It’s a subject I’ve been asked about quite a bit since American Crime Journal rolled out—of course it’s about the murders I’ve researched for 20 years and will have haunted me for 30 years come March; the I-65 Serial Killer. The two questions I get, “were there any suspects?”, followed by “what’s the deal with your link about Forrester’s Confession with just a newspaper article?”

Those are fair questions. First I apologize, I started the article & left it up incomplete and still needed to finish going through old articles and notes. There’s a lot of material that still needs to be covered. I’ve got notebooks covering small bits and pieces over and over, here, there… everywhere. Eventually, I’d like to have a gallery of newspaper articles and other information related to this monster since most of it is not readily available to those who are interested. Sadly, the victims of the I-65 Serial Killer have been deprived of justice mostly because the I-65 Serial Killer is a lesser known case. This certainly is not due to police incompetence, like a recent high profile case that received little publicity for decades until a few folks tried to cash in during the home stretch, or a disinterested media, but rather the case was fashioned as a “bizarre double homicide” when it was thrust into the national spotlight- and from then on was known as “The Days Inn Murders”. 

Yet there are things I’ve still not been able to get to the bottom of, such as why Unsolved Mysteries had begun production on a segment about Gill and Gilbert’s murders, but then dropped it altogether? It wasn’t until 2010 that the third murder in the series— Vicki Heath was connected to the I-65 Serial Killer. Until then, it was just The Days Inn Murders and Columbus Assault connected to the killer. It wasn’t until 2013, that the Rochester Assault in 1991 was connected, which details of the case are still classified under penalty of death. We don’t know if it was residential or in a hotel like the others? 

The murder of both Wright and Walton received no publicity(outside of local papers) whatsoever despite being connected by ballistics and modus operandi, until it was brought up after the “The Days Inn Murders” when the Indiana State Police sought clues to see if they may have been connected. Hell, information on Walton’s murder is so scarce, that it took weeks to find it mentioned in the local Cincinnati newspaper. The bulk of information in Walton’s murder was released in Rockford’s local paper months afterwards as the police still sought clues in conjunction with the Indiana State Police.

Indeed, there were numerous suspects and the next phase of articles covering the I-65 Serial Killer will cover them, which will also lead to several articles covering the horrific crimes which some of the suspects committed, including the former leading suspect, who went to prison for such a brutal & horrific crime, I literally became physically sick reading about it. There are only a couple of violent crimes in which the victim survived that I believe were far worse than murder. This was one.

About the Forrester Confession page and the Burger Chef Composites under the Composites section of the I-65 Serial Killer series, for those that have scoured the internet for information on the I-65 Serial Killer, you’ll often come across a common rumor or perhaps a ‘runaway myth’ (however you look at it), perpetuating that the Burger Chef Murders and Days Inn Murders/I-65 Serial Killer are somehow connected— more specifically, “The Bearded Man”. 

I will cover not only how the rumor got started, but how ‘false facts’ in both the Burger Chef Murders case and I-65 Serial Killer cases perpetuate these myths and misconceptions, and how that bad information contaminated both cases in true crime media today. I will be doing a full article on who “The Bearded Man” suspects are, how those suspects couldn’t possibly be the I-65 Serial Killer. I will explore the very likely chance that the Burger Chef Murders didn’t involve “The Bearded Man” as a perpetrator(at least the one which the composite is based on) in the first place, but likely a witness who injected himself into the case and later an informant who exploited it for personal gain.

That and many more cases in the coming months on American Crime Journal. Thank you for your time!

Liked it? Take a second to support American Crime Journal on Patreon!