“...catch me if you can!” Police find those words written on a note left in a jacket draped over a murder victim’s body. They believe the message comes from a serial killer targeting young women in the Washington, D.C. area, nicknamed the Freeway Phantom. But the handwriting? Belongs to someone else. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What content warnings are given for this episode?
This episode includes discussions of murder, rape, sexual assault of minors, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health, visit Spotify.com slash resources. Does it sometimes feel like the whole world is vying for your attention? The ads, the calls, the emails... There's the content you seek out and the content you don't.
The doom scrolling that maybe falls somewhere in between. And then there are the news headlines pouring in from all over the world. With so much global access, the volume alone can be dizzying to process, let alone the decision of where to invest your time and energy. Where do you fit in? How do you respond? It can be hard to know where to start.
Or maybe you're one of the people vying for attention. You desperately need help. Lives are at stake in your community and you need support. Maybe it feels like no matter what you do, you can't get the investment you need. Everyone is putting their resources elsewhere. And if you're lucky, you get what's left. Before you go pining for simpler times, this isn't a new phenomenon.
Today's case begins back in 1971, and the problem of split focus and an unequal distribution of resources runs all the way through it. Right up until its effective ending, the last two words any homicide detective wants to see in a serial killer investigation. Evidence. Destroyed. Welcome to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. Every Monday, we bring you the true crime stories that stand out.
Chapter 2: How does the Freeway Phantom case begin?
I'm Janice Morgan. We'd love to hear from you. Follow us on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast and share your thoughts on this week's episode. Or if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and leave a comment. Stay with us.
Hello, everyone. I'm Carol Costello, a former CNN anchor and national correspondent. In 2011, a religious con man on the run from the law killed three men using the Craigslist ad to lure his victims. But had the Ohio Craigslist killer faced justice for crimes he was accused of before the murders, those killings would never have happened.
This is a story about the law of redemption and how a con man used the Bible to exploit our criminal justice system. Carol Casella presents The God Hook as a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts and Jack Paul Productions. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you want to hear something spooky?
Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot.
Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal.
One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession.
Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves.
Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water.
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Chapter 3: Who was Carol Spinks and what happened to her?
It's the spring of 1971, Washington, D.C. President Richard Nixon sits in the Oval Office. The now-famous Watergate scandal that will end his career is right around the corner, but Americans don't know it yet. Many in the nation's capital are focused on their country's presence overseas, where the war in Vietnam continues to rage on. Sixteen years of bloodshed that Nixon promised to end.
As anti-war protesters flood the streets of Washington, the city experiences an uptick in violent crime. And it's against this backdrop that an entirely different story makes front page news. One that kicks off 17 months of domestic terror and begins with a simple trip to buy groceries. It's April 25th, 1971. Carol Spinks is 13 years old. She's home alone with her seven siblings for the day.
Their mother, Allentine, went to visit a friend in Maryland. Allentine made it very clear that none of them are supposed to leave the apartment while she's away. But at some point, Carol's older sister tells her to run to 7-Eleven to buy some bread, soda, and frozen dinners. She obeys. The store is only a few blocks away, so it shouldn't take long. But along the way, something strange happens.
Carol looks up and sees her mother standing on the street. They lock eyes. Allentine's apparently returned home from Maryland early, and she isn't happy to see her daughter out of the house. She tells Carol to quickly finish her errand before returning home. After they part ways, Carol makes it to 7-Eleven. She picks up her items, checks out, and exits the store. But she never makes it home.
When Allentine enters the apartment a short while later, she finds her other children in a panic. They're worried they'll get in trouble for letting Carol leave the house. But as time passes, their concern is more for Carol's safety. It's been over an hour since she left. Carol's older sister, Evander, decides to go out looking for her.
She traces Carol's steps down the street and speaks to the clerk at 7-Eleven to see if maybe they heard or saw something. But she returns home without any sign of Carol and without any leads. That's when Allentine calls the Metropolitan Police Department and reports her daughter missing. She's frantic on the call, but it quickly becomes clear authorities don't share her concern.
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Chapter 4: What happened to Darlenia Johnson?
They tell Alantine her daughter probably just ran away. They don't dispatch any officers to conduct interviews. They don't help look for the missing girl. They leave the Spinks family on their own to figure out what to do next. Alantine calls friends, knocks on neighbors' doors, and assembles a search party. They scour the area for any sign of Carol, but come up empty-handed.
Six days later, a group of children playing behind St. Elizabeth's Hospital find Carol's body lying at the bottom of an embankment. She's been strangled and has cuts on her face, neck, chest, and hands. An autopsy reveals Carol was raped and probably had been dead for two to three days before she was found.
To make sense of the unaccounted-for time, authorities believe her killer likely kidnapped and held her captive for a few days, and based on the undigested pieces of citrus fruit they find in her stomach, they also might have fed her. When the news breaks, the community is horrified, but the city's political unrest pulls resources away from the case.
Officer Romaine Jenkins is assigned to the case. At 28 years old, she is a trailblazer on the force, the first woman to ever become a homicide detective in D.C. She's supposed to go interview potential witnesses in Carol's neighborhood, but due to anti-war protests that erupt that day, her supervisor reassigns her to patrol duty.
In fact, the whole Metropolitan Police Department is put on emergency alert, tasked with making sure demonstrations don't turn violent. With all eyes on the protests congregating in and around West Potomac Park near the National Mall, it leaves a vacuum in other parts of the city, like Carol Spinks' neighborhood, located to the southeast and separated by the Anacostia River.
About two months after Carol's murder on July 8th, 16-year-old Darlenia Johnson never shows up to her work shift. Her mother, Helen, reports her missing that day. She never hears from her daughter again. But a few days after Darlenia's disappearance, Helen receives a phone call from an unknown number. When she picks up, she hears a man breathing on the other end, but he doesn't say a word.
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Chapter 5: How did Brenda Crockett's case unfold?
Helen reports the call to police, but they can't trace it to a source. That technology doesn't exist yet. So there's not much they can do, even as the harassment continues. For over a week, the haunting calls keep coming in. It's the same thing every time, just a man breathing on the other end. Then, one day, the pattern changes and the man speaks just a handful of words. I killed your daughter.
Then, he hangs up. A few days later, police get a call about the body found on the side of the I-295 highway. It's not the first time they're hearing about it. It's actually the third. Officers were dispatched to the scene days earlier, but they apparently never got out of their car. They just drove by, claimed they didn't see anything, and left.
This third call comes from the same man who first reported the body. He was shocked and disturbed to find it still lying there days later, in the same spot, left to decay in the summer sun. This time, he contacts his boss, who's friends with a DC police sergeant. Even though he's off duty at the time, the sergeant responds to the call right away, searches the area, and locates the remains.
The victim is young, black, and female, but the body is too decomposed to determine a cause of death. The medical examiner has to use fingerprint analysis to make an identification. Sure enough, it's Darlenia Johnson. It doesn't take authorities long to figure out that Darlenia and Carol Spinks lived in the same neighborhood. Their bodies were found within 15 feet of one another.
It's immediately clear the two cases could be connected, but detectives barely have time to investigate before another girl goes missing. Eight days after police recover Darlenea's body, 10-year-old Brenda Crockett leaves her house to buy some groceries around 8 p.m. When she doesn't return in a timely fashion, her mother goes out to look for her.
While she's away, the phone rings in the apartment. Brenda's little sister picks up around 9.20 p.m. On the other end, she hears Brenda's voice. Over the phone, 10-year-old Brenda Crockett tells her little sister that while she was out running an errand, a white man picked her up. Brenda's crying, but she tells her sister that the man is going to send her home in a taxi soon.
About 30 minutes later, Brenda calls back. This time, her stepfather answers, and Brenda's story has changed. She sounds distraught and confused. She says something about being held in Virginia and asks if her mother saw her. Her stepfather tries to make sense of what she's saying. How could her mother see her if she was in Virginia? But Brenda never answers the question.
She mumbles a quick goodbye and hangs up. Early the next morning, Brenda's body is found along the edge of Route 50 in Chevrolet, Maryland, a town just outside of DC. Like Carol Spinks, tests reveal she's been raped and strangled to death. The news crushes Brenda's family. Everything happened so fast. Brenda left for groceries and less than 24 hours later, she's dead.
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Chapter 6: What are the connections between the Freeway Phantom victims?
The Crockett's tell police about the phone calls from Brenda, about the white man who allegedly picked her up and drove her to Virginia. But investigators don't know what to make of the information. First, Brenda's body was found in Maryland, not Virginia. But second, why would Brenda's abductor allow her to make two phone calls?
Detectives believe the calls could have been an intentional misdirection, a concerted effort to throw police off the killer's trail. So they come to the conclusion that Brenda likely never went to Virginia and that her killer probably wasn't white. Beyond that, officials don't have any leads or evidence to work with. So the investigation stalls.
And only two months pass before there's a fourth victim. Black, female, and 12 years old. Right away, the similarities are clear. The evening Nina Moshe Yates disappears, her father sends her to buy sugar, flour, and paper plates. The store is only a block from their apartment in Southeast D.C. She's later found raped and dead from strangulation.
But unlike the others, only two hours pass before she's found. Her body is still warm when officials arrive on the scene. If it wasn't clear already, police are now certain that all four murders are connected. If true, it would be DC's first known serial killer in history.
Newspapers run with the story and headlines give the killer a name based on the fact that his victims were all found by highways. The Freeway Phantom. For those living in the victim's neighborhood, fear eventually gives way to anger. The string of murders might be the most serious crime spree to ever grip the city, but many feel like the police aren't doing enough.
After the public backlash and recent media attention, investigators decide they need additional support, so they call in the FBI. Federal agents revisit the evidence from all four cases, and it's at this point that they find evidence the Metro Police apparently missed. Three of the victims had hairs in their underwear belonging to someone else. Presumably, their killer.
DNA testing isn't available yet, but analysis finds the hairs most likely belong to a black man. With that information in mind, agents begin to build a profile. Given his pattern of behavior, agents believe the killer could be a DC local, someone familiar with the area, someone able to travel the streets relatively undetected. It doesn't narrow the field much.
There are still tens of thousands of people it could be, but it's a starting point. Detectives continue looking for new evidence to narrow the scope of their investigation, but another victim appears before any real progress is made, the fifth since April. In mid-November, another Black female is found murdered in Chevrolet, Maryland, this time 18 years old.
Her body is found near the access ramp to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, slightly north of I-295. The victim's name is Brenda Woodard. She attended a night class before going out to eat with a friend the night before. After dinner, she got on a bus alone and headed home. But she never made it back. Everything about the crime matches the known M.O.
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