WEBVTT - Green Vega [7] 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.600 You're listen to the Freeway Phanom, a production of iHeartRadio, 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:07.960 Tenderfoot TV, and Black Bar METSVAH. The views and opinions 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.520 expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.040 author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.800 represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, Black Bar, MITZVAH, or 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.040 their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter that may 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.600 not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.400 There was a series of rapes of adult women, of 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.599 kidnappings and rapes of adult women that were done by 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.280 this group of men called the Green Vega Rapist and 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.920 they were basically, I guess the best way to describe 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:46.720 them is like a rape club. I mean, some of 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.599 them would go out some nights, others would go out 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.400 other knights, and they would drive a green Vega around 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.840 and they would kidnap women off the street, look at 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.040 bus stops and things like that, take them to someplace, 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.120 rape them, sodomize them, and then let them go. Well, 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.120 some of the rapes were pretty brutal, and when they 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.559 finally got captured, one of them started making noise and saying, well, 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.160 I know who the Freeway Phantom is and he starts 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.960 naming people within the group and starts talking about how 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.840 he knew about the different murders and stuff like that. 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.920 We call him Joel House snitches or informists. He's desperate 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.840 because if he can give up information that that increases 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.759 this chance of getting a deal and getting out from 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.360 under this. We're desperate because you know, of course we 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.319 want to solve this case. Joe House's informants are really 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.480 good as suckering us as detectives because we want to 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.800 believe and that's exactly what happened. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.800 The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl case. 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.840 This child was laying on the side of the road. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.560 I wouldn't go no way. I would call out my house. 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.560 Those first five murders should have been a huge warning 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:03.520 bell for the police. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.640 We just want to know what happened. 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:07.560 This person must have saw that. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.840 They were thinking that maybe it's just one person, and 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.640 he says, oh, they need to know this is me. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:15.480 I thought that they would catch him. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:16.840 I thought it was just. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:17.680 A matter of time. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:28.200 I'm Celeste Hedley and this is Freeway Phantom. In nineteen 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.160 seventy four, two years after the last confirmed Freeway Phantom murder, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.400 investigators turned their attention to the Green Vega Gang, also 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.639 known as the Green Vega Rapists. This group of five 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.040 or six men were known to drive a green Chevy 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.559 Vega around the DC Maryland area. They were collectively responsible 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.680 for numerous rapes and abductions that occurred near the Washington Beltway, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.360 but through somewhat strange circumstances, they became prime suspects in 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.200 the Freeway Phantom case. It started when a few of 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.720 the Green Vega members had been arrested and put on 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.760 trial for a case involving two gang rapes. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.960 And when they were brought into court, the lawyer made 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.040 the comment of well, they weren't even looking for the 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.280 Green Bega guys, they were looking for the freeway fanom Well, 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.519 the investigators for a freeway fan said, well, maybe these 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:18.840 guys are the same guys. 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.040 This is writer Blaine Pardo, As he says, an offhanded 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.520 mention of the Freeway Phantom case during this trial sparked 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.600 the idea that the two cases were connected. 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.120 And they opened a multi jurisdictional task force that involved 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:41.680 the FBI, the Park Police, Washington DC Metropolitan Police, Maryland 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.080 State Police, the Prince George's County Police, etc. They all 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.160 began to crawl into this, and unfortunately, these Green Vega 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.080 guys saw this as a bargaining chip. In other words, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.160 if we flip on our fellows and say they did 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.480 the Freeway phantom murders, maybe I'll get a lighter sentence 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.600 or get some benefits on the side of doing this. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.280 So several of the members flipped. 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.960 The Green Vega Gang members were individually interviewed by the 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:15.080 Metropolitan Police Department at Lorton Prison between nineteen seventy four 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.320 and nineteen seventy five. One of the members provided a 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:23.800 statement implicating another member. His testimony substantiated the investigator's belief 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.920 that the Green Vega Gang was responsible for the Freeway 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:31.080 phantom murders, and that's because the informant provided signature details 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.599 of the crimes that were not released to the public. 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.640 Police took the informant to sites where he said the 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.599 victims were abducted, assaulted, murdered and disposed of, and he 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:45.000 provided a concrete alibi ruling himself out as a suspect. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:49.960 This informant asked to remain anonymous. Then information that a 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.679 Green Vega member at Lorton Prison had provided a break 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.800 in the case was leaked to the media by a 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:56.480 political candidate in Maryland. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.480 It literally consumed the case for months. 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.440 One of the investigators looking into the Green Vega Gang 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.679 was former FBI Special Agent Barry Culvert. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.880 The thing that came to our attention with the Green 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.800 Vega cases, it was a gang that were going around 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.240 abducting young women and raping them. That might be the 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.159 way to solve it. That there was something in common 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.799 with our Freeway Phantom cases in these Vega rape cases. 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.160 I think Lou Richardson, he was one that continued from 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.160 the Freeway Phantom cases to that case. He thought that 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.279 might be the same people that our girls were killed 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:37.640 by the Vega rape people. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.799 Lou Richardson was one of Colvert's partners on the Freeway 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.360 Phantom case, but Colvert says he had his doubts during 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.479 the investigation. He says most of the eyewitness accounts placing 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.840 the Green Vega Gang near the murder sites were unreliable. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:58.240 People described cars in the damnedest ways, and what they 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.320 think was the Green Vega may have been a Chevy 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.560 Chevelle or something. They just don't always get it. Right, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.800 unless you get a guy or a woman. We've had 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.800 a couple of women. Man, they knew their cars. If 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.920 they said it with a Green Vega, probably sixty nine 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:15.960 because they had a spoiler up here and this kind 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.120 of hoodcap. Don't count on that me in your car. 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.200 If it was green and small and tudor go with that, 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:24.440 that's what you probably had. 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.480 As investigators looked deeper into the Green Vega gang, things 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.240 only got weirder. Here's blein Pardo again. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.560 Remarkably what stug me was as they were going through 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.760 these cases, they started realizing the confessions didn't match the 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.840 physical evidence. No way could they they describe and they 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.279 didn't know about the green rayon fibers, but none of 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.880 them could describe that. We took the victims to the 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.799 same place each time. They always sat in the same 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.960 vehicle in the same place. There's no consistency with this end. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.080 They described the deaths of these girls very differently. It 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.960 doesn't match physical evidence to the point where they described 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.840 one of the ten year old victim as being dressed provocatively, 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.880 you know, and sexy, and no, she was dressed like 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.000 a ten year old girl, you know, and just the 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.720 stuff just didn't match up. But unfortunately the police were 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.680 under such pressure to close these cases. When we talked 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.880 with Jim Trenum, he brought that up. 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.320 Detective Jim Trainum, who you heard at the very top 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.040 of the episode, never believed the Green Vegas could be responsible. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.440 He says, the informant was a complete fraud. 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.080 So what happened was they took him to some of 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.400 the crime scenes and things like that, and he was 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.080 pointing out stuff and all. And later as all of 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.400 this unfolded, it turns out and he admitted, and other 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.400 people admitted that he was just playing these these detectives. 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.280 He would kind of gather bits and pieces of information 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.360 from them. If they took them to a crime he 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.800 would kind of like watch them and see what they 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.400 would want him to maybe point to. He would get 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.640 clues from them. It's kind of like a false confession 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.640 in that, Okay, I want to confess to a crime 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.000 that I didn't commit, how do I get the information 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.480 about it? And so, you know, those guys, they really 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.200 didn't fit. They're victims were all adult women. These were 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.880 not adult women, I mean totally different. And also the 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.080 fact that this guy really didn't have any information, and in. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.320 Fact, there were no charges brought against any members of 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.800 the Green Vega Gang for the Freeway phantom murders. There 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.120 was reportedly a grand jury hearing, but the evidence was 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:43.160 insufficient to reach a conviction. Willma Harper wrote about this 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.160 in her book The Mystery of the Freeway Fandom. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.760 Sources close to the investigation who asked for anonymity independently 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.280 told The Star that the probe was closed after a 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.679 disagreement in the US Attorney Earl Silbert's office about how 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:03.720 to proceed. One source said the dispute involved two opposing groups, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.160 one wanted to submit free a phantom evidence to the 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.480 grand jury and the other that argued that the evidence 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.880 was insufficient to go before. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:13.280 The grand jury. 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.600 On August third, nineteen eighty, the Washington Posts published an 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.000 article that summarized what occurred after the grand jury made 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.400 a decision on the Green Vega rape suspects, saying, quote, 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.480 law enforcement officials involved with the cases believed that four 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.840 men involved in hundreds of brutal rapes in the city 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.520 from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy three were implicated 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.920 in the child murders, but the men were not convicted. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.960 It is difficult for the families to come to grips 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.040 with the fact that eight or nine years later the 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.040 deaths have not been solved. 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.480 As this article mentions, many investigators still believed the Green 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.920 Vegas were responsible for the Freeway phantom murders. Here's Blaine Pardowick. 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.600 Despite the fact that they never filed charges against the 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.280 Green Vega guys, there's this prevailing attitude that even exists 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.360 today in Washington, DC that well, we know who did it. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:15.880 It was the Green Vega guys, we just couldn't prove it. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.760 Blaine recalls that Jim Trenam even struggled with this decades 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.160 later when he tried. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.880 To reopen the case in two thousand and six. There 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:26.959 was a lot of pressure of why are you doing this. 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.240 We already know who did it. It was the Green Vega guys, 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.840 and he was like, no, Green Mega guys. They recanted, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:37.080 all of them recanted their confessions, and the confessions never 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:41.439 held water. They just didn't hold against the physical evidence, 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.280 and that was a huge distraction. 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.400 Retired MPD homicide detective Romaine Jenkins agrees. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.839 A lot of time was wasted, especially when they got 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.120 to the Green Vega guys. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:55.880 That really was a waste of time. 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.839 Romayne says, even before she was assigned to the case, 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.439 she was paying attention to the suspects, and she found 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.000 it strange that the investigators at the time were so convinced. 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.360 What piqued my curiosity because I knew many of the investigators, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.959 and especially the lead investigators on the cases, and I 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.920 asked them, well, how you make it out with the case? 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:19.800 What is going on? 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:20.400 You know that? 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.360 And that's when they started talking about the Green Vega guys. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.240 And one day I was sitting in sex squad. Like 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.520 I said, I like to read everything, and I came 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.640 across this this document which was about almost the size 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.480 of a telephone book, and it was on the investigation 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.800 of the freeway phantom cases. And I started reading it, 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.800 and the more I read, the angrier I got, because 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.200 it showed that the Green Vega cases were a hoax. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.600 When it came to the freeway cases, they had nothing 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:51.560 to do with each other. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.000 And I mean, now, why do you say that? 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:59.400 Because the police, multiple times officials said that the reason 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.959 they thought this could be realists because one of them 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.640 had information that no one else had. So what you're 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.840 laughing already. Why did you think this is a red herring? 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.000 Because they you know what, the FBI went back and 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.520 they reinterviewed a lot of these suspects, the people involved, 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.280 and they admitted that it was a hoax. The witnesses 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.200 said that, hey, they planned this thing because some of 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.679 the guys. One of the guys wanted immunity from prosecution. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.640 Now I'm not saying they're not rapists, because they should 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.800 have been in jail, under the jail probably, but they 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.400 didn't do these cases. Okay, they did not do these cases. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.960 And this is in plain black and white. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.920 While writer Blaine Pardo agreed with Romayne, he was still 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.920 curious about the Green Vegas suspects, particularly the informant, who 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.560 we now know was named Morris J. Warren. Blaine tells 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.400 us he communicated with Warren via letters from prison. 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.720 His curse finance was kind of rambling. I took the 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.520 approach when I wrote him of I know what your 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.520 involvement in these cases are. I just need to hear 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.800 it from you. And he thought I was implying he 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.400 was involved in the cases, so he vehemently denied it. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.920 A lot of religious texts woven into it, which I 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.120 always find interesting how convicts find Jesus and God when 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.880 they get to prison, and you know, he was like, no, no, no, 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.280 you're on the wrong track. Didn't have anything to do 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.880 with me, wasn't me, didn't do it, and he really 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.319 wanted us to come visit him, which we were unable 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.120 to do. The authorities wouldn't put us on the list 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.480 for him. And he admits, I never had anything to 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.320 do with this. You know, I did it on a 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.360 spite and revenge. He came right out and said it, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.240 and yeah, I believe it. They were trying to cut 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.880 deals for themselves and once they realized, oh my god, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.600 we're going to be brought up on murder charges, multiple 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.640 murder charges, I think at that point they said forget it. 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.320 Were not were not the guys that did best, and 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:02.920 they knew it. 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.840 The reality is the Green Vega Gang was a major distraction, 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:13.079 one that potentially had significant repercussions on the freeway phantom investigation. 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.680 Unfortunately, when you get a huge task force put together 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.960 of all these officers and investigators and they're focused on this, 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:29.560 that's time that the real killer wasn't being investigated. And unfortunately, 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.560 there were very few people that bucked the system at 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.680 the time, So there's this weird twisted thought of we already. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:39.440 Know who did it to most of the people we 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.720 talked to. That tunnel vision is just one more reason 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.520 why this case was never solved. However, the same year 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:51.040 the Green Vegas were investigated, another suspect cropped up, actually 0:14:51.360 --> 0:15:18.200 a pair of suspects. To police officers, there were six 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:23.600 confirmed victims in the Freeway Phantom case, Carol Spinks, Darlinia Johnson, 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:29.560 Brenda Crockett, Nenemotia Yates, Brenda Woodard, and Diane Williams. However, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.920 early on in the case, there was another suspected victim, 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.600 and her name was Angela Barnes. On July twelfth, nineteen 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.280 seventy one, just a few days after Darlinia Johnson went missing, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.280 Angela Barnes also disappeared. She was walking home from a 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.080 friend's house when she was kidnapped. The next day, her 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.480 body was found in Waldorf, Maryland. Her cause of death 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.400 was a gunshot wound to her head, and her murder 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.920 was initially attributed to the Freeway Phantom. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.160 Young girl same profile is one of the victims. So 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.400 by the time you get to the second and third 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:10.320 Freeway Phantom victims, the real Freeway Fanom victims. Her name 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.320 gets thrown in with those victims. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:15.200 Here's writer Blaine Pardo. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.720 Again, it made no sense and it definitely muddied the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.840 investigation because, of course the other officers in the Metropolitan 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.280 Police didn't know that she wasn't connected, So they're wondering, 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.720 did the Freeway Fantom now have an mo where he 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:35.560 used a gun, ligature, strangulation, etc. To kill his victims. 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.880 The gun didn't make sense, you know, from an investigative perspective, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.120 it totally did, because a gun would be a great 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.360 way to force young victims into a car. You pull 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.560 up alongside them, window down, you aim the gun to 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.760 get in the car. It makes total sense from a 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.120 control perspective, and it could be that the Freeway Fantom 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.040 did use a gun to get his victims into the vehicle. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.320 It made very little sense though, when you look at 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.920 in the context of all the other victims, you only 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.840 have one that was stabbed. Clearly that was someone who 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.520 resisted him and was stabbed. The rest were all strangled, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.959 and while there were evidence of fighting or resisting, it 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.480 was all more manual than anything else. There wasn't the 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.439 use of a weapon like that. The only other weapon 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.040 that the Freeway Phantom used was a knife, and it 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:28.280 was only on one victim. 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.840 Willma Harper wrote about the curious case of Angela Barnes 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.200 in her book The Mystery of the Freeway Phantom. 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.800 One view was that Angela was not a Freeway Phantom victim. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.239 She was the only one of the girls that had 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.280 been shot. Based on the fact that the bullet that 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.200 killed Angela had ricocheted, it was the opinion of Detective 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.560 Simpson that Angela's death had been accidental. 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:00.640 Police would eventually determine that Angela wasn't connected. Sometime during 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.800 the Freeway Phantom investigation, her name was removed from the 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.320 victim list, But years later, in nineteen seventy four, someone 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.879 was arrested for the murder of Angela Barnes. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.719 It was actually they found out a police officer who 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:21.240 killed her, and it was a real creepy circumstance. He 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.040 and his partner abducted her, got her in the car, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.879 performed sexual acts with her, and inadvertently shot her in 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:34.960 the car. And the way they caught them was one 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.920 of the police officer's wife was involved with cleaning up 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.120 the car, and they had kind of played it off 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.320 that it had nothing to do with them killing anyone. 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.760 That was the blood from one of their suspects that 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:50.680 they brought in. But she was like, it's all over 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.080 the front seat, which didn't make sense. And after a 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.360 while she slowly pieced it together and actually reached out 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.080 to law enforcement and they got a full. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.320 The two police officers were named Edward Sullivan and Tommy Simmons. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.840 They were both convicted and sent to prison for barnes murder, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.239 but an investigators said they were not responsible for the 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.600 other six Freeway phantom murders. Still, the murder of Angela 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.720 Barnes brought up some troubling implications. Many families in the 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.080 area started to believe that a police officer could very 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.720 well have been responsible for the freeway phantom murders. You 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.960 may remember that when we talked with Evander Spinks, older 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.440 sister of Carol Spinks, she revealed her biggest. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:40.720 Suspect it probably was the police, was somebody at work 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.320 with the police. That's the only thing really made sense 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.560 to me. I think it got covered up. As an adult, 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.760 I see it differently than when I was a kid. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.560 Plus as a kid, I didn't know a lot of 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.320 stuff that had happened, how the police was handling things 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.600 because we weren't privy to that. 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.439 There was definitely a feeling and what it really contributed to, 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.760 I think was, and you read the interviews with the 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.800 families at the time, they really then begin to suspect 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.480 the police department or someone in the police department was involved, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.280 because the minute you get one young girl who's killed 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.560 by police, you start wondering, while are other cops out 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.800 there killing young girls? And is that what's really feeding this? 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:28.919 And it really added to what I would call the 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.160 extreme distrust the family started developing towards the police department. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.320 And it was, by the way, completely earned. You know, 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.200 when you've got something like that happening in a community 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.000 like that, you're not going to shake that. And there's 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.760 no amount of goodwill you can put out that's going 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:51.280 to change people's perceptions of that. And I don't blame 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.040 the families at all. I would still be kind of 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.119 wondering were the police involved. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.159 When I spoke with Carolyn Spinks, the twin sister of 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.719 Carol Spinks, she revealed some haunting thoughts about who she 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.239 believed killed her sister. Have you had thoughts about who 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:10.600 you think was responsible? 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.080 Yes, I mean who do you think might. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:14.480 Have done it? 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.960 I thought that it was a white man in a 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:24.320 police car. Why because this may sound crazy to you all, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:29.920 but because one day I was at the store where 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.760 my mom was, because my mother was the last person 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.560 to see her alive. And right there at the store 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.639 where my mom was, it used to be a phone 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.840 booth right there. So one day, this was years later, 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.000 I was at that phone booth and a vision came 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.439 over me. I don't know where it came from, but 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.520 it was a white police but he was in a 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:55.960 police car. But I don't know if he was a 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.560 police where he was just like one. And he was 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.320 in a police car, and he heard my mother tell 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.040 her that she was going to get her when she 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:07.000 get home, because he told her not to come out 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.080 of the house and she was walking home and he 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:15.680 followed her. This is in your vision, yes, And then 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.320 the day of my sister funeral, afterwards, we went to 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:24.320 my aunt house and we was outside and I looked 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.520 across the street and there was a police officer but 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:33.520 he had that helmet thing with a big glass black 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.600 thing across his face. And he was in that motorcycle 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.439 thing that looked like where one could ride aside it 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.120 that's made with the thing on the side. And he 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.399 was just staring at me. But he was across the 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.080 street way across from my aunt house. But I could 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.920 see him looking at me. And I got scanned and 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.159 ran in the house. And I tell my mother that 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:54.560 police keep looking at me. 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:57.159 What did she say when they came out? 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:59.800 He was gone, do you feel. 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.879 Like you trust police? 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:02.400 No? 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.120 I mean, have you ever or it's just since that 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:09.480 time when your sister was murdered? Was that the end 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:11.040 of your trust for law enforcement? 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.960 I never had any get into it law enforcement, you know, 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.000 at that time, so I didn't know. But as I 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.400 got older, I was like, no, I don't trust them 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.399 because you know some police deduced they do underhanded, you know, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:31.040 unhanded stuff, and I guess you can't trust them. I 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:32.040 don't trust no man. 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.880 Author Wilma Harper wrote about this theory as well. 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:43.400 Questions continued to be asked but not answered, like why 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.480 no one ever saw the girls picked up? Was the 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:50.879 killer someone so utterly trustworthy like a policeman that a 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:55.000