Truck Stop Serial Killer Is Found Guilty of a Third Murder

He’s 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 truck stops in Tennessee.On Wednesday, after a two-day trial, Mr.Mendenhall, 73, was convicted of murdering Carma Purpura, 31, a mother of two whom a witness last saw speaking with Mr.

Mendenhall at a Flying J Travel Center on the south side of Indianapolis on July 12, 2007.Mr.Mendenhall, who’ll be sentenced on Feb.

13, now awaits trial in the killing of another woman, in Alabama, and is a suspect in at least two other killings, according to the authorities.Investigators described Mr.Mendenhall as a long-haul truck driver who was living in Illinois at the time of a sadistic spree in which he preyed on victims from the cab of his 18-wheeler near highways in several states.The prosecution in Ms.

Purpura’s homicide case credited a now-retired police investigator from Nashville, about 300 miles away, with connecting Mr.Mendenhall to the killing.

He had been investigating a similar murder of a 25-year-old woman, Sara Hulbert, whose body had been discovered at a truck stop parking lot in Nashville a few weeks earlier.Mr.

Mendenhall was behind the wheel of a yellow 18-wheeler that resembled a truck in a surveillance video taken near where Ms.Hulbert’s body had been dumped.“This case broke due to a hard-working detective who was dedicated to working across state lines to ensure that justice was achieved for the victims and their families,” Ryan Mears, the Marion County Prosecutor, said in a statement on Wednesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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