Highway to Hell

By Maureen Anne Meehan

In a chilling tale, a series of disappearances along America's vast highway system goes largely unnoticed until a breakthrough occurs with the discovery of a body buried at an abandoned truck stop on Highway 25 near Cheyenne, Wyoming. With minimal forensic evidence, an innovative technique reveals a hidden network of murders spanning decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maureen Meehan
• Release date: Feb 25, 2025
• ISBN: 9798348561192

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 1

Awoman stumbles barefoot onto a remote stretch of I-25 in Southeastern Wyoming, battered and barely alive. She collapses in the middle of the road. A truck driver pulls over, but when he checks for a pulse, she’s already gone. Her wrists are raw from handcuffs, her nails broken, and there’s something odd about the way she’s dressed – her clothes don’t match the weather.

The local sheriff in Cheyenne, Wyoming called the FBI after finding a brand burned into the woman’s hip – a symbol resembling an old freight company logo. It’s a dead company, its trucks are defunct.

The case is assigned to John Douglas, a well-known FBI profiler, famous for his work on the Zodiac Killer, Red Hands, Tooth Fairy Killer, Gilgo Beach Killer, and beyond, and John needs help working on what has been dubbed, The Highway Phantom.

Mac, it’s John, he said to Mary MacIntosh over the phone. I need your help on a new case that was just assigned to us. I’ve had my assistant email you the file which has been encrypted with the name of the case.

John Douglas had worked with Mac many times over the years on many cases starting nearly a decade ago when she was the prosecuting attorney in Sheridan, Wyoming. Mac, now a 50-something-year-old mother of four living in Sheridan and consulting with the FBI profiling team in lieu of working as an attorney. She was a tall, lanky auburn-colored long hair woman with honey-colored eyes. She was athletic and intelligent, divorced from her former husband, Burg, who remained the sheriff in Sheridan. Mac’s fiancé, Jayson Saunders, a journalist from New York, toggled back and forth from New York to Sheridan, and Mac returned the favor on weeks when she didn’t have her children.

I would be more than happy to help, Mac said eagerly. It had been a few months since they had worked together on the Highway to Justice case, and Mac was ready to get back to work. She had worked with John on so many cases, including the Fox Hollow Farm serial killer case, the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, Red Hands, Dating Game, Prison Break, and others, and they were a great team.

Fantastic, John replied. Once you’ve had a chance to read the file, call me and we will formulate a plan. This one is going to be tough. The more we learn about this Highway Phantom killer, the less we feel like we have a grasp on just how many women he has killed spanning likely decades. The latest was near Cheyenne, Wyoming, but we profilers think that it must be a truck driver who has killed dozens of women.

That is terrifying. When you think about it, it totally makes sense that a truck driver could be a serial killer. They spend an enormous amount of time alone, and they have an interstate system to dump bodies. It reminds me of the I-70 serial killer which remains unsolved in Indiana and Ohio years ago, Mac said.

Herb Baumeister is still my number one suspect, John said.

The Fox Hollow Farm serial killer, yes, Mac agreed. I’ll read the file and respond later today. The kids are in school, and I am caught up on my house chores. Jayson isn’t arriving until late Friday night, so that gives me a few days to focus on what you are calling the Highway Phantom case.

Great. Looking forward to hearing from you, John said as he hung up.

Chapter 2

Highway Serial Killings Initiative was the FBI’s 2009 launch, and it revealed that serial killers might be using long-haul trucking to facilitate their crimes. This initiative arose after analysts identified patterns of murders involving transient women along the Interstate 40 corridor and amassed data pointing to long-haul truckers as suspects. Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, highlighted in his book that around 850