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Speaker 2: Well, you never know what to expect, to expect the unexpected,
Speaker 2: I guess. I mean, you never know what time you're
Speaker 2: going to be called out for an assignment. It could
Speaker 2: be during the day, it could be in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night. Typically, if you're working day shift or
Speaker 2: second shift, you would just go ahead and work whatever's
Speaker 2: on your caseload. But I remember getting a call. It
Speaker 2: was towards morning. It came over as what we call
Speaker 2: the signal seven eighty one that was a death. It
Speaker 2: was a warm morning and it was pretty dry. When
Speaker 2: I got there, I guess there was a crowd starting
Speaker 2: to come out arriving on a scene. I was directed
Speaker 2: to where this child was laying on the side of
Speaker 2: the road and just making more observations whatever I could
Speaker 2: detect at the scene, which wasn't very much at the time.
Speaker 2: It appeared that she was probably either dragged out of
Speaker 2: the car or thrown out of the car, and I
Speaker 2: just called our ID section and they responded and did
Speaker 2: what they do typically taking pictures and if there's anything
Speaker 2: else at this area. I mean, there was no fingerprints
Speaker 2: to be taken or anything like that, look for tire tracks,
Speaker 2: so there was really nothing to look for except the
Speaker 2: deceased person. Everything happened so quick and just the type
Speaker 2: of crime it was, in the place where it happened
Speaker 2: and everything. I'm sure this happened at someplace house, but
Speaker 2: she was merely dumped in that area another one hundred
Speaker 2: feet it probably would have been in DC, and I
Speaker 2: wouldn't add any involvement at all.
Speaker 3: The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl case.
Speaker 2: This child was laying on the side of the road.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't go no way, I would call up my house.
Speaker 2: Those first five murderers should have been a huge warning
Speaker 2: bell for the police.
Speaker 5: We just want to know what happened.
Speaker 6: This person must have saw that.
Speaker 3: They were thinking that maybe it's just one person and
Speaker 3: he says, they need to know this is me.
Speaker 2: I thought that they would catch him. I thought it
Speaker 2: was just a matter of time.
Speaker 5: I'm Celeste Headley, and this is Freeway Phantom. The Freeway
Speaker 5: Phantom had already claimed two victims, Carol Spinks and Derlinia Johnson.
Speaker 5: Although Carolyn Darlinia's bodies were dumped fifteen feet from each
Speaker 5: other and were killed the same way, law enforcements still
Speaker 5: hadn't linked the two murders. They'd asked a potential suspect
Speaker 5: in Darlinia's death if he knew Carol Spinks. He didn't,
Speaker 5: so the two murders were still being treated as individual cases.
Speaker 5: But on July twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, eight days
Speaker 5: after Darlinia's decomposed body was found, the Freeway Phantom's third
Speaker 5: victim would be discovered.
Speaker 2: I remember how she was clad. I remember how she
Speaker 2: was dressed. I remember she had some pink rollers in
Speaker 2: her hair, and she had just a little outfit on
Speaker 2: a little top. But it was it seems to me
Speaker 2: it was a matching outfit. There wasn't really that much
Speaker 2: to see there far as she was concerned. I just
Speaker 2: wrapped her hands in baggies and called for a corner
Speaker 2: to go ahead and transport her or was an ambulance.
Speaker 2: I should say this is.
Speaker 5: A retired detective Hillary Zuklowski, who we heard from at
Speaker 5: the top of this episode. He was one of the
Speaker 5: first to arrive at the crime scene.
Speaker 2: We weren't there very long because there really wasn't much
Speaker 2: evidence together, maybe an hour. I don't think they shut
Speaker 2: down the roads or anything like that because the manner
Speaker 2: of the way she was dumped on the side of
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 5: Brenda Crockett was four and a half feet tall and
Speaker 5: weighed only seventy five pounds. She was the youngest victim
Speaker 5: of the Freeway Phantom, and like Carol Spinks and de
Speaker 5: Linia Johnson, she was discovered right off a busy highway.
Speaker 4: She was a child of God. She loved church. She
Speaker 4: was going to refrigerate it eat raw bacon, but you know,
Speaker 4: the pigs were better back then. She had a dimple
Speaker 4: up here in her cheek. She loved bacon and she
Speaker 4: loved the Lord at ten years old, but I do
Speaker 4: remember that I looked up to her that as she
Speaker 4: was cute. My name is Berta Crockett and I am
Speaker 4: the youngest sibling of my family. Brenda was my oldest sister.
Speaker 4: She was four years older. I have a twin brother
Speaker 4: who is deceased now, and we had an older brother.
Speaker 4: We lived on to ours place. It was a beautiful
Speaker 4: community to be honest. As a child, we did everything.
Speaker 4: We had the fire hydrants out in the summertime. We
Speaker 4: had arts and craft. We had a lot going on.
Speaker 4: Because one of the gentlemen that lived in the area,
Speaker 4: he worked for the Department of Rets, so he bought
Speaker 4: all of this activity to our street and we were
Speaker 4: like like a one way street.
Speaker 5: Brenda lived with her family in Northwest Washington, d C.
Speaker 5: Which was a crosstown from the first two murders. Like
Speaker 5: the neighborhoods where Carol Spinks and Delinia Johnson lived, it
Speaker 5: was tight knit. I briefly visited her neighborhood and found
Speaker 5: where Brenda's house used to be. So we're standing in
Speaker 5: front of the house where Brenda Crockett lived. She would
Speaker 5: have stepped down this step uh to leave her house
Speaker 5: for the last time. We see again this quiet I
Speaker 5: would call it a sweet residential street. And she walked
Speaker 5: just a few blocks. The blocks it's five blocks, but
Speaker 5: The blocks here are quite small. This is not a
Speaker 5: New York block. And she walked just a short way
Speaker 5: to the Safeway and bought what she needed to buy
Speaker 5: and never came home again. How someone can snatch a
Speaker 5: little girl off the street like that, I mean, this
Speaker 5: is not like where Carol Spinks and Derlinia we're living.
Speaker 5: We do not see aunties on the porch. But that
Speaker 5: could also be because the the Gude neighborhood is obviously
Speaker 5: flipped over. This is not a majority black neighborhood anymore. Still,
Speaker 5: leading up to Brenda's murder, fear hadn't infiltrated this community.
Speaker 5: It could be that Carolyn Delini's murders hadn't been connected,
Speaker 5: or that they happened too far away for anyone here
Speaker 5: to notice. Whatever the reason, people here had yet to
Speaker 5: realize that there was a killer targeting young girls. If
Speaker 5: they had, things might have gone differently. It was neighborhood
Speaker 5: movie night on Main Street when Brenda headed to the store.
Speaker 4: All the kids in the neighborhood could watch movies on
Speaker 4: the screen. So in the summertime, you remember, it was
Speaker 4: daylight until about nine o'clock PM. So my mom, my sister,
Speaker 4: being older the store that she went to was literally
Speaker 4: two blocks around the corner and two blocks down the street,
Speaker 4: and because she didn't come back by the time it
Speaker 4: was turning dark, my mom went looking for her because
Speaker 4: we were getting ready to watch the movies on the
Speaker 4: big screen.
Speaker 5: Brenda wore a white and blue plaid halter top with
Speaker 5: matching shorts and had pink rollers in her freshly pressed hair.
Speaker 5: A witness said Brenda had been barefoot. She was headed
Speaker 5: to buy food for Ringo, Rex and Romeo, the family's
Speaker 5: three dogs, along with bread and typing paper.
Speaker 4: When my sister didn't return from the grocery store, my
Speaker 4: mom didn't realize that no one had went with her,
Speaker 4: and so after she didn't come back, because it should
Speaker 4: have been literally a half hour forty five minutes, my
Speaker 4: mom went looking for her and she didn't find her.
Speaker 4: My sister didn't return.
Speaker 5: Here's what Reetha Crockett, Brenda's mother, told the police about
Speaker 5: the night Brenda went missing, as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 7: I sent my daughter to People's drug store to get
Speaker 7: type in paper, also to the Safeway store located at
Speaker 7: fourteenth and U Street's northwest to get some dog food.
Speaker 7: This was about eight o'clock. After a while, she didn't return,
Speaker 7: so I looked at the door for her. I thought
Speaker 7: she went to the store with her brother and sister
Speaker 7: and a friend, like she always does. I went outside
Speaker 7: and it was starting to get dark. I found my
Speaker 7: other two children, Benjamin and Bertha, and asked them if
Speaker 7: they had seen Brendan, and they said no. All three
Speaker 7: of us watched the corner of thirteenth in w streets
Speaker 7: to look for I told Benjamin to return to the
Speaker 7: house to lock the door, and when he didn't return,
Speaker 7: I sent Bertha to get him. She came back and
Speaker 7: said he was going to stay and watch the street movie.
Speaker 7: She said he don't want to go. Mamma, Can I
Speaker 7: stay too? So I said yes. I walked down the
Speaker 7: safeway and it was closed and there were some boys
Speaker 7: sitting outside, and went back home to see you she there,
Speaker 7: but she wasn't. I then asked my neighbor, missed A. Bundy,
Speaker 7: if he had seen her, and he said no. I
Speaker 7: walked back to fourteenth Street, where I seen a police
Speaker 7: car and asked him what to do when your daughter
Speaker 7: goes missing. They told me to stand on the corner
Speaker 7: that they were out at their area. And that they
Speaker 7: would have another policeman come and take a missing person report.
Speaker 7: I was stand there, I see mister Bundy walking out
Speaker 7: Seventh Street, so I ran across the street, thinking she
Speaker 7: had come home. Mister Buddy said she was not home,
Speaker 7: but she called.
Speaker 5: At around nine twenty that night, the phone at Brenda's
Speaker 5: house rang, and Bertha answered.
Speaker 8: I'm in Virginia in a white man's house.
Speaker 9: The witness came a car and cured me.
Speaker 8: To his house. My mother see me.
Speaker 4: I'm seven years old. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 4: So my sister was ten years old. She was old
Speaker 4: enough and wise enough to remember our home number at
Speaker 4: that time. She called home and she said that somebody
Speaker 4: had picked her up and took her to Virginia. They
Speaker 4: were going to send her home in a cab. And
Speaker 4: I answered the phone the first time. I'm too young
Speaker 4: to even understand what's really going on. So that call
Speaker 4: went out, and then the next call came in. My
Speaker 4: mom's fiance at the time, who became my mom's husband,
Speaker 4: answered the next call and he said, well, Brenda, if
Speaker 4: you tell me where you are, come and get you.
Speaker 4: She says, I'm in Virginia. This man picked me up
Speaker 4: and took me to He's going to put me in
Speaker 4: a cab and send me home. She's ten years old.
Speaker 4: At the same time, my mom went looking for her,
Speaker 4: and she was asking my stepfather me or whoever at
Speaker 4: that time did my mom see me? Which led us
Speaker 4: to believe that whoever captured her had her in a
Speaker 4: vehicle or some sort and saw my mom looking for her.
Speaker 4: I thought it was that Mama is out looking for you.
Speaker 4: Where are you? That's my thought, Dan, even now to
Speaker 4: this day, I look at the scenario of where from
Speaker 4: DC from where we grew up to Maryland to Virginia,
Speaker 4: because like, we grew up at twelfth Street Northwest, and
Speaker 4: then I work at twelfth Street Southwest and then right
Speaker 4: around the corner, you just hit that bridge and you're
Speaker 4: at Virginia. So I'm like, was she really familiar with
Speaker 4: where she was going? Did she see a sign that
Speaker 4: says she was going to Virginia? You know, It's like
Speaker 4: all of the questions in my head. I got the
Speaker 4: impression that she was a little frightened, that she was
Speaker 4: like just thinking as whoever it was was gonna put
Speaker 4: her in a cab and send her back home. She
Speaker 4: said I'm in Virginia and he's gonna put me in
Speaker 4: a cabin send me back home.
Speaker 5: This was new. This was a complete change from the
Speaker 5: Freeway Phantom's mo Although there had been reports of him
Speaker 5: calling the families of the first two victims, this is
Speaker 5: the only confirmed contact. What makes this even more strange
Speaker 5: is that Brenda didn't call once, but twice. Theodore Caldwell
Speaker 5: was raythist fiance. In his statement, Caldwell said he met
Speaker 5: Bertha coming up the street. This was right after Brenda
Speaker 5: had called the first time, so Caldwell was aware Brenda
Speaker 5: had said a white man took her to Virginia. When
Speaker 5: Brenda called again around nine forty five, Caldwell picked up
Speaker 5: the receiver. This is a voice actor reading his statement.
Speaker 10: Brenda said, mister Ted, I say, yes, Brenda, are you
Speaker 10: at She said, I'm in Virginia and a white man's house.
Speaker 10: I asked how she got over there. She said the
Speaker 10: white man put her in the car and carried her
Speaker 10: over to his house. I asked her, is there anyone
Speaker 10: there besides you and the man? She said no. I
Speaker 10: told her tell him to come to the phone and
Speaker 10: tell me where you're at, and I'll come pick you up,
Speaker 10: and she said, did my mother see me? I said no,
Speaker 10: how could she see you when you're in Virginia asked
Speaker 10: her again, tell the man to come to the phone.
Speaker 10: I heard someone walk in Heaven. She said, really low,
Speaker 10: I'll see you, and someone just cut the phone.
Speaker 5: There's no definite reason why Brenda went to the store
Speaker 5: alone that night. Eartha thinks it could be because it
Speaker 5: was only two blocks from where they lived at the time,
Speaker 5: and the fact it didn't get dark until nine pm.
Speaker 5: But there was another person to see Brenda before she disappeared.
Speaker 5: Here's how one investigator described their interview with a witness
Speaker 5: named Paulette Johnson.
Speaker 11: Missus Johnson was asked if she could recall the night
Speaker 11: of July twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one, and the incident
Speaker 11: involving Brenda Faye Crockett. Missus Johnson stated she was well
Speaker 11: aware of that evening and the night, and that she
Speaker 11: had become acquainted with the victim, Brenda Crockett, prior to
Speaker 11: her abduction on that night. Missus Johnson stated that at
Speaker 11: approximately eight forty five to nine pm on the night
Speaker 11: of July twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one, She was walking
Speaker 11: from the quarner of Fourteenth and U Street northwest, heading
Speaker 11: south on the east side of fourteenth Street, near the
Speaker 11: Safeway store. Just as she approached the Safeway store, Brenda
Speaker 11: Crockett walked around beside her and passed just in front
Speaker 11: of her, heading toward the door of the Safeway store.
Speaker 11: Missus Johnson stated she knew Brenda Crockett by sight because
Speaker 11: the Crockett Girl's father works for one of her boyfriends,
Speaker 11: and she recalled that Brenda had been to her daughter's
Speaker 11: birthday party a few days before this incident. Missus Johnson
Speaker 11: stated that it was her opinion that Brenda Crockett could
Speaker 11: not have been taken from in front of the Safeway
Speaker 11: store by force without someone seeing and observing the incident.
Speaker 11: She stated that as she turned the corner on Wallick Place,
Speaker 11: she lost sight of the Crockett girl, and shortly thereafter
Speaker 11: when she returned, she did not see her in front
Speaker 11: of the store. She stated that the time elapsing after
Speaker 11: she last saw the Crockett girl and when she returned
Speaker 11: to in front of the Safeway store was approximately five minutes.
Speaker 5: If missus Johnson's timing was accurate, this means Brenda was
Speaker 5: kidnapped within a five minute window. This means missus Johnson
Speaker 5: could possibly be the last person to see Brenda alive
Speaker 5: other than the killer. Police questioned Raytha about the abduction.
Speaker 4: Has your daughter ever told or advised you that men
Speaker 4: were trying to entice her into a vehicle?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 8: Did she often go to the door alone?
Speaker 7: Just the star around the corna, not the safety buzz self.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone you suspect?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 10: Is there anything else you can add to the statement?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 5: As we heard before the break, Brenda called home not once,
Speaker 5: but twice. Brenda had said that a white man abducted
Speaker 5: her and that she was in Virginia. This information seemed
Speaker 5: suspicious and it raised a lot of questions. Was the
Speaker 5: killer feeding Brenda lies to tell her family and.
Speaker 12: Why he was doing a lot of things to deliberately
Speaker 12: mislead the authorities.
Speaker 5: This is writer Blaine Pardo, who co wrote a book
Speaker 5: about the Freeway Phantom. He says it didn't make sense
Speaker 5: that a white man would have abducted Brenda as she
Speaker 5: claimed over the phone. When we talked with members of
Speaker 5: the local community, they agreed that a white man would
Speaker 5: have stood out in the congress Heights neighborhood, since the
Speaker 5: area has always been predominantly black.
Speaker 12: Anything he had her say, you have to put under
Speaker 12: a microscope and go Is he trying to throw the
Speaker 12: trail off?
Speaker 2: In this case?
Speaker 12: I definitely think he was in terms of Virginia. I
Speaker 12: don't know for sure on his race, though, very creepy
Speaker 12: and if he was, imagine her knowing that she's lying
Speaker 12: to her family about this. That had to ratchet up
Speaker 12: her terror level.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 12: It's one thing. If somebody's holding you and they said
Speaker 12: you could tell him we're in Virginia and you're in Virginia,
Speaker 12: you tell him I'm white because I'm white. But if
Speaker 12: they're telling you things that you know aren't true, you
Speaker 12: got to be more scared. That just ugh scares me
Speaker 12: to think about that.
Speaker 5: Having Brenda call home was a new mo for the
Speaker 5: Freeway Phantom, and it showed that he was starting to escalate.
Speaker 5: In fact, it was only eight hours or so after
Speaker 5: that phone call that Brenda's body was discovered. In the
Speaker 5: early morning hours of July twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 5: Donald Ray Carter began to head home from work. He
Speaker 5: worked at the Safeway Bakery in Landover, Maryland, but lived
Speaker 5: in Alexandria, Virginia. While he was trying to hitch a ride,
Speaker 5: he spotted Brenda's body in Chevley, Maryland. Carter had the
Speaker 5: cab that had stopped for him take him to Joy
Speaker 5: Donut Shop to call law enforcement and let them know
Speaker 5: about the body. After law officials were on the scene,
Speaker 5: the medical examiner declared Brenda's time of death at six
Speaker 5: fifty five am. Brenda was killed and disposed of in
Speaker 5: less than eight hours.
Speaker 12: It was really sad when we saw the pictures of her.
Speaker 12: I was deeply moved because she's laid on her back
Speaker 12: and her eyes are open, looking up and it's on
Speaker 12: the curve of a cloverleaf exit.
Speaker 5: Blaine tells us he spoke with Carter, you know.
Speaker 12: He said it was the saddest thing because he said,
Speaker 12: she's just laying there, and he said, I just thought
Speaker 12: maybe she's asleep, maybe she's not feeling well, something along
Speaker 12: those lines, And it turns out that's not the case.
Speaker 12: What's interesting, too, is you see a trend with this.
Speaker 12: Her shoes are missing and the killer has taken shoes
Speaker 12: off several of the victims. That's usually a control mechanism.
Speaker 12: You know, if you take someone's shoes, it's harder for
Speaker 12: them to get away or flee or whatever, and he
Speaker 12: may be keeping those things as souvenirs. Also missing from
Speaker 12: her were some pink hair curlers that she had. We
Speaker 12: know it was a fairly narrow window of time, so
Speaker 12: narrow in fact, that it almost rules out when you
Speaker 12: know the geography of dc DC being kind of wedged
Speaker 12: between Virginia and Maryland, the time that her her body
Speaker 12: is found versus the phone calls, etc. And when she disappeared,
Speaker 12: it would have been very difficult for someone to go
Speaker 12: anywhere but other than right across the border into Virginia.
Speaker 12: If indeed the killer was there, the thinking that most
Speaker 12: law enforcement have had is that he had fed her
Speaker 12: that information to deliberately mislead the authorities. We just don't
Speaker 12: know for sure, but you know, the concept of a
Speaker 12: killer taking his victim back and then letting her call
Speaker 12: home twice is very disturbing. It's just incredibly creepy.
Speaker 5: The killer placed Brenda's body along the Prince George's County,
Speaker 5: Maryland line. Here's how the police report describes the scene.
Speaker 11: The body was viewed by this detective and it was
Speaker 11: observed that she was clad in a blue and white halter,
Speaker 11: matching shorts, white cotton underpats, and around her neck was
Speaker 11: an orchid colored silk scarf knotted and a greenish colored
Speaker 11: quarter inch cord attached to which was a silver house key.
Speaker 11: The body was rigor and no visible trauma was present.
Speaker 11: The deceased was laying approximately five feet six inches from
Speaker 11: the curb side, flat on her back with her arms outstretched.
Speaker 11: After the body was removed, it was noted that the
Speaker 11: ground was extremely dry under the deceased, however, around the
Speaker 11: body was wet.
Speaker 5: The orchid scarf was new, Brenda hadn't been wearing it
Speaker 5: when she left for Safeway, and this further added to
Speaker 5: the theory that the Freeway phantom was redressing the girls.
Speaker 5: Brenda's body was taken to the Morgue at Prince George's
Speaker 5: County Hospital. This is her autopsy report.
Speaker 13: Cause of death was ruled to be ligature and manual strangulation.
Speaker 13: She had been vaginally raped and there were ring like
Speaker 13: contusions around her nipples, suggesting they had been bitten. There
Speaker 13: was a small contusion in the left temple region of
Speaker 13: her scalp she was fully clothed, with the exception of
Speaker 13: her shoes. It was noted no soil on her feet.
Speaker 13: On her head were pink plastic hair curlers, several of
Speaker 13: which were missing. A few small hairs of negroid origin
Speaker 13: were found on the palm of her right hand, but
Speaker 13: were too small for any sort of comparison. Synthetic black
Speaker 13: textile fibers were recovered from her scarf. Green synthetic fibers
Speaker 13: were also recovered from her blouse, shorts, and panties. Blood
Speaker 13: mixed with semen was found in the crotch of her panties,
Speaker 13: but could not be conclusively grouped.
Speaker 5: Brenda's case is different from Carol and Darlinia's in two
Speaker 5: major ways. One is the time period between capture and killing.
Speaker 5: Carol was kept alive and even fed for about a week.
Speaker 5: Authorities weren't able to determine an exact time of Darlinia's
Speaker 5: death due to the decomposition of her body when she
Speaker 5: was found. However, they did confirm that it was a
Speaker 5: shorter interval than the previous murder. The second difference, as
Speaker 5: we mentioned, are the phone calls, but outside of that,
Speaker 5: the similarities remain. How the girls were killed, the killer's
Speaker 5: dump sight and the washed feet. Although Brenda had been barefoot,
Speaker 5: her feet had still been washed. But there's another detail
Speaker 5: in Brenda Crockett's case that wasn't initially noticed. This is
Speaker 5: Romaine Jenkins, the retired Metropolitan Police Department sergeant who investigated
Speaker 5: the freeway phantom cases. We visited her at her home.
Speaker 6: What do you think of her hair?
Speaker 4: Her hair's been washed, thank you very much.
Speaker 6: See, men didn't notice that. I noticed that and me
Speaker 6: all said, oh, the hay has been washed in water
Speaker 6: some way, So how tied up it is? And her
Speaker 6: sister said their hair had just been done. They had
Speaker 6: just been pressed and curled and put on rollers and
Speaker 6: look at it. Now, she's been in water. Yeah, but
Speaker 6: the guys didn't notice that. They did not. I knew
Speaker 6: that when I saw that picture.
Speaker 5: Here's what Bertha Crockett has to say about her sister's
Speaker 5: hair being wet.
Speaker 4: When they found her. I think her hair was wet
Speaker 4: with the rollers in it. If that's the case, I
Speaker 4: think he would have tried to remove evidence. If you're
Speaker 4: gonna wash your victims, you're removed trying to remove evidence.
Speaker 4: And you know, as black women, we don't do wet hair.
Speaker 4: I can't even remember my hair back then, but I
Speaker 4: have one picture of her at Easter and her hair
Speaker 4: was cute, So I guess we would have had to
Speaker 4: been pressing, pressing curl back then. In the seventies, it
Speaker 4: met shampoo, blow dry, iron, curl on the stove and
Speaker 4: press and roll up with rollers. None of this.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 4: I don't remember curling eyes. I don't remember h flat eyes.
Speaker 4: I don't remember any of that. It's just you press
Speaker 4: it with the straightening comb on the stove and you
Speaker 4: rolled it up with some greeds.
Speaker 5: Reports also showed the negroid headhairs in Brenda's right palm
Speaker 5: were not hers, and for the third time now green
Speaker 5: rayon fibers were found on the body. Here's Blaine Pardo again, So.
Speaker 12: We now know for sure she's linked to Carol Spakes.
Speaker 12: So at that point law enforceman knows they've got somebody
Speaker 12: who's doing this. And more importantly, those fibers are showing
Speaker 12: up under their clothing. If you think about it from
Speaker 12: a perspective of what's happening, if you get your victim
Speaker 12: to disrobe because you're going to sexually assault them, or
Speaker 12: you disrobe them if you're putting their clothes on the
Speaker 12: source of those fibers, You're still kind of laying clothes on.
Speaker 12: Let's say it was a reading blanket out of bed.
Speaker 12: When you're throwing the clothes on there, the fibers are
Speaker 12: still going to be on the outside of the clothing.
Speaker 12: These things are showing up inside. And you know, it's
Speaker 12: a real scary concept of what's happening here as to
Speaker 12: how they're picking these fibers up and from.
Speaker 5: What The Maryland Police Department issued an award for any
Speaker 5: information on the case. And while the police were searching
Speaker 5: for the killer, birth as send. The community changed.
Speaker 4: After that. The community became really strict. Like I was
Speaker 4: in a short block. I mean I'm talking like maybe
Speaker 4: a quarter mile, not even that. When the lights came on,
Speaker 4: you better be in front of your home to go
Speaker 4: in the house. In our neighborhood, the community raised us.
Speaker 4: So if you did anything wrong, the neighbors told your
Speaker 4: parents be for they even got home. So everything. Everybody
Speaker 4: was watching out for everybody. It was so strict, and
Speaker 4: it was just what it was after that, And I
Speaker 4: think I think my sister's death is what sparked such
Speaker 4: a tight knit a lookout for everybody on that block
Speaker 4: and on the next blocks. I I was on twelfth Place,
Speaker 4: so we had Twelfth Street. On the next block we
Speaker 4: had thirteenth Street. So we just kept a tight knit
Speaker 4: community after that. It was so sad, though, because I
Speaker 4: didn't understand the restrictions that I had on me as
Speaker 4: a little child. But my mother didn't want anything to
Speaker 4: happen to me either.
Speaker 5: Here's an excerpt from the book The Mystery of the
Speaker 5: Freeway Phantom by Wilma Harper.
Speaker 9: The death of Brenda had a traumatic effect on the
Speaker 9: neighborhood where she lived. The residents said the area would
Speaker 9: never be the same. In contrast to the usual crowd
Speaker 9: to frolicking youngsters, only a few children were playing ball
Speaker 9: on the block. After Brenda's body was found. An eight
Speaker 9: year old boy refused to go to the store for
Speaker 9: his mother because he was afraid he would be kidnapped.
Speaker 9: Neighbors and friends along twelfth Place, which is just behind
Speaker 9: Cardoza High School, described Brenda as a bright fifth grade
Speaker 9: student at nearby Harrison Elementary School. Missus Eva Artist, a
Speaker 9: neighbor who cared for the children when their mother was
Speaker 9: at work, said we usually have lots of games going
Speaker 9: on the street, but nobody's been acting right today. I
Speaker 9: think everyone is disturbed.
Speaker 5: But Bertha Crockett says the death of her sister had
Speaker 5: an even bigger impact on her immediate family.
Speaker 4: I know it took a lot on my mom, though
Speaker 4: I saw my mom just appreciate from that. But she
Speaker 4: just wasn't her stuff anymore. It's like life went out her.
Speaker 4: And so then that's when you that's when you you say, well,
Speaker 4: why wasn't it me? Why would God take that Anchel?
Speaker 4: Because she had going no way better than me, even
Speaker 4: at seven years old. You want to think that, like
Speaker 4: I know her, I knew her. I didn't, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. I didn't. I wasn't on her level
Speaker 4: because she had her own girlfriendstead of friends at ten
Speaker 4: years old, she had a whole school of girlfriend that
Speaker 4: loved her. I went to the cemetery about a month ago,
Speaker 4: but I could not find her, and I couldn't. My
Speaker 4: mama is in the same place, the same cemetery, but
Speaker 4: I couldn't. So I will have to literally go back
Speaker 4: and ask them to show me the plot, because it's
Speaker 4: been fifty years to show me where my sister I
Speaker 4: know she's located in Hilltop Garden of Roses. That the
Speaker 4: name of the place where they, you know, have her
Speaker 4: laid to rest. But my mom is in the same place.
Speaker 4: My mom is on that big tree. But yeah, it's
Speaker 4: said that, you know, having a sister that I really
Speaker 4: didn't get to know because she got taken away at
Speaker 4: such a young age, growing up without a sister, and
Speaker 4: then like in my early twenties, I lost my mom,
Speaker 4: so I mean out here forever, and so some things
Speaker 4: just bring emotion back.
Speaker 5: Well. Bertha and her family were grieving Brenda's death. The
Speaker 5: police had begun to suspect that her murder might be
Speaker 5: connected to Carol and Derlinia, and months later those suspicions
Speaker 5: were finally confirmed when another girl was found dead. Sixteen
Speaker 5: year old Stephen James Potopio was watching TV when he
Speaker 5: decided to go visit his friend Chuck. On his way
Speaker 5: to Chuck's house, he passed by a broken down pontiac
Speaker 5: on the shoulder of Pennsylvania Avenue near a sign that
Speaker 5: said Upper Harborough twelve. Stephen said he heard a man
Speaker 5: holler a girl's name and told her to cut the
Speaker 5: lights on. He described the woman as young and white,
Speaker 5: no older than nineteen or twenty. The man was also
Speaker 5: white and well dressed, with brownish blonde hair, glasses, and
Speaker 5: about five foot ten inches. Stephen said he noticed the
Speaker 5: guy was staring at him, so when Stephen was about
Speaker 5: twenty feet from the car, he jumped the bank to
Speaker 5: cut across the cemetery to Chuck's house. When he got there,
Speaker 5: nobody was home, so Stephen decided to head back to
Speaker 5: his house. This next part is an excerpt from Stephen's
Speaker 5: statement to the police.
Speaker 8: I then left and headed home the identical where I came.
Speaker 8: As I was walking up Pennsylvania Avenue toward Maryland, I
Speaker 8: started walking backwards, shying the thumb hitchhike. I noticed a
Speaker 8: box sitting off the shoulder on the grass. I walked
Speaker 8: over to the box and saw glass in it. I
Speaker 8: turned and saw something in the grass, but right then
Speaker 8: I didn't know what it was. I walked up to it,
Speaker 8: but I didn't know if it was a man or
Speaker 8: a girl. I stood there a couple seconds to see
Speaker 8: if you wuld move. I took my right foot and
Speaker 8: kicked it two or three times, and the body seemed
Speaker 8: to wiggle. I stood there a couple seconds, and it
Speaker 8: felt the body under the ribs to see if the
Speaker 8: heart was beating. The body felt cold, and then something
Speaker 8: hit me, maybe it was dead.
Speaker 5: Stephen had found the body of twelve year old Ninamosha Yates,
Speaker 5: a sixth grader at Kelly Miller Junior High She was
Speaker 5: a well behaved, quiet child, and now she was the
Speaker 5: fourth victim of the Freeway phantom. Ninamosha lived with her
Speaker 5: father and stepmother in the Benning Heights neighborhood in southeast Washington,
Speaker 5: d C. Benning Heights is about six miles from Congress Heights,
Speaker 5: a completely different area on the other side of d
Speaker 5: C from the first three murders. It was Friday, October first,
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy one. Ninomosha's stepmother had just given birth and
Speaker 5: was at the hospital with Nina's dad. About seven p m.
Speaker 5: Ninomosha was given five dollars and sent to Safeway to
Speaker 5: buy sugar, flour, and paper plates. The grocery store was
Speaker 5: located at forty eight oh one Benning Road Southeast. That's
Speaker 5: the same road Ninomosha lived on. Although the store was
Speaker 5: only about a block away, her father had instructed her
Speaker 5: not to talk to strangers. According to witnesses, Ninamosha made
Speaker 5: it to the grocery store, but she never made it back.
Speaker 5: Here's Victoria Hester, who co wrote a book about the
Speaker 5: Freeway Phantom with her father, Blaine Pardo.
Speaker 14: We know that for sure she was at the Safeway.
Speaker 14: The store manager confirmed on October first. It would have
Speaker 14: been pretty dark at that time. It was normal to
Speaker 14: go down the street to a Safeway at nine o'clock
Speaker 14: at night in DC at that time.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until the next day, October second, that a
Speaker 5: Safeway employee found the items nan Emosha had purchased.
Speaker 14: We know wherever she went she was either forcibly taken
Speaker 14: only because the bag of sugar that she had bought
Speaker 14: from Safeway was found in the parking lot of Safeway,
Speaker 14: so she didn't get very far. She wouldn't have left
Speaker 14: that bag of sugar. If she was getting a ride
Speaker 14: home or getting a ride to somewhere else by someone
Speaker 14: driving by, she would have taken that with her, which
Speaker 14: kind of leads us to believe it was forcibly. But
Speaker 14: at the same time, with it being a well lit
Speaker 14: parking lot, she would have screamed. She would have made
Speaker 14: some sort of noise and a area I she was
Speaker 14: being forcibly taken, so it gets kind of tricky and
Speaker 14: that sense because of her age too, she was twelve.
Speaker 14: Was she easy to convince to get in a vehicle?
Speaker 4: Just to me?
Speaker 14: It makes it look forcible since her bag of groceries
Speaker 14: that she went out to get was left behind. Another
Speaker 14: important thing about it was her body was found dry
Speaker 14: on wet grass, so we know she wasn't killed where
Speaker 14: she was dumped, and she wasn't killed outside or she
Speaker 14: would have been wet. She was wearing her clothes that
Speaker 14: she was wearing when she disappeared. The cause of death
Speaker 14: was known to be strangulation and she was sexually assaulted.
Speaker 14: She also had fingernail marks on her neck, so either
Speaker 14: from being strangled or trying to fight back and getting
Speaker 14: marks on her neck.
Speaker 5: Ninemosha was found in cut off brown shorts, a white
Speaker 5: sweatshirt with green lettering that spelled Randall, Highland hornets, and
Speaker 5: white zips tennis shoes. Autopsy reports indicated her a soft
Speaker 5: was crushed. Not only did Ninomosha have more wounds than
Speaker 5: previous victims, but the killer had accelerated his timeline. She'd
Speaker 5: left home around seven pm and her body was found
Speaker 5: around nine fifteen pm. This means she was taken, murdered,
Speaker 5: and disposed of in roughly two hours. Like the others,
Speaker 5: green fibers were found on the body, Negroid hairs from
Speaker 5: a person's head were on her panties, brazier, sweatshirt, cut
Speaker 5: off jean shorts, and shoes. At the time of her disappearance,
Speaker 5: Ninomosha was wearing a sanitary napkin. Semen was found in
Speaker 5: that napkin. Additionally, two dollars ninety one cents and a
Speaker 5: grocery list were found in her pocket, along with two
Speaker 5: house keys. Attached to a string. Near her body were
Speaker 5: several items, including a single woman's loafer. Police considered the
Speaker 5: loafer was dragged out of the vehicle with Ninomosha's body
Speaker 5: because it was also dry. Remember Darlinia Johnson was missing
Speaker 5: loafers when she was found. There were also drag marks
Speaker 5: from Ninamosha's heels in the wet dirt. The police report
Speaker 5: noted that tire tracks created by a small vehicle were
Speaker 5: found near the body and had been photographed. Later. Another
Speaker 5: witness told police they'd seen Ninamosha get into a blue
Speaker 5: Volkswagen with a yellow stripe down the side headed in
Speaker 5: the direction of the safeway. The witness assumed it was
Speaker 5: her mom, since she drove a similar car.
Speaker 14: Kind of sent a wild goose chase on the Volkswagen
Speaker 14: issue with a witness thinking that they saw her get
Speaker 14: into a Volkswagen. It kind of created this, well, now
Speaker 14: we've got to find this car that happens to be
Speaker 14: one of the most popular cars right now, and it
Speaker 14: really went nowhere. It's kind of unfortunate. It's nice that
Speaker 14: the witness thought they saw something, but at the same time,
Speaker 14: it created a lot of misleading information about who they
Speaker 14: were looking for, and it wasted a lot of police
Speaker 14: time running all these plates and trying to identify all
Speaker 14: these cars.
Speaker 5: Later, investigators interviewed Stephen again. This time he added to
Speaker 5: a statement The following is from that report.
Speaker 11: He advised he furnished what he thought was the full
Speaker 11: facts of what he had seen that evening, but he
Speaker 11: has since recalled he had seen another car in the
Speaker 11: vicinity of where he discovered the body Potopia related after
Speaker 11: he left his residence and turned east toward Washington d C.
Speaker 11: On Pennsylvania Avenue in the right hand lane, he observed
Speaker 11: a Volkswagen in the westbound lane. This Volkswagen pulled off
Speaker 11: onto the side of the road and parked about twenty
Speaker 11: five feet west of where Potopia discovered the body. Potopia
Speaker 11: looked back after he had seen the car park and
Speaker 11: observed two men get out of the Volkswagen, a white
Speaker 11: from the driver's side and a Negro man from the
Speaker 11: passenger side. The two men walked along the side of
Speaker 11: the road distance and then went down the embankment, and
Speaker 11: she no longer thought anything about it. Potopia then crossed
Speaker 11: the westerly lane the median and then in the westerly
Speaker 11: lane observed the other car with the hood up, which
Speaker 11: he had put into the signed statements.
Speaker 5: The car with the hood up belonged to the young
Speaker 5: couple we heard earlier. Police were now investigating two sets
Speaker 5: of individuals, one a young Caucasian couple, the other a
Speaker 5: black man and Caucasian man, but this didn't last long.
Speaker 5: Shortly after the news broke about Nina Moosha Yates, a
Speaker 5: witness came forward. Here's what James Richard Lloyd told police,
Speaker 5: as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 15: I was with Jay Robinson in his nineteen seventy one
Speaker 15: Pontiac Laman, which is brown in color, and we were
Speaker 15: coming from the Fairfax Village in Washington, d C. Jay
Speaker 15: heard a noise coming from the engine, so we stopped
Speaker 15: along Pennsylvania Avenue, just passed the gates to the cemetery.
Speaker 15: We got out and opened the hood. Jay was trying
Speaker 15: to find where the noise was coming from. About that time,
Speaker 15: someone walked past us. I first saw him walking up
Speaker 15: the road as we pulled off. He was walking toward DC.
Speaker 15: While we stopped, I saw two cars stopped along the
Speaker 15: road in front of us, about one hundred yards up
Speaker 15: the road from us. They were close together, but I
Speaker 15: don't know what type of cars they were. We got
Speaker 15: back in our car and drove off.
Speaker 5: James told police he came to speak with them after
Speaker 5: Jerry's mother had read about the news. It had been
Speaker 5: only him and Jerry in the car when they stopped
Speaker 5: just pass the entrance to the cemetery along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Speaker 5: He said he saw both cars the entire time he
Speaker 5: and Jerry were pulled over. This was about three to
Speaker 5: four minutes. James also told police the cars were there
Speaker 5: when he and Jerry left, and he didn't see anyone
Speaker 5: or anything else as they drove off. With James's statement,
Speaker 5: both sets of suspects were ruled out. Authorities were back
Speaker 5: to square one. There were now four young dead black girls,
Speaker 5: girls that were from tight knit neighborhoods, places where the
Speaker 5: community kept an eye on children, places that were meant
Speaker 5: to be safe, Yet the police had no leans. Here's
Speaker 5: Romain again.
Speaker 3: Whoever grabbed these young ladies grabbed them right in their
Speaker 3: own neighborhood. Nina Mostates went to the grocery store in
Speaker 3: the forty eight hundred block of Benning Road. She's picked
Speaker 3: up that she she's grabbed in the forty nine hundred block,
Speaker 3: and nobody sees anything. All the people out there, I
Speaker 3: don't care. When you go out there. You have East
Speaker 3: Capitol Street there, it's always people because you're close to
Speaker 3: the district line. People are doing shopping. She's grabbed at
Speaker 3: a time when there are lots of people out, kids
Speaker 3: are out, and nobody.
Speaker 6: Sees the thing. Because he fit in with the community,
Speaker 6: nobody was suspicion.
Speaker 5: What happened to Ninemosha was also true in the case
Speaker 5: of Brenda Crockett. Both girls had been snatched in broad Daylight.
Speaker 5: As Romaine has said, it's very likely the killer was
Speaker 5: somebody from the neighborhood. I asked Bertha Crockett if she
Speaker 5: had any suspicions about who the killer could be.
Speaker 4: Back then, we used to have officer friendlies that came
Speaker 4: to our school and they got to know the kids.
Speaker 4: That means officers that used to come to your school
Speaker 4: and make sure that the kids feel safe. Like right
Speaker 4: now they have patrol officers or officers in the school
Speaker 4: and make sure kids are not doing the violence stuff
Speaker 4: that they've been doing lately. But back then they were
Speaker 4: called officer friendlies and they would come to your school
Speaker 4: and have like little conversations with you and and it
Speaker 4: always made me feel like an officer friendly was somebody
Speaker 4: that saw different girls and he selected them.
Speaker 5: Next time on Freeway Phantom.
Speaker 3: DC had never had a serial killing before, and so
Speaker 3: it wasn't something not that you ever get used to it,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't something they were familiar with. The fourth
Speaker 3: body that brought more people in because where's the body found.
Speaker 3: You're talking about PG County, right, You're talking about crossing
Speaker 3: jurisdictional lines, So then he is PG County coming into play?
Speaker 13: All of these girls were not from runaway families.
Speaker 5: These girls, they were good families.
Speaker 10: And if they do investigate, they don't investigate when it
Speaker 10: comes to black people, you know, unless it's something that's juicy.
Speaker 7: And all of a sudden, the guy, he comes out
Speaker 7: of the driverside and he comes around the front of
Speaker 7: the car.
Speaker 3: And snatches me.
Speaker 4: There's no emotion on his face. None.
Speaker 1: Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeartRadio, Tenderfoot TV and
Speaker 1: Black Bar Mitslaw. Our host is Teless Hilly. The show
Speaker 1: is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright, and CELESE.
Speaker 2: Hidley.
Speaker 1: Executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio include Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers on
Speaker 1: 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: Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia, as well as Black Bar Mitzvah, have increased
Speaker 1: the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction
Speaker 1: of the person or persons responsible for their Freeway Fan
Speaker 1: of murders. The previous reward of up to one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars offered by the Metropolitan Police Department
Speaker 1: has been matched a new toe A reward of up
Speaker 1: to three hundred thousand dollars is now being offered. If
Speaker 1: you have any information relating to these unsolved crimes, contact
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Police Department at area code two zero two
Speaker 1: seven two seven nine zero ninety nine. For more information,
Speaker 1: please visit Freeway dashfanom dot com. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.