I-70 Killer Victims

Case background and investigation

Over 29 days in the spring of 1992, six people were shot dead while working in small shops close to Interstate 70 in three states. Police linked the crimes through ballistic testing, witness descriptions and the similar circumstances, and the unidentified gunman became known as the I-70 killer.

The first victim was Robin Fuldauer, 26, who was killed on April 8, 1992, at a Payless ShoeSource store in Indianapolis. Three days later, on April 11, Patricia Magers, 32, and Patricia Smith, 23, were shot at a bridal shop in Wichita, Kansas. On April 27, Michael McCown, 40, was killed at a ceramics store in Terre Haute, Indiana; he was the only man among the victims. Nancy Kitzmiller, 24, was killed on May 3 at a boot store in St. Charles, Missouri, and Sarah Blessing, 37, was killed on May 7 at a gift shop in Raytown, Missouri.

According to KSHB and other reports, the weapon was a .22-caliber pistol, and investigators have identified the Erma Werke ET22 as the likely model. The shops were generally staffed by one person at the time and little money was taken. Witnesses in Wichita and Raytown provided descriptions that were used for a composite sketch of a slim white man with light-colored hair.

Investigators have also looked at later shootings. Wikipedia's entry on the case describes three attacks on store workers in Texas in 1993 and 1994, two of them fatal, that were examined as possibly related, though ballistic tests indicated a different gun. One of those attacked, Vicki Webb, survived. The 2001 killing of a liquor store clerk in Terre Haute has also been reviewed for a possible link. None of these has been officially confirmed as the work of the same person.

In 2021 police from the affected cities formed a task force, led from St. Charles, and released age-progressed sketches. Investigators said in 2022 that they hoped newer DNA techniques, including touch DNA, might yield results. In April 2022 a St. Louis television station reported that detectives were examining whether Harry Edward Greenwell, who had been identified after his death as the so-called I-65 killer, could be connected; no such link has been announced.

No arrest has been made. In July 2026, Men's Journal reported that journalist Bob Cyphers, the author of a 2024 book on the case, said in a podcast that police had questioned a man they consider a suspect, who was not named and was not charged. That account has not been confirmed in an official statement in the sources reviewed, and the case remains unsolved.