Free TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer by Bruce Henderson

anything?Probably not, detectives had concluded. Door-to-door interviews with neighbors had not resulted in any reports of suspicious persons lurking about. Moreover, if someone had been waiting outside to harm her, he likely would have attacked her when she stepped out the door, alone and in the dark, rather than follow her vehicle around town, striking only after she had become lost on the highway.
    There were also the obscene phone calls that Stephanie and her roommate had been receiving for some weeks. The caller was male, andPatty Burrier reported that he knew her name (but apparently not Stephanie’s). This wasn’t so ominous given that they had a listed phone number in Patty’s name. Also, it was a mighty big jump from obscene caller to kidnapper-rapist-killer. To the detectives, it seemed highly unlikely that these calls, disturbing as they had been for the young women, had any connection to the murder.
    Detectives also uncovered a burglary report that had been filed by Stephanie five months earlier. Arriving home shortly after 8:00 P.M. , she had heard noises in the back of the house. When she walked into her bedroom, she found that someone had pried open a window. The burglar had fled. Although no property was missing, the television had been unplugged and pulled away from the wall. There was nothing to suggest, however, that this aborted burglary had anything to do with her murder.
    Biondi remained convinced that Stephanie’s abduction had been carried out by someone unknown to her who happened upon a victim of opportunity. He found Bertocchini and Rosenquist in complete agreement.
    Based on the facts of the case and what he had learned about the condition of the crime scene, Biondi speculated that they were looking for a serial killer who was at least in his thirties (most were). He was patient rather than impulsive, and experienced. Biondi assigned the killer these attributes due to the fact that the crime scene had been amazingly devoid of any incriminating evidence. Clearly, he was a hands-on killer (strangulation), as are most serial killers, with NewYork’s “Son of Sam” the notable exception.
    Biondi believed that the killer had killed before and was looking to do it again. He was a cool customer, and he knew how to cover his tracks. He had to be a consummate prowler, driving long stretches of road late at night, searching for the right situation and victim. He had found her in Stephanie Brown, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her killer had no doubt developed a taste for all of it—the adventure, the manipulation, the craving to act out his fantasies, and the ultimatepower he felt in deciding when someone would die by his hands. Chances were very good he would not stop on his own.
    A press bulletin released by theSacramento County Sheriff’s Department urgently requested that residents—particularly individuals who had traveled I-5 on the night Stephanie was abducted—contact either Sacramento orSan Joaquin investigators if they had any information concerning the Brown case. But detectives did not wait for the phone to ring.
    In an unusual joint operation by both sheriff departments, with the assistance of the state road department and theCalifornia Highway Patrol, aroadblock went up onInterstate 5 at theHood Franklin off-ramp at midnight on July 29, 1986.
    The idea was to stop and talk to motorists on the same day of the week and at approximately the same hour that Stephanie Brown had been abducted two weeks earlier. Had a truck driver or late-night commuter who traveled the route regularly seen anything suspicious that night? Had anyone seen the young woman sitting in or standing next to her car? Or a second vehicle? Or another person? Could their memories be jogged by the right questions?
    Interstate 5, it has been written, is “a Mississippi without romance.” Cutting a direct swath through the flattest and most vapid portions of the otherwise picturesque Golden