The Freeway Phantom

Case background and investigation

Between April 1971 and September 1972, an unidentified killer known as the 'Freeway Phantom' terrorized Washington, D.C., abducting young Black girls and women from their neighborhoods and leaving their bodies along the region's highways. The murders are often described as the District's first documented case of serial killing.

The first victim was Carol Denise Spinks, 13, who was sent to a store on April 25, 1971, and vanished; her body was found six days later beside the northbound lanes of Interstate 295 near St. Elizabeths Hospital. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Over the following months, five more victims followed: Darlenia Denise Johnson, 16; Brenda Faye Crockett, 10; Nenomoshia Yates, 12; Brenda Denise Woodard, 18; and, finally, Diane Denise Williams, 17, in September 1972. Most were strangled, several were sexually assaulted, and their bodies were left near roadways in the District and neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland.

One of the case's most chilling elements was a note found in the coat pocket of victim Brenda Woodard, apparently written on her own notebook paper. It read, in part, 'this is tAntAmount to my insensititivity to people especiAlly women. I will Admit the others wheN you cAtch me iF you cAn! FRee-wAy PhanTom.' Investigators believed Woodard had been made to write it under the killer's direction, and the odd word 'tantamount' later became a focus of the investigation.

Over the years detectives pursued several theories. A group of men connected to a string of assaults near the Capital Beltway, sometimes called the 'Green Vega' suspects, drew attention when an inmate offered case details, though the lead was never fully developed. Robert Askins, a man with a history of sexual violence who was known to use the word 'tantamount,' was also investigated, but no charges connected him to the killings. Early handling of the cases was hampered by a 'runaway' presumption applied to missing Black girls in the city.

Decades later the case remains open and unsolved. Case files were left incomplete by outdated record-keeping, and many of the original investigators have died or retired. Authorities have kept a substantial reward on offer, and renewed public interest through books and podcasts has kept alive the hope that the Freeway Phantom's identity may someday be established.