COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The mysterious and brutal murders of nine women and girls in Ohio are highlighted in a new Amazon bestseller by a retired FBI special agent who will speak in Columbus.
According to a news release, Frank Figliuzzi will discuss his true crime work, “LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers,” at Thurber House on Thursday evening.
In the book, he explores several killings where the victims were found along Interstate 71 in Ohio. Figliuzzi theorizes the person responsible for the deaths was a single perpetrator dubbed “Dr. No,” who was thought to have targeted his victims in parking lots and truck stops along the I-71 corridor through Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
The murders happened decades ago, during the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2004 when the FBI starting looking into the pattern.
From 1981 to 1990, the I-71 killer murdered at least nine women. Then from 2000 to 2005 Dellmus Colvin killed at least six women in Ohio. Samuel Legg was arrested in 2019 in Arizona and linked to 4 murders in Ohio and Illinois. All of the killers were truck drivers.
“Some of the Ohio killings were absolutely the work of long haul truckers, and particularly in Toledo, which is a combination of kind of a perfect storm national hub for sex trafficking, especially of underage minors, and a national trucking intersection.”
The title is an overarching look at multiple predators who hid their prolific serial killings working as long-haul truckers. As many as 850 murders are attributed to these truck drivers who allegedly scoured America’s highways in a relentless pursuit of victims. Figliuzzi writes about notorious individuals known as the “Truck Stop Killer” and “The Interstate Strangler.”
Figluizzi also reveals what made these cases hard to solve. He rode along for two thousand miles with a long-haul trucker to get an idea of the rules of the road, how truckers pick up women, and how killers can evade the authorities.
“They exploit the seams in law enforcement. So they’ll take a victim in one jurisdiction. They’ll rape or kill her in a second jurisdiction, and they’ll dump the body in a third jurisdiction.”
The special event will be held on Thursday, June 20 at 7 p.m. at Thurber House, 91 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43215. A Q&A session will take place after the talk. Admission is $15 for the main event and post-event book signing or $40, which includes a hardcover book.