Robert Ben Rhoades Victims

Case background and investigation

Robert Ben Rhoades, a long-haul truck driver based in Texas, has been convicted of three murders committed in 1989 and 1990. He is serving sentences of life without parole and is held in Illinois.

His arrest came in April 1990 in Arizona. According to an Illinois appellate court opinion, a state trooper who stopped to check on a tractor-trailer found a woman, unclothed and handcuffed, chained inside the sleeper compartment. The court's summary says a notebook belonging to Regina Walters was recovered from the truck. ABC13 reported that Rhoades was convicted in Arizona of aggravated assault, sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment.

Regina Kay Walters, 14, was last seen alive at her mother's apartment in Pasadena, Texas, on February 3, 1990, according to the court opinion. Her remains were found on September 29, 1990, in a barn along Interstate 70 in Illinois, and the evidence indicated she had been strangled with a wire ligature. Rhoades pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on September 11, 1992, and was sentenced to natural life in prison. Wikipedia's entry on Rhoades states that Walters had left home with a companion, Ricky Lee Jones, whose remains were later found in Texas; Rhoades has not been convicted in connection with Jones.

The other two victims were Patricia Walsh, 24, and her husband Douglas Scott Zyskowski, whose age is given as 28 in news reports. According to ABC News and ABC13, the newly married couple left Seattle in November 1989 intending to hitchhike to Georgia to do religious work, and accepted a ride from Rhoades in Texas. Zyskowski's body was found in January 1990 along Interstate 10 near Ozona, Texas, and identified in 1992. Walsh's remains were found by hunters in central Utah in October 1990 and were identified in 2003 through dental records.

In 2012 Rhoades pleaded guilty in West Texas to two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Walsh and Zyskowski. In exchange, prosecutors did not seek the death penalty; he received further life sentences and gave up his right to appeal, according to ABC13 and ABC News.

Authorities have said they suspect Rhoades of additional crimes. The Texas Observer reported that his trucking records showed regular travel through 22 states and that prosecutors suspected him of further killings, and ABC News quoted prosecutors as saying they did not know how many women he may have abducted. Estimates of the number of victims vary widely and none beyond the three convictions has been proven in court.