100 Murder Cases

The Freeway Phantom

One of the chief reasons you haven't heard of the Freeway Phantom—a truly creepy killer who forced a victim to write a taunting note to police—might well be racism.

Between 1971 and 1972 the Phantom murdered six young African-American women in and around Washington DC. They were between 10 and 18 years old. Some were sexually assaulted.

His spree began in April of 71 with Carol Spinks, age 13. She disappeared while walking home after buying groceries. Her body was found almost a week later in the grass not far from I-295. Then in July, the killer took 16-year-old Darlenia Johnson. She was held for just over two weeks before the Phantom dumped her body just feet away from where Carol Spinks was found.

The killer next took 10-year-old Brenda Crockett. A few hours after she disappeared she called home, crying. She said a white man had picked her up and she was coming home—then ended the call suddenly with "Bye." Brenda called back, saying she was in a house, and once more was yanked off the phone.

Unlike the others, she wasn't held. The killer raped and strangled the girl to death before dumping her by the side of a Maryland highway. Nenomoshia Yates was next. She was just 12 and she suffered an almost identical fate to Brenda Crockett, including being found beside the road.

The killer earned the "Freeway Phantom" moniker after Nenomoshia's murder. The Phantom wasn't done. His most bizarre murder was next.

He abducted Brenda Woodward, an 18-year-old who was last seen getting on a bus to go home. When she was found several hours later, she lay under her own coat. The killer left a note this time, and the police believe he made Woodward write it: "This is tantamount to my [insensitivity] to people especially women. I will admit the others when you catch me if you can! Free-way Phantom."

Final victim Diane Williams was 17 and she too was abducted after boarding a bus, only to be found strangled and dumped by I-295.

Police believe Brenda Crockett was forced to lie when she made her haunting phone calls.

A local gang was suspected of some connection to the murders and a prison inmate claimed knowledge then clammed up. In the end, the police files were lost, and all the threads left dangling. Six girls dead by the road at the hands of a psychopath who then vanished—in part because police of the era couldn't be bothered to hang on to evidence.

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