‘‘While there are some similarities in the cases, there’s also a great number of dissimilarities,’’ said an FBI investigator at the time.
Wikimedia Commons / National center For Missing & Exploited Children / CarlK90245Three victims of the Redhead Murders .
Fewserial killingsare as mysterious as the typesetter’s case of the Redhead Murders of the 1980s .
As per the name , the Redhead Murders is the name given to the six to eleven unresolved execution of redheaded women along major highways in the United States in the 1980s . These victims were often prostitutes or hitchhikers , and many were never identified due to an inability to see a family to swear their identities .
Wikimedia Commons/National center For Missing & Exploited Children/CarlK90245Three victims of the Redhead Murders.
Due to the locations of the victim ’ bodies , many speculate that the murderer was a truck driver .
The first destruction that was later on assign to this killer was that of an nameless White woman whose body was found naked alongside Route 250 near Littleton in Wetzel County , West Virginia , on Feb. 13 , 1983 . Like many of the so - called Redhead Murders , her pilus was not truly carmine , but more of an auburn semblance .
law ImageComposite image of the Wetzel County Jane Doe .
Police ImageComposite image of the Wetzel County Jane Doe.
Her cause of death is not entirely do it , but it is likely that she was suffocated to death .
One person of involvement emerged from the event after occupant report seeing a White humankind around 5’6″ tall near the site where the body was found . However , this man was never identify .
A year subsequently in 1984 , another woman , this one identify as 28 - yr - honest-to-goodness Lisa Nichols , was found halter to death along Interstate 40 near West Memphis , Ark. Nichols had strawberry - blonde hair and was likely picked up while she was thumb before her murder . Her trunk was found with only a sweater on , accompany the traffic pattern of victims being found naked .
Wikimedia Commons/National center For Missing & Exploited ChildrenDigital recreation of the first Campbell County Jane Doe.
In 1985 , two more murders were attributed to this rash of killing when law discovered two Jane Does in Campbell County , Tenn. alongside Interstate 75 . One of the victims had short , red hair , while the conditions of the other body made it impossible to hump her hair color .
Both dupe were found clothed , and the nature of their deaths is unknown , though smutty play was heavily mistrust .
Wikimedia Commons / National center For Missing & Exploited ChildrenDigital recreation of the first Campbell County Jane Doe .
Barbourville Mountain AdvocatePolice recovering the fridge found near Highway 25 containing the Knox County Jane Doe.
subsequently that year , in March , police received what they conceive would be their first major break on the caseful .
On March 6 , a redheaded charwoman named Linda Schacke report to police that 37 - class - old truck driver Jerry Leon Johns had attempted to strangle her to death with her own rupture shirt before throwing , what he presumed to be her corpse , on the side of Interstate 40 in Knox County , Tenn.
Schacke miraculously survived her attack and was capable to get through constabulary who quickly arrested Johns . Though his attempted murder fit the MO of the premature Redhead Murders , law dismissed him as a defendant for the other killings as he had airtightalibisfor the date that the killings occurred .
Police ImageDigital recreation of the Knox County Jane Doe.
The killings go forward , undeterred , and on March 31 , the skeletonized body of another redheaded woman was ground alongside Interstate 24 in Tennessee .
The next month , two more redheaded victims were found . One was a adult female with long , red hair whose trunk was base in a white refrigerator left alongside Route 25 in Kentucky . Like many of the other victims , she too was suffocated to death .
Barbourville Mountain AdvocatePolice recovering the fridge found near Highway 25 containing the Knox County Jane Doe .
Wikimedia Commons/CarlK90245Digital recreation of the Desoto County Jane Doe.
The other was happen in Greene County , Tenn. She had light-headed John Brown to blond hair with crimson highlights and was stamp out by blunt power hurt . Neither of these dupe were ever key out .
The same calendar month these bodies were let out , police officer from the res publica where these victim were found came together to ask the FBI for assistance in regulate if these Redhead Murders were connect .
On April 24 , 1985 , 21 officials from Pennsylvania , Tennessee , Kentucky , Mississippi , and Arkansasmetwith FBI instance at a six - hour summit meeting in Tennessee to determine if these execution were relate .
Their answer was inconclusive .
Steve Watson , deputy film director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation , said , “ While there are some similarities in the cases , there ’s also a big number of dissimilarities . ”
Police ImageDigital recreation of the Knox County Jane Doe .
He noted that despite the catchy name of the Redhead Murders , only three of the victims conceive to be interrelate at the time had red hair , while “ the others were strawberry - blonde or dark-skinned hairy ladies . ”
Many other component also varied between the murders , include that some dupe were institute clothed and others not , and some had been sexually assaulted or experienced intimate sexual relation shortly before their deaths , while others had not .
Several other unsolved deaths alike to these murders ( in term of the method of the killing , the placement of the bodies near a main road , or the red hair’s-breadth color of the victim ) have been linked to the Redhead Murders .
One of the more compelling of these later findings was a body found alongside U.S. Route 78 in Desoto County , Miss. in February of 1985 . She too was strangled to expiry near a major highway and had strawberry - blonde hair .
Wikimedia Commons / CarlK90245Digital refreshment of the Desoto County Jane Doe .
While it is unsure that all or any of these killings were related , this spate of horrify murders of vernal women shock a body politic still coming to hairgrip with the world of modern consecutive killer .
If they are unrelated , then the murder are at the least a snapshot of the overlooked putting to death that occur across the earth of women in vulnerable situations . Many of these women are believed to have been unidentifiable because they were drifters or sex workers , often far remove from whatever family they may have had .
As Watson articulate of the execution , “ These people tend to have a lifestyle not sufficiently tie to others who would be willing to report their being missing . ”
While there may be a true “ Redhead Murderer , ” the media sensation around these deaths might have merely revealed the number of unrelated cleanup of those women most cast aside by order .
Next , read about these fiveunsolved series killingsthat will haunt you . Then , learn the horrify story of the of theCleveland body liquidator .
