long haul trucks semi truckers
© Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
As data indicates that hundreds of truck-driving serial killers could be at large, a best-selling book is highlighting the most gruesome cases as law enforcement officials try to warn potential victims.

It's a familiar plot for TV shows and movies: murderous truck drivers prowling US highways for victims. Federal Bureau of Investigation data indicate that there are likely hundreds of homicidal truck drivers who have never been captured. Although the percentage overall of long-haul truckers who become killers is small, many of those who did have driven across Nevada.

Patrick Carnes, 86, of Reno, may have become a victim in 2011. He disappeared while driving in tandem with a long-haul trucker along the so-called 'The Big Lonely,' Interstate 80. Judith Casida, 62, disappeared five years earlier. Both victims' vehicles were found in the same field a half-decade apart.

Detectives came to believe that one or two serial killer truckers were picking off victims along I-80. Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director, headed some of the disturbing investigations.

"I've seen some gruesome things in 25 years as an FBI agent," Figliuzzi said. "Really gory crime scenes."

The typical target of serial killer truckers is younger women, either sex workers or hitchhikers, according to data from the FBI's Highway Serial Killings Initiative and information accumulated through thousands of miles in the passenger seat with truckers as Figliuzzi researched his best-selling book Long Haul. That data indicates that there could be 450 long-haul truckers who are serial killers. Many of them are sexual predators, but some just like to kill.

"One indeed likes to control the outcome and loves the power and will prolong [the] torture, rape, and other horrors," Figliuzzi said. "The other kind of serial killer simply wants to kill. He enjoys [the] power of life and death, and he kills quickly."

One such suspected serial killer was Chester Todd, accused of a series of murders and rapes before going on the run in 1995. He surfaced in Las Vegas living under an assumed name in 2011.

Another is Wayne Allen Ford, who had a severed breast in his pocket when he turned himself in to police in 1998. He admitted to four murders, and three of his victims had been dismembered. The body of Tina Gibbs, a 26-year-old victim of Ford's, was found in Northern California not far from his home.

Robert Ben Rhodes, a particularly vile example, built a torture chamber into his truck. He murdered two couples he picked up hitchhiking, one in Utah and one in Texas. Rhodes is suspected in dozens of other murder-torture cases.

"Rhodes... picked up a 14-year-old girl hitchhiking [and] hooked her up to from fish hooks inside his torture chamber in his rig," Figliuzzi said. "Over the course of several weeks across many states, he raped and tortured her, leaving her for dead in an abandoned farmhouse."

The most vulnerable pool of targets of such criminals are so-called "lot lizards," or sex workers found at many of the nation's truck stops. Figliuzzi met and interviewed many of them for his book, including a few who survived their attacks. He said educating these women about the dangers is tough. Many of them have drug addictions and poor judgment, move around a lot, and don't let the family know where they are so no one is likely to report them missing, Figliuzzi said.

The research that comprised Figliuzzi's book wasn't just to educate the public but also to help educate law enforcement officials, many of whom were unaware of the FBI's database dedicated to long-haul trucker killings.

"If I have one message to any law enforcement officer listening, it's [to] get your unsolved cases, especially involving roadside killings, into the FBI database," Figliuzzi said.