He has long been called the “Truck Stop Serial Killer.” Even before his murder trial in Indiana this week, Bruce Mendenhall was serving two consecutive life sentences for killing two women last seen at a truck stop in Tennessee.
On Wednesday, after a two-day trial, Mr. Mendenhall, 73, was convicted of murdering Karmapurapura, 31, a mother of two who was last seen by a witness at the Flying J travel center on the South Side. Seen talking with Mr. Mendenhall. Indianapolis on July 12, 2007.
Mr. Mendenhall, who will be sentenced on February 13, is now awaiting trial in Alabama for the murder of another woman, and is a suspect in at least two other killings, according to authorities.
Investigators described Mr. Mendenhall as a long-haul truck driver who was living in Illinois at the time of a tragic rampage in which he ran over victims in his 18-wheeler near highways in several states. What did
Prosecutors in Ms. Porpora’s murder credited a now-retired police investigator from Nashville, about 300 miles away, with linking Mr. Mendenhall to the murder. He was investigating the similar murder of Sarah Hilbert, a 25-year-old woman whose body was found in a truck stop parking lot in Nashville a few weeks earlier. Mr. Mendenhall was behind a yellow 18-wheeler that resembled a truck in a surveillance video taken near where Ms. Hilbert’s body was dumped.
“This case was broken because of a hard-working detective who was dedicated to working across state lines to ensure justice for the victims and their families,” said Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Meyers. said in a statement on Wednesday.
When Pete Postiglione, an investigator with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, approached the truck, he noticed what he testified was blood on the inside of the driver’s side door. During a search of the truck, to which Mr. Mendenhall consented, Mr. Postiglione said, they found a bag behind the driver’s seat with some blood on it. He also found a black knife, a roll of black electrical tape and a .22 caliber rifle under a bed frame in the sleeper compartment.
An ATM card and a phone belonging to Ms Porpora were recovered from the truck driven by Mr Mendenhall, along with some other personal items. The Indianapolis Star reported.. Some of the blood in the truck matched DNA samples taken from Ms Porpora’s parents. Like Mr. Mendenhall’s other victims, he was shot in the back of the head. Her body was found on the side of a highway in Kentucky in 2011.
During his initial encounter with law enforcement, Mr. Mendenhall was unusually talkative, investigators said. When Mr. Postiglione asked him if he was the person they were looking for in connection with Ms. Hilbert’s murder, Mr. Mendenhall replied, “If you say so,” the police investigator testified earlier. was
The family of Ms. Purpura, who, According to his deatha self-employed artist, did not immediately comment on the verdict.
One of Mr. Mendenhall’s lawyers said Thursday that he was not authorized to discuss the verdict and referred questions to the trial’s lead defense lawyer, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2010, Mr. Mendenhall was found guilty of murdering Ms. Hilbert, a crime that carried an automatic life sentence under Tennessee law, The Courier and Press newspaper of Evansville, Ind., reported. What did
“The cab of his truck was a murder chamber,” Nashville Deputy District Attorney Tom Thurman said at the time. “He had a .22-caliber rifle, latex gloves, handcuffs, razor blades, sex toys and electrical tape. He was a really weird individual. Who knows what would make a man in his 50s a serial killer?” makes
Mr. Mendenhall was also found guilty of trying to hire a hit man to kill three witnesses in Miss Hilbert’s murder case and was sentenced to an additional 30 years in prison.
In 2018, the former truck driver was convicted in the 2007 murder of Samantha Winters, who was found dead inside a trash can at the Pilot Truck Stop in Lebanon, Tenn. By which he was sentenced to another consecutive life sentence after the first one.
Shelagh McNeill participated in the research.
