Mysteries Along America's Interstates

[Ginger]

Sometimes, he said, he would hop a train, get off when it stopped and hit a house near the tracks, kill everyone inside, then be gone before the bodies were discovered . . . creepy to the max.

That calls to mind the 1911 - 1912 series of cross-country axe murders. http://www.denverpost.com/extremes/ci_5624283 The killer apparently rode a train into town, picked out a house, killed everyone inside, and went on his way again. For all that it's largely forgotten today, it was a huge story at the time.

[Errata]

Well, Tommy Lynn Sells, who was executed in Texas in 2014, often drove across the state of Tennessee from his hometown of Kingsport, in the far northeastern corner, to Missouri visiting family. Since Kingsport is about 30 miles from our Baileyton killing, I suspected him, but he was in prison at the time. Sells was unusual in that he did not have a certain type and killed men, women and children -- anyone he thought dis-respected him or he just wanted to kill. He was called the cross country killer and wasn't on anyone's radar until he fell in love, settled down and just could not quit killing. After he was caught, he enjoyed talking. Sometimes, he said, he would hop a train, get off when it stopped and hit a house near the tracks, kill everyone inside, then be gone before the bodies were discovered . . . creepy to the max.

I do recall the truckstop prostitutes -- at least one example. I would suspect there's been more than one.

I wonder how many active serial killers there are in America at this time.

Velma

We tend to get a a lone body in the woods off an interstate, or like the truck stop killer, or in dumpsters, that look like they would be serial crimes (generally strangulations), but there's only one here and maybe two more in Georgia or Kentucky. We are a short/wide state, so serial killers that move east/west have more Tennessee to kill in than those who move north/south. And most apparently move north/south, so while we have murders, we rarely have the jurisdiction. My theory is that there is a nutter magnet in West Tennessee. It just catches all the crazy and swirls it around like a toilet bowl of weird. The Field of Dreams for dysfunction. If you build it, they will come. And they do.