 7: welcome to remain in the family residence until she could
Speaker 7: find a job, but after she found gameful employment, he
Speaker 7: would appreciate it if she found some other place to live.
Speaker 7: Unless she was willing to obey her parents and respect
Speaker 7: their wishes. He emphatically denied there had been any fight
Speaker 7: between him and his daughter or that she had been
Speaker 7: forced to leave home. He stated, however, that after the
Speaker 7: incident related above, he and his wife left the family
Speaker 7: residence to go shopping, and upon their return home found
Speaker 7: miss Woodard had removed her clothing and moved next door
Speaker 7: to the residence of Brenda Schumpert twenty one oh seven
Speaker 7: Maryland Avenue, Northeast.
Speaker 6: But Brenda's problems didn't stop there. Brenda reportedly had difficulties
Speaker 6: with relationships. One boyfriend named Walter Clark gave her them
Speaker 6: most trouble. When interviewed by police, Walter told authorities that
Speaker 6: Brenda was infatuated with him, and although the feelings weren't mutual,
Speaker 6: he would regularly have sex with her. Brenda was also
Speaker 6: said to have gotten incredibly jealous when Walter was around
Speaker 6: other girls. In July of nineteen seventy one, Brenda was
Speaker 6: admitted to a mental institution for hysteria. There, Brenda made
Speaker 6: a friend named Pamela Taylor. Police would later interview Pamela,
Speaker 6: who said that Brenda would sometimes climb into a car
Speaker 6: with a stranger and have sex with them to get
Speaker 6: back at Walter. This was important because Brenda's mother, Mary
Speaker 6: described her as being shy, not the type of person
Speaker 6: who would get in the car with a stranger. But
Speaker 6: other friends of Brenda said the same thing as Pamela.
Speaker 6: Here's an interchange between a police officer and Brenda Shumpert,
Speaker 6: who was living with Brenda Woodard at the time.
Speaker 7: Do you think Brenda would get into a car with
Speaker 7: a stranger.
Speaker 1: I know she would.
Speaker 4: I have seen her get out of a car driven
Speaker 4: by a guy and I asked who he was.
Speaker 8: She said, I don't know.
Speaker 4: He offered me a ride and just picked up my
Speaker 4: packages and put them in the car, so I went
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 6: However, Brenda started to turn things around that fall. She
Speaker 6: had started taking night classes at Cardozo High School. On
Speaker 6: November fifteenth, the day she went missing, Brenda's father, Edward,
Speaker 6: saw her for the last time. Here's part of his
Speaker 6: statement to police given on November sixteenth, as read by
Speaker 6: a voice actor.
Speaker 9: Yesterday, about five o'clock, she came home and she had
Speaker 9: a record player with her. She knocked on the door,
Speaker 9: and I went to the door, and she came in
Speaker 9: the house. She started to unpack the record player because
Speaker 9: she had just bought it, and I helped her unpack
Speaker 9: it because she was having trouble opening it. I got
Speaker 9: an album on and played it. Then I asked her
Speaker 9: if she was going to school and she said yes, Daddy,
Speaker 9: but she didn't have to leave until six pm. Then
Speaker 9: something stuck with me and I thought I should take
Speaker 9: her to school. She sat there until about twelve minutes
Speaker 9: after six, and then I took her to school. I
Speaker 9: got there about five or ten minutes to seven. I said, Brenda,
Speaker 9: are you coming over tomorrow? And she said yeah, yes.
Speaker 9: When she got out of the car, I felt like
Speaker 9: I wanted to kiss her, but I didn't. She said bye, Daddy,
Speaker 9: and I said bye. That's the last time I've seen her.
Speaker 6: After night classes, Brenda and a classmate named Sherman Mitchell
Speaker 6: left school together. They decided they'd go to a well
Speaker 6: known restaurant named Ben's Chili Bowl and then take the
Speaker 6: bus home. Normally Mitchell would have driven, but his car
Speaker 6: was in the shop that day. Mitchell gave this statement
Speaker 6: to police, as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 10: Brenda and I left school about nine to fifty five
Speaker 10: pm November fifteenth, nineteen seventy one, and we walked down
Speaker 10: twenty second Street northwest to U Street northwest and walked
Speaker 10: up to Ben's Chili Bowl. We had two hot dogs,
Speaker 10: one half smoke, and two sodas. Brenda ordered another half smoke,
Speaker 10: and I bought one pack of cool filter king for Brenda.
Speaker 10: I knew she had eight cents, and I'm not sure
Speaker 10: if she gave me a nickel on the cigarettes or not.
Speaker 10: We left the chili bowl after being there about twenty minutes.
Speaker 10: The walk from the school was leisurely and took about
Speaker 10: fifteen minutes. We left the chili bowl and walked to
Speaker 10: the bus stop at eleventh and U Streets Northwest. He
Speaker 10: waited for about three minutes. We caught a bus Mark
Speaker 10: Garfield and took the Garfrael bus up to eighth and
Speaker 10: eighth Streets northeast to transfer. She could catch any bus
Speaker 10: going out northeast. This was the last time I saw Brenda.
Speaker 6: Brenda had told Sherman to call her later so they
Speaker 6: could keep talking. He said he called after midnight, but
Speaker 6: was told that Brenda still wasn't home. Sherman told law
Speaker 6: enforcement he was surprised by this since it was so late. Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: Brenda's parents were becoming concerned. Brenda's mother took the bus
Speaker 6: home from work that night, and when she walked to
Speaker 6: her bus stop, she saw a crime scene. There was
Speaker 6: police tape and officers everywhere, but she couldn't figure out
Speaker 6: what was going on. Still, it made her worried about Brenda.
Speaker 6: Here again is the statement given by Brenda's father, Edward,
Speaker 6: to police, as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 9: When I got home today, my wife was crying. This
Speaker 9: was about one o'clock. I asked her what she was
Speaker 9: crying for, and she said, I'm scared. I kept asking
Speaker 9: her and she didn't want to talk. She couldn't hardly talk.
Speaker 9: She was so nervous. She said she got off from work,
Speaker 9: she works at Prince George's Hospital, and she couldn't catch
Speaker 9: the bus because of all the police tape. She said
Speaker 9: the traffic was blocked off and she had to walk
Speaker 9: down the hill to catch the bus. She said she's
Speaker 9: seen a wig. I don't know whether she was on
Speaker 9: the bus or not, a brown wig. Then I asked
Speaker 9: did she call the police, and she said no, she
Speaker 9: was too nervous. She gave me the number and I
Speaker 9: called the police. The girl my daughter was living with
Speaker 9: called my wife and asked her had she seen Brenda
Speaker 9: and she told her no. She told my wife that
Speaker 9: she had not Brenda, and she said this boy called
Speaker 9: her and told her that he and Brenda had got
Speaker 9: off a bus at eighth and H Street northeast and
Speaker 9: this was the last time he's seen her. He said, that's.
Speaker 6: It, Mary Wititdward was scared that maybe it was her
Speaker 6: daughter found by the bus stop, and the next morning,
Speaker 6: on November sixteenth, Mary's gut feeling would be confirmed. In
Speaker 6: the early morning hours of November sixteenth, Officer David Norman
Speaker 6: spotted what he thought was a man slumped over on
Speaker 6: the side of the road not far from Prince George's
Speaker 6: County Hospital. Officer Norman made a U turn across the
Speaker 6: grass median of Hospital Road and parked with his headlight
Speaker 6: shining directly on the body. He walked within two feet
Speaker 6: of the body before he realized it was a black
Speaker 6: woman lying face up with a coat draped over her.
Speaker 6: He determined she was dead because she wasn't breathing, her
Speaker 6: eyes were wide open, and her arms were above her
Speaker 6: head with her hand partially erect. Officer Norman had found
Speaker 6: the freeway Fantom's fifth and oldest victim.
Speaker 11: She had been strangled, and what was different with her
Speaker 11: is she had also been stabbed, so it's very clear
Speaker 11: that I'd like previous victims, she put up a serious
Speaker 11: struggle with her a Sami.
Speaker 6: This is writer Blaine Pardo, who co authored a book
Speaker 6: on the Freeway Phantom with his daughter Victoria Hester.
Speaker 11: It's on a little grassy area on a curve of
Speaker 11: the road. She was found laying face up with her
Speaker 11: hands clasped over her hat. She died really of the
Speaker 11: stab world, although there were some strangulation. She had a
Speaker 11: broken bone in her neck, probably from squeezing of her throat,
Speaker 11: but it was the stab wound that killed her.
Speaker 6: In the police files, I discovered a photo of Brenda
Speaker 6: Woodard's crime scene. Believe me, none of the bodies were
Speaker 6: easy to look at, but this one disturbed me in
Speaker 6: a different way. Unlike the others, her body looked like
Speaker 6: it had been thrown, as if the killer was in
Speaker 6: a hurry to dispose of her. Her body was mangled
Speaker 6: and her bloody clothes were still on the spot where
Speaker 6: her body was placed is on a grassy slope just
Speaker 6: beside the street, and you can see her feet angling
Speaker 6: up towards the road. This crime scene felt violent, it
Speaker 6: felt wrong. When we talked to Detective Jim Traynham, he
Speaker 6: confirmed the dark suspicion that bubbled up in Brenda's mother
Speaker 6: that night.
Speaker 2: Brenda's body was found near the bus stop that her
Speaker 2: mother actually took to go home. When she came out,
Speaker 2: she saw all a police activity, not knowing that it
Speaker 2: was her daughter who was lying there. So again that
Speaker 2: raises several questions. Is it a possibility that he knew Brenda,
Speaker 2: he knew her mother, or he found out information about
Speaker 2: her mother during the time he spent with Brenda. You know,
Speaker 2: these things are all things that we have to consider.
Speaker 6: Trainan believes this murder tells us a lot about the
Speaker 6: killer's m O and perhaps why he was so difficult
Speaker 6: to capture.
Speaker 2: And looking at how the victims, where they were picked
Speaker 2: up and where they were their bodies were dump you know,
Speaker 2: the first two victims came from the very same neighborhood
Speaker 2: and they were found at the very same location off
Speaker 2: for two ninety five. One of the theories that's been
Speaker 2: proposed is is that even though there was not a
Speaker 2: lot of police activity, you know, surrounding these girls, at
Speaker 2: that time, probably there was a lot of neighbor talk
Speaker 2: and a lot of neighborhood interests, So the thought was
Speaker 2: that he's either from that neighborhood, familiar with that neighborhood,
Speaker 2: seen a lot in that neighborhood, so that may have
Speaker 2: caused him some concern, especially if he's like the neighborhood
Speaker 2: weird guy or had some sort of similar incident where
Speaker 2: people might be kind of like pointing at him. So
Speaker 2: he decides to go outside the neighborhood, and so he's
Speaker 2: now going to other sections of the city. DC is
Speaker 2: a small city to begin with, but it has its
Speaker 2: own select neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods can be very isolated.
Speaker 2: People who live in one neighborhood down in southeast back
Speaker 2: then wouldn't typically frequent with people in another neighborhood up
Speaker 2: in northwest. It just wasn't as much traffic going back
Speaker 2: and forth. So he goes to these other neighborhoods, and
Speaker 2: then he starts going right across the DC line. He
Speaker 2: doesn't go far, but just right across the DC line
Speaker 2: to where he drops the body, so that there obviously
Speaker 2: can be there in plane view off the major road.
Speaker 2: But that is also causes confusion because police departments, you
Speaker 2: think that they like to share information, that we're all
Speaker 2: working together as a team and all that we don't
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of rivalry going on, and so
Speaker 2: anytime that you start putting bodies in different jurisdictions, they're
Speaker 2: going to have a lot of infighting and stuff like
Speaker 2: that and not sharing of information like you should have.
Speaker 2: So that probably confuses the investigation as well.
Speaker 6: It didn't help that Brenda Woodard's crime scene was so
Speaker 6: different from the previous victims. The only similarities were that
Speaker 6: she was dumped near the freeway and that police found
Speaker 6: green synthetic fibers on her coat, socks, skirt, and panties.
Speaker 6: But what was new was that Brenda had been stabbed
Speaker 6: multiple times, which had not been the case for previous victims.
Speaker 6: There was a superficial stab wound to her head, a
Speaker 6: stab wound her chest through her sweater, and two stab
Speaker 6: wounds to her abdomen. She was also still fully clothed
Speaker 6: and still had her shoes on, which were black boots,
Speaker 6: and police found traces of hair from two different men,
Speaker 6: a black man and a white man. Negroid head hairs
Speaker 6: were found on her boot shirt, braw and coat, and
Speaker 6: Caucasian headhairs were found on her coat and skirt. Some
Speaker 6: investigators have stated they believe the Caucasian hairs originated from
Speaker 6: law enforcement on the scene. Lastly, she had a number
Speaker 6: of defensive wounds, suggesting she put up a struggle against
Speaker 6: her killer.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, she put up a fight.
Speaker 6: This is retired MPD detective Romayne Jenkins. She says that
Speaker 6: this particular murder brought up a lot of questions in.
Speaker 3: The case, Brenda put up a fight. That's why he
Speaker 3: stabs her, he strangles her, he rapes her. She put
Speaker 3: up a fight, and she does have defiled and wounds.
Speaker 3: But what made her suspicious? What made her go willingly
Speaker 3: with him? Why?
Speaker 6: Romayne says the case of Brenda Woodard was one of
Speaker 6: the most difficult ones for her to hear about.
Speaker 3: We live basically in the same neighborhood, I mean, the
Speaker 3: same type of apartments, the same people. I didn't know
Speaker 3: her because she was much younger than I, but it
Speaker 3: was basically the same neighborhood. And I used to hang
Speaker 3: out wish where she lived. I had friends up there,
Speaker 3: you know, I had relatives who lived up there. In
Speaker 3: the same apartments that as she lived in.
Speaker 6: Romayne. Like many other investigators, was also disturbed by one
Speaker 6: major piece of evidence found at the crime scene, a
Speaker 6: handwritten note tucked inside Brenda's coat pocket. Here's what the
Speaker 6: note said.
Speaker 3: This is tantamount to my insensitivity to people, especially women.
Speaker 3: I will admit the others when you catch me if
Speaker 3: you can, signed Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 11: And the note was something that she had written. It
Speaker 11: was her handwriting, but it was the killer's words.
Speaker 6: This is writer Blaine Pardo again.
Speaker 11: So the belief is that he may have had this
Speaker 11: note pre written and said copy it because there's words
Speaker 11: in this is she never would have used it said
Speaker 11: this is tantamount to my insensitivity, which was misspelled to people,
Speaker 11: especially women. I will admit the others when you catch
Speaker 11: me if you can. And it was signed the Freeway
Speaker 11: Phantom where the freeway is hyphenated. The note on its
Speaker 11: own is the scariest thing because it's the killer reaching
Speaker 11: out to everybody out there, saying who he is and
Speaker 11: what he's doing and why he's doing it. It's not
Speaker 11: a very long note, but what's interesting is when you
Speaker 11: look at it, you literally can see where he went
Speaker 11: along and almost checked off each word to make sure
Speaker 11: it was right. The phrase freeway fanom had been picked
Speaker 11: up by the news media and was being used both
Speaker 11: a newspaper and on TV and radio describing killer, so
Speaker 11: he was admitting, I am the freeway fanom. This is
Speaker 11: a victim of the freewaydea. We ended up going to
Speaker 11: one of the investigators who pioneered forensic linguistics, who actually
Speaker 11: caught the unibomber. We actually gave him a copy of
Speaker 11: the note. Had said, help us see what you can
Speaker 11: do with this, and he went over in great detail
Speaker 11: and he said, there's a lot of interesting things in here.
Speaker 11: One of the things he pointed out to us was
Speaker 11: my insensitivity to people, especially women. So has he been
Speaker 11: killing young men too and we don't know it? And
Speaker 11: he said the Hyphenetiana Freeway was very interesting. He literally
Speaker 11: sent me the Library of Congress to go through newspapers,
Speaker 11: thirty years worth of newspapers trying to find instances where
Speaker 11: free way was hyphenated. And he believed it's a West
Speaker 11: coast thing. I couldn't find anything on that, but he said,
Speaker 11: I'm almost positive that's something to do with the West coast. Now,
Speaker 11: the only reference I ever found to it was in
Speaker 11: a psychological book from nineteen fifteen nineteen twenty something like
Speaker 11: that about homosexuality, which is interesting because it's a kind
Speaker 11: of book you might find in a mental institution. A
Speaker 11: mental institution in Washington, DC area had a pretty distinct
Speaker 11: tie to all of us.
Speaker 6: If you remember, Brenda Woodard was briefly in a mental institution,
Speaker 6: and later in the investigation, one of the prime suspects
Speaker 6: would also have ties to a mental institution. More on
Speaker 6: that in a later episode.
Speaker 11: To me, that note is everything because it's the first
Speaker 11: time and the only time that the killer reaches out
Speaker 11: to the authorities. It was todping, catch me if you can't. Terrible,
Speaker 11: just absolutely terrible.
Speaker 4: And it makes you wonder too. Did she fight back
Speaker 4: because she basically wrote her own killer's note.
Speaker 6: This is author Victoria hester Blaine's daughter and co writer.
Speaker 6: She's speaking to the question Romayne brought up earlier about
Speaker 6: why Brenda put up a fight either before or after
Speaker 6: she was forced to write the note.
Speaker 4: I mean, we know it's her handwriting. She literally had
Speaker 4: to sit there and write, either copy it or take
Speaker 4: his word for word and write it down. And she
Speaker 4: probably knew what was happening next probably put it all together,
Speaker 4: which is probably why she fought so hard, because she
Speaker 4: saw it coming, whereas the other girls were a lot
Speaker 4: younger and may have not known. They may have not
Speaker 4: understood or felt the same fear. But that's like new
Speaker 4: level as having your victim write a note and then
Speaker 4: putting it in the pocket on their body. That was
Speaker 4: it's creepy to read, Like even just looking at the handwriting,
Speaker 4: it's just creepy knowing that a killer wrote that.
Speaker 11: And I don't think it was dictated. We spoke with
Speaker 11: Remaine Jenkins and she was like, if it was dictated,
Speaker 11: there would have been more misspellings, there would have been
Speaker 11: more mistakes associated with it. This was something that was copied.
Speaker 11: It was very specific.
Speaker 6: There were also the peculiar language choices used by the
Speaker 6: killer throughout the note.
Speaker 11: The word tantamount. Think about this, Who uses that word?
Speaker 11: Everything else? All the rest of the wording is almost
Speaker 11: everyday type of thing, the word insensitivity. You'll hear people
Speaker 11: use that. How often do you hear people use the
Speaker 11: word tantamount?
Speaker 6: Since it's such an unusual word, we thought we'd quickly
Speaker 6: define it here. Tantamount means to be equivalent in value, significance,
Speaker 6: or effect. Merriam Webster uses this example. His statement was
Speaker 6: tantamount to an admission of guilt, meaning something may not
Speaker 6: equal something else literally, but it may be of about
Speaker 6: equal value.
Speaker 11: And that really stuck with the authorities, like they really
Speaker 11: later investigations really focused on that, because unfortunately, if you
Speaker 11: go around going, hey, did this guy ever use the
Speaker 11: word tantamount, You're going to get a lot of people
Speaker 11: at start saying, well, yeah, that's the case. I'm sure
Speaker 11: it's an interesting word to have in your vocabulary. I
Speaker 11: write a lot of books. I don't think I ever
Speaker 11: used it prior to this book.
Speaker 4: I mean, I had to look it up because I
Speaker 4: was like, what does that even mean? I've never heard
Speaker 4: of that word. It's definitely not something in everybody's vocabulary.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, maybe he heard it somewhere and
Speaker 4: he thought it maybe made him sound smart, maybe that's
Speaker 4: what he was going for. Or was this something that
Speaker 4: a word that was a part of a court case
Speaker 4: that he lost that really pissed him off. So it's interesting.
Speaker 11: Several of the investigators we talked to, so that's such
Speaker 11: an interesting word and it's almost like he's trying to
Speaker 11: make himself sound more intelligent, and it's not the correct
Speaker 11: use of the word Jim's about, so it's almost forced.
Speaker 11: It also tells you about the location where he kept
Speaker 11: his victims. Had to have good lighting, had to have
Speaker 11: a desk to write on, had to have a pencil,
Speaker 11: and everything had to be there for that to happen.
Speaker 6: Detective Romayne Jenkins considers the note to be one of,
Speaker 6: if not the most important pieces of evidence in this case.
Speaker 6: As for her assessment, she largely agrees with Blaine and Victoria.
Speaker 3: I always felt if these cases ever closed, the antswer
Speaker 3: lies with Brenda Wooded. Why do you say that because
Speaker 3: of the note, Because of the note that he left.
Speaker 3: He wanted to note found and Brenda Woodard wrote the note.
Speaker 3: Brenda Woodard knew about the other girl's cases. She warned
Speaker 3: her own family, her sisters, to be careful because there's
Speaker 3: somebody out here snatching young girls. She knew about it.
Speaker 3: So if you look at her handwriting, it's in her
Speaker 3: normal writing. There is no no sign of stress, no
Speaker 3: sign of stress, none, none that somebody said write this
Speaker 3: note and she just did it.
Speaker 6: Did you keep a copy of the note.
Speaker 3: I saw the note and we were sworn to secrecy
Speaker 3: that we were never to divulge the contents of the
Speaker 3: note because that's the only thing they had. They had
Speaker 3: nothing else, and they realized the importance of the note
Speaker 3: because a lot of times when you have high profile cases,
Speaker 3: everybody wants to run to the police and say I
Speaker 3: did it. You know, they want to confess. But if
Speaker 3: they couldn't tell you the contents of the note, then
Speaker 3: you knew this person was not responsible. So that's why
Speaker 3: we were We were told not to divulge the contents
Speaker 3: of the note, and to my knowledge, it wasn't done
Speaker 3: until recently. The note was talked about, but the contents
Speaker 3: were not revealed until recently. Within the last few years.
Speaker 6: The news of Brenda Woodard's death shook up the community
Speaker 6: and the investigation. Now there were six different agencies involved
Speaker 6: in the case, MPD, Prince George County, Maryland State Police,
Speaker 6: Chevrolet Police, and the US Park Service, and the cases
Speaker 6: were officially designated the Freeway Phantom Cases. In our investigation,
Speaker 6: the shift in law enforcement involvement is evident. A source
Speaker 6: provided US with thousands of documents from the varying jurisdictions,
Speaker 6: including the FBI. These include suspect interviews and evidence collected
Speaker 6: from crime scenes and from potential suspects. Most of this
Speaker 6: begins after Brenda. Even members of the local DC government
Speaker 6: started to speak out about the murders. Here's an excerpt
Speaker 6: from the book The Mystery of the Freeway Phantom by
Speaker 6: author and community member Wilma Harper.
Speaker 8: On November eighteenth, nineteen seventy one, Mayor Walter Washington emphasized
Speaker 8: Police Chief Jerry Wilson's all out appeal to the public
Speaker 8: for help in the search for the killer or killers
Speaker 8: responsible for the murders. In a surprise move, the mayor
Speaker 8: joined the police chief at a press conference and said
Speaker 8: he was deeply and greatly concerned about the killings. He
Speaker 8: pledged the entire resources of the city government in helping
Speaker 8: the FBI, the District of Columbia, and Prince George's County
Speaker 8: police departments in the search. Mayor Washington also strongly endorsed
Speaker 8: an appeal the police department had made to the community
Speaker 8: asking for assistance in the solution.
Speaker 6: Of the crimes.
Speaker 8: The appeal was published in the Daily News under the
Speaker 8: caption does anyone know the Phantom.
Speaker 6: The FBI also made some peculiar choices. At one point,
Speaker 6: they made a lookalike doll of Brenda. They took a
Speaker 6: picture and circulated flyers with the photo and information of
Speaker 6: her disappearance. The flyer gave basic background detail of time
Speaker 6: and place, of where she was last seen and where
Speaker 6: her body was found. It also outlined what Brenda was
Speaker 6: wearing and how she was killed. The flyer was addressed
Speaker 6: to all cab drivers and directed people to call the
Speaker 6: FBI's listed phone number. There is also a lot of
Speaker 6: negative information about Brenda herself. In the police report. The
Speaker 6: description of her was brief. Here's what it said, as
Speaker 6: read by a voice actor.
Speaker 7: Immature, naive, sex with strangers for rides, hitchhikes, living with girlfriend,
Speaker 7: attended night school, en route home by bus, psite counseling.
Speaker 6: And in police interviews. Investigators seemed fixed on the idea
Speaker 6: that Brenda was overly promiscuous, often suggesting that was the
Speaker 6: reason she was killed. As we heard earlier, several friends
Speaker 6: did report that Brenda would sometimes accept rides for men
Speaker 6: that she did not know. However, many people spoke to
Speaker 6: the contrary, including the last person to see her alive.
Speaker 6: Sherman Mitchell. Here's more from the police report, as read
Speaker 6: by a voice actor.
Speaker 7: Mitchell did not think Brenda would on impulse jump into
Speaker 7: an automobile of an unknown person. He did not think
Speaker 7: she would turn tricks for money, nor did he think
Speaker 7: she was on any kind of narcotics. Mitchell advised that
Speaker 7: he has never in his life taken any narcotics and
Speaker 7: were certain Brenda had not. He advised that was easy
Speaker 7: to make friends with and was very sympathetic towards others.
Speaker 6: Another one of Brenda's friends, Diane Murray, expressed similar sentiments.
Speaker 6: This is also from the police report read by a
Speaker 6: voice actor.
Speaker 7: Woodard, to her knowledge, never accepted a ride with anyone
Speaker 7: who would drive past and offer her a ride in
Speaker 7: an automobile. This has occasionally happened in the past when
Speaker 7: the two of them would be together on the street.
Speaker 7: In all instances, Woodard would refuse the invitation to ride
Speaker 7: in the automobile.
Speaker 6: Well, it's possible that Brenda did, in fact accept rides
Speaker 6: from strangers, it's odd that police were so quick to
Speaker 6: solely adopt that perspective, and from reading the documents, it
Speaker 6: looks as though investigators wrote Brenda off as a result.
Speaker 6: So while Brenda's actions may have put her at higher
Speaker 6: risk of being victimized, her death was in no way
Speaker 6: less tragic and she deserved a proper investigation. Also, the
Speaker 6: rhetoric about her promiscuity was not only damaging to the case,
Speaker 6: but it really reinforced harmful and unfair stereotypes. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 6: community was terrified, now more so than ever. Strangely, many
Speaker 6: people were concerned about one specific detail.
Speaker 3: Well, the community was up in arms because several of
Speaker 3: the girls had the name Denise. So everybody who had
Speaker 3: a daughter or somebody kin with the name Denise, they
Speaker 3: were very cautious.
Speaker 6: This is Romaine Jenkins again, as she says, three of
Speaker 6: the total six confirmed Freeway phantom victims had the middle
Speaker 6: name Denise.
Speaker 3: And people prayed on this extent, I'm gonna get your daughter, Denise.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna snatch her from school. You know. Parents were
Speaker 3: getting phone calls like that. And whether they were actual
Speaker 3: people doing this, who had anything to do with the investigation,
Speaker 3: we don't know. It was just the thing, be wave.
Speaker 3: If your name is Denise, then you come in this
Speaker 3: house at a certain time, don't talk to strangers. And
Speaker 3: and parents were concerned. They were really concerned.
Speaker 6: Author Wilma Harper wrote about this in her book The
Speaker 6: Mystery of the Freeway Phantom. She says it started when
Speaker 6: one expert was interviewed by a local newspaper.
Speaker 8: The day after the body of Brenda Denise Woodard was found.
Speaker 8: Doctor Sheldon Freud, an internationally known psychologist working with the
Speaker 8: Prince George's County Police Department, warned black girls named Denise
Speaker 8: that their lives were in danger. Both Freud and the
Speaker 8: police believed the phantom was deliberately seeking out teenagers named
Speaker 8: Denise as targets for his highway slaughter.
Speaker 6: And then, as Wilma Harper writes, things came to a
Speaker 6: head at Brenda's funeral.
Speaker 8: Funeral services for Brenda Denise Woodard were held on November
Speaker 8: twenty second, nineteen seventy one, six days after her body
Speaker 8: had been found just off the Baltimore Washington Parkway. The
Speaker 8: Reverend Thomas Jennings at the Tenth Street Baptist Church conducted
Speaker 8: the service by eleven am. About ninety persons, many of
Speaker 8: them girlfriends of miss Woodard, had viewed the body. They
Speaker 8: signed their names in a book on a pedestal near
Speaker 8: the entrance way to the chapel. The cover of the
Speaker 8: book said in memory of Miss Brenda Woodard friends who called.
Speaker 8: It was noted that at least ten of the girls
Speaker 8: who signed the book were named Denise. One mourner sobbed
Speaker 8: loud enough for those around her to hear, Oh Jesus,
Speaker 8: oh Lord, I hope he doesn't see those names. She
Speaker 8: was referring to the killers and the possible homicidal hate
Speaker 8: for the name Denise.
Speaker 6: Writer Blaine Pardo is skeptical about the Denise connection.
Speaker 11: The name Denise pops up at several of these victims,
Speaker 11: and that became this, Oh my gosh, he's killing girls
Speaker 11: with the middle name Denise. Okay, today I could go
Speaker 11: and google high school directory maybe and find out who
Speaker 11: all these people are. Nineteen seventy, how would you even
Speaker 11: know how to find someone with the middle named Denise.
Speaker 11: And again, you have to always look at these through
Speaker 11: the lens of how things were then. But that became
Speaker 11: a big deal, and there were there were actual TV
Speaker 11: broadcasts that we looked at where they were like, Hey,
Speaker 11: if your daughter's middle name is Denise, you know you
Speaker 11: need to escort her to school and pick her up
Speaker 11: because this is what this killer's focusing on.
Speaker 6: Detective Jim Trainham says they successfully debunked the idea that
Speaker 6: the killer was targeting people named Denise.
Speaker 2: We kind of did a little research back then, and
Speaker 2: Denise was an extremely popular name during that time period.
Speaker 2: So there again, you know the likelihood if you have
Speaker 2: enough people let them be named Denise or having Denis
Speaker 2: as part of their name increases and so that could
Speaker 2: just very well would be a coincidence there. One of
Speaker 2: the things that we did was there were numerous behavioral
Speaker 2: or psychological profiles done of the phantom, and we kind
Speaker 2: of looked at the different profiles and how they kind
Speaker 2: of varied. Some of them talked about how Denise played
Speaker 2: a significant part and others didn't. I honestly believe that
Speaker 2: these people were chosen at random.
Speaker 6: Whether or not he was actually targeting girls named Denise.
Speaker 6: People in the neighborhood were convinced of the danger, and
Speaker 6: the paranoia in the area was out of control. According
Speaker 6: to a Daily News article published three days after Brenda
Speaker 6: was found, there had been more than four thousand tips
Speaker 6: called into the police tip line during that period, not
Speaker 6: all of them useful. Here are a few examples as
Speaker 6: read by voice actors.
Speaker 12: My father, Well, what's your name?
Speaker 2: I got some information you are, Well, what is it?
Speaker 7: When you find the phantom, you'll be a surprise. If
Speaker 7: the phantom where the policeman's here before.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 6: On November twentieth, the Washington Daily News sponsored a public
Speaker 6: service announcement in the form of an open letter to
Speaker 6: the killer. Heard on the radio and on television.
Speaker 12: This is an appeal to the person responsible for the
Speaker 12: death of six young girls. Please call this number four
Speaker 12: six two nine four one five. This is the paypile
Speaker 12: and it's not tapped, and you will hear my voice only.
Speaker 12: Here's why I'm asking you to call right now. I'm
Speaker 12: more concerned about you. You probably feel the whole world
Speaker 12: is after you.
Speaker 2: You may be scared.
Speaker 12: He must be just plain tired. If you are, there
Speaker 12: is someone you can turn to without fear.
Speaker 6: Shortly thereafter, the phone number received eight calls, with heavy breathing,
Speaker 6: no sound or tips, and a woman hysterically crying in
Speaker 6: the background. Following all of this, a five thousand dollars
Speaker 6: reward was offered by The Washington Evening Star, and a
Speaker 6: one thousand dollars reward was offered by WUST Radio. In
Speaker 6: one interesting twist, there was even an official connection made
Speaker 6: to the Zodiac killer. On December first, a San Francisco
Speaker 6: homicide detective sent communication to the Washington Field office comparing
Speaker 6: the Freeway Phantom and Zodiac cases. The note stated, though
Speaker 6: that there were many differences between the murders. The Zodiac
Speaker 6: did not sexually assault his victims. The Zodiac also didn't
Speaker 6: target a specific race, nor did he strangle his victims.
Speaker 6: But there was a request to compare the handwriting and
Speaker 6: fingerprints on the Freeway note with those of the Zodiac
Speaker 6: notes and Cipher's. However, none of this went anywhere. After
Speaker 6: a few weeks, the hysteria died down. Months went by
Speaker 6: without any murders, and most people assumed that the Freeway
Speaker 6: Phantom was done. Sadly the end, that wasn't true.
Speaker 2: We thought that after Brenda was stabbed, and after this
Speaker 2: screw up with Brenda because it didn't go as smoothly
Speaker 2: as he wanted, he went into hiatus for a while,
Speaker 2: nobody heard of you from him. But then he goes
Speaker 2: in the opposite direction down two ninety five. That's when
Speaker 2: Diane Williams was killed, and he drops her off on
Speaker 2: the side of the road.
Speaker 6: Next time on Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 3: We were reading in the newspaper that there was a
Speaker 3: body found.
Speaker 6: We just knew that that was Diane.
Speaker 4: Her boyfriend escorted her to the bus stop, so we
Speaker 4: know that she got at least to the bus. We
Speaker 4: have no idea how she got where she was based
Speaker 4: on where she was dropped off.
Speaker 2: The main thing, you were hoping sometime at one of
Speaker 2: these crime scenes that the assailant would drop something, he
Speaker 2: would lose something that was his.
Speaker 3: Whoever did the cases get right into the community never
Speaker 3: raised any suspicion at all.
Speaker 5: It's typical to generate a lot of suspects, like literally hundreds,
Speaker 5: if not thousands, or tens of thousands of suspects, so
Speaker 5: finding who you're looking for is like trying to find
Speaker 5: a needle in a Haysback.
Speaker 1: Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: and Black Bar MITZVAH. Our host is CELESE.
Speaker 2: Hiley.
Speaker 1: The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright and CELESE.
Speaker 3: Hilly.
Speaker 1: Executive producers on behalf of iHeart Radio include Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: and Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers
Speaker 1: on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
Speaker 1: with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on
Speaker 1: behalf of Black Bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay Ellis and
Speaker 1: Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Foods. Lead researcher is Jamie Albright.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Mister Soul two one six, original music by
Speaker 1: Makeup and Vanity Set special thanks to a teammate, Uta
Speaker 1: Beckmedia and Marketing and the Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: as well as Black Bar Mitzvah have increased the reward
Speaker 1: for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the
Speaker 1: person or persons responsible for their Freeway fanom murders. The
Speaker 1: previous reward of up to one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars offered by the Metropolitan Police Department has been matched.
Speaker 1: A new total reward of up to three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars is now being offered. If you have any information
Speaker 1: relating to these unsolved crimes, contact the Metropolitan Police Department
Speaker 1: at area code two zero two seven two seven nine
Speaker 1: zero ninety nine For more information, please visit Freeway dashfanom
Speaker 1: dot com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.