Highway Serial Killers / Hauntings & Mind Reading

About the show

Frank Figliuzzi was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent. In the first half, he discussed the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative and their hunt for individuals who have accounted for an astonishing 850 murders across the nation. The cases he's investigated are primarily unsolved murders of sex trafficking victims committed by long-haul truckers, with around 450 active suspects, though some are believed to have multiple victims. A small minority of long-haul truckers exploit jurisdictional seams to traffic and kill sex workers, often with decades-long delays in identifying victims and catching killers, Figliuzzi reported.

He further explained how the perpetrator will grab a victim at one location, often at or near a truck stop, related to some kind of sex for money transaction. Then, they'll rape and/or murder the victim in a second jurisdiction, and dispose of the body in a third location. Among the cases he detailed was that of serial killer Robert Ben Rhoades, a truck driver from Houston who was convicted of killing a teenage girl and her boyfriend, though he was additionally linked to other murders. Figliuzzi also delved into the dark side of the trucking industry, including alcoholism and depression, and noted that the profession needs more support and recognition.

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In the latter half, Joe Diamond, the official Mind Reader at the Maxwell Mansion in Lake Geneva, WI, talked about his latest appearance on Penn & Teller's Fool Us TV show, haunted locations, and the power of mental telepathy. On the Penn & Teller program, which was filmed live on a Las Vegas stage, he successfully pulled off a mind reading with a deck of cards, and gave the host Brooke Burke a palm reading (view clip). He shared tales of hauntings at the Maxwell Mansion, where a wide variety of apparitions have been seen. The house was originally built in 1855 by Dr. Philip Maxwell, who conducted surgeries in the basement where the speakeasy is now. Diamond suspects that some of the patients died there and are perhaps the ones haunting the hotel, and this accounts for why so many different ghosts are seen.

He recounted how one evening, when he was reading a book and having a drink in the speakeasy by himself, he saw the reflection of a person in the mirror, but when he looked over in their direction, there was no one there. Diamond described his readings using psychometry (gleaning knowledge by touching an object) and how, lately, he's been experimenting with receiving telepathic messages from extraterrestrials during readings, which sometimes involve the use of a pendulum. During the last hour, he offered Tarot readings for callers.