Seriously Mysterious - Missing Persons, Unsolved Murders & Historical True Crime · John Lordan - Respectful True Crime Content Creator, Advocate and Host

The Freeway Phantom Murders

·20 min·1 clip

Brenda Denise Woodard's pocket held a handwritten note that detectives matched to her own handwriting.

1. Seriously Mysterious covers the Freeway Phantom murders, a Washington, D.C. case centered on young African American girls killed between April 1971 and September 1972. 2. John Lorden narrates the episode and frames the case as a series of disappearances, body recoveries, and failed identifications that left investigators with a cold case. 3. The episode asks how one offender, or more than one, could abduct girls from neighborhoods in the District of Columbia and dump bodies in D.C. and Prince George's County, Maryland. 4. Carol Denise Spinks, age 13, disappears on April 25th, 1971 after leaving for a half-mile walk to 7-Eleven during the Vietnam War protest crowds. 5. Her body is later found behind a hospital along the Anacostia Freeway, also called Route 295, with signs of sexual assault, beating, and strangulation. 6. Detectives Roy Lamb and John Moriarty match the body to Carol's description and note green fibers in her clothing that appear to come from automobile carpeting. 7. Darlenia Denise Johnson, age 16, is found near the same freeway on July 19th after going missing on July 8th while heading to her job at the Oxon Hill Recreation Center. 8. Angela Denise Barnes, age 14, is later found with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, which makes police question whether the same offender is responsible. 9. Brenda Faye Crockett, age 10, disappears on July 27th after being sent to buy groceries and is found the next day at the side of U.S. Route 50 in Maryland. 10. Nenomasia Yates, age 12, is found with the bag of sugar, her clothes, and her change after being sent out on an errand on the night of October 1st. 11. The episode notes that police begin accepting the possibility of a serial killer who grabbed girls from the street and dumped bodies along freeway shoulders. 12. Newspapers first call the offender the Freeway Killer, and the Washington Daily News later uses the name Freeway Phantom. 13. Brenda Denise Woodard, age 18, is found on a ramp to Route 202 with a handwritten note in her pocket. 14. Detectives compare that note with writing samples and determine that the note was written in Brenda's own handwriting. 15. The narration highlights the unusual implication that the victim may have been forced to write the note before she was killed. 16. Diane Denise Williams, age 17, is found on the shoulder of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway after walking home from her boyfriend's house. 17. The episode points out that almost every victim's middle name is Denise and asks how the killer learned that repeated detail. 18. In 1974, police announce arrests involving former Washington, D.C. police officers Edward Selman and Tommy Simmons, but the episode says the connection to the murders was never proven. 19. The FBI later creates a task force of around 100 investigators, and the episode also follows the Green Vega Rapists and Robert Elwood Askins as possible suspects. 20. The tone is investigative and somber with a case-file style, and listeners who follow unsolved serial murder cases will get the most from it while listeners wanting a solved ending may skip it.

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