Small town stunned by trucker’s alleged murder confession
Bruce Mendenhall, a 56-year-old truck driver, is charged in only one slaying, but police said he gave them incriminating details of five other killings, and authorities are working to prove his involvement.
Mendenhall was denied bail in Nashville, where he was arrested Thursday at the same interstate truck stop where 25-year-old Sara Hulbert was found fatally shot two weeks ago. A court-appointed attorney for Mendenhall, Jason Gichner, declined to comment.
Police were hoping more clues would come from a full search of his truck. An affidavit filed Friday by the arresting detective described finding spots of what appeared to be blood on the door, a garbage bag with a large amount of blood inside and blood on Mendenhall’s left thumb.
‘At this point in the investigation, we suspect that there was a homicide or homicides after the June 26 discovery of Miss Hulbert,’ Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said. ‘We, naturally, are very interested in every inch of that truck’s interior.’
Police said Mendenhall confessed to killing Hulbert and Symantha Winters, 48, of Nashville, whose body was found June 6 stuffed in a trash can at a truck stop in Lebanon. She had been fatally shot.
Police said he also described details in four other cases:
‘ Police in Lake Station, Ind., were investigating whether Mendenhall was responsible for the shooting death of 43-year-old Sherry Drinkard, whose body was found at a truck stop Feb. 22.
‘ Indianapolis police on Friday were searching truck stops and surrounding fields south of the city with helicopters and K-9s for a missing body, but have been unable to match Mendenhall’s information with any unsolved murders.
‘ Police Capt. Clyde Byers in Suwanee, Ga., said Mendenhall was being investigated for the killing of Deborah Ann Glover, 43, of Atlanta, who was found dead Jan. 29 in a motel parking lot in that town.
‘ Birmingham, Ala., police Lt. Henry Irby said that department is looking into whether Mendenhall could be connected to the July 1 shooting death of 44-year-old Lucille Carter.
Nashville police said they had been contacted by several more law enforcement agencies nationwide seeking details to determine if Mendenhall could be connected to unsolved crimes in their areas, police spokesman Don Aaron said.
Illinois State Police were searching Mendenhall’s house Friday in Albion, in southeastern Illinois. The small white house surrounded by cornfields had been roped off with police tape since Thursday. ‘We’re looking for any items of evidence of first-degree murder,’ state police Lt. Tom Oliverio said.
Residents in the town were shocked and recalled Mendenhall as a peculiar, but seemingly harmless neighbor.
‘Everyone’s in disbelief that we had an individual living here like this,’ Albion Mayor Ryan Hallam said Friday.
The mayor said Mendenhall ‘ married with two grown children ‘ was ‘a little different’ from other people in town. He had a loud voice, but generally kept to himself, aside from an unsuccessful campaign against a preacher for the mayor’s seat about a decade ago. He had no criminal record there, police said.
‘He didn’t mix well with the others around him, but we never had any problems with him,’ Hallam said.
Neighbor Kiley Barnett, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom, said she always thought the entire family was weird, ‘especially him.’ She said they would never wave hello when they drove past her mobile home.
‘I’ve tried waving at him a hundred different times and nobody in the car ever waved back,’ she said.