David Schultz, driving a 1999 Peterbilt truck.
This link appears to show a 1999 Peterbilt:
1999 Peterbilt 379 6x4 T/A Day Cab Truck Tractor
What do you know about semi-trucks? All I knew
before this post was that the trailers have air brakes.
Here's what the above webpage shows in the cabin;
Starter key location is easy to find, at least.
See the trailer air brake? I sure as heck couldn't be sure
at first. (I think we can ignore the line of black switches
on the extreme right, maybe they're possibly individual
switches for each of the trailer axles, in case the air
brakes on only one axle malfunctions and has to be
individually made non-active - I doubt David Schultz's
truck had that setup).
Looking closer here;
OK, harder to see at night, also harder to see if
much more of the switches printing were worn
away, on this example we can figure it out if we
look real hard. According to this;
https://www.fordservicecontent.com/...A&div=f&vFilteringEnabled=False&buildtype=web
Can anyone explain... Parking Brake & Trailer Air Supply? - SCS Software
the trailer and truck(tractor) air brakes are the red
and yellow switches, which would apparently be pulled
outwards when David Schultz brought his truck to a
stop at that intersection (there might be reasons why
he would only pull one out, but I don't want to add to
this post length).
When driving off, apparently
both these switches would
normally be placed in the pushed in position (not too
sure what happens if the red switch is left pulled out
and only the yellow switch is pushed in). That said,
what do you think is the probability that some
'criminal-thinks-he's-going-to-drive-a-semi-truck'
would simply try to drive off and leave one or both
of the air brakes on? Pretty likely, I would think,
maybe Mr criminal would figure it out eventually,
maybe not. (There's also a gotcha here, where if
the air reservoir loses too much pressure, the trailer
brakes will apply automatically).
Then there's the transmission, OK, unfortunately
it's not 1971 and you're not going to jump in a
'Duel truck', do a bit of double-clutching, slam the
gears in and soon be flying 55+ down the road.
Here's an example of a possible 1999 Peterbilt gearstick,
from that same webpage as the other pictures;
Apparently the way this works is, the little finger paddle
on the gearstick gives you access to the 'High range',
while 'LO' and 1,2,3,4 are your 'Low range'. Thing is,
somewhat counter-intuitively for car drivers, you only
push the clutch pedal in whilst initially moving off (and
when bringing the truck to a full stop), except for those
times, you apparently don't want to depress the clutch
pedal all the way down, that apparently stops the
transmission spinning (clutch brake), so apparently if
you did depress the clutch whilst driving you may actually
have to
lift off the clutch slightly when moving gears or
the gears may not engage properly. Once moving,
apparently the way it actually works is you select the
gear you want whilst slightly easing off the accelerator
(throttle) and the transmission... simply changes the
gear for you (but don't forget you have to know how
to manipulate the 'High range' paddle thing to get the
truck moving at normal higher gear driving speeds).
Then there's other possible gotchas, such as some
Peterbilt's just have a ball on the gearstick with no gear
shift pattern displayed, the pattern diagram might
instead be on a small easily faded placard on the dash
or even instead displayed 'on the backside of the visor'
(meaning the roof side?). At night, would anyone think
to look there for it? Also, we don't know how many
gears David Schultz's truck had, but 13, 15, 18 gear
setups are not unusual (and thereby may have another
unmarked lever doodad on the gearstick to add
befuddlement).
What I'm getting at with all this is:
Some criminals, in the well known pig-growing States
of Iowa or Tennessee, probably figured to hijack a pig
carrying semi-truck, and David Schultz's truck just
happened to be the last truck that left the load facility
that night. Maybe they had someone passing them
information, maybe they simply planned to get the last
truck and overtook and oversped off, further down the
road in his travelling direction (west).
David Schultz drove westwards, came to that
intersection, and there saw some phoney circumstance,
a car just before the intersection, some person waving
him down for help, some pretense the criminals used to
lure him from the cab (taking his jacket possibly on his
arm as it was cold outside the cabin), then they put a
gun on him and bundled him into a car/car rear trunk
and one of the criminals climbed into the cabin meaning
to drive the semi to some associates farm where the
piglets would be unloaded. Why didn't Mr criminal succeed
to drive away? Well, it took YOU, what, 2 plus minutes
to read over the above, probably twice again if you're
going to actually figure how it works. Now put yourself
in Mr criminal's seat - there a plethora of freakin'
switches, which you're going to have to look at to
figure, the gear shifting system which you're going to
have a lot of trouble figuring out. In Low range gears,
possibly the truck will drive slowly forward, even with
both or one of the air brakes dragging, if you don't
figure out the gears shifting, and get into to the High
range you're probably not driving forward any faster
than something like 20 to 30 mph. (Maybe less speed,
stickb0y7 in this post;
IA - IA - David Schultz, 53, Wall Lake, 21 November 2023
asserted the truck was moving up a slight gradient.)
I assume the criminal realized he was in a truck that
he couldn't reliably get moving fast from that
intersection
and possibly all future intersections, so
any cop car coming up behind him or in any town would
wonder what the trouble was, and if Mr criminal couldn't
figure out that air brake setup, any cop car overtaking
or passing him would wonder about the smell of
overheating brake drum pads (not hot enough to ignite
perhaps, but if you've lived enough to smell that over-
heating brake drum pad smell, you know what I mean).
So the criminal did manage to get the truck driving
forward, but belatedly realized that
you actually need
to know what-the-heck you are doing to actually
reliably drive a 1999 era truck. So Mr criminal lost his
nerve and bailed, left the truck standing there in the
travelling lane (which forces any car coming up behind
it to pass it via quickly moving over to the oncoming
lane of traffic, not that there would be much traffic
at that place and time of night). Ran to and got back
into his criminal associates car, and off they went.
What did they do with David Schultz's body? If they
didn't bury him, I would think they drove off towards
the north (the direction the truck was abandoned
pointing to) or maybe turned off to the east or west.
Somewhere where the road crosses a bridge over water,
such as over Prairie Creek or North Raccoon River or
any like water feature, I think it's possible they
deposited his body off a bridge into water.