Here's a reasonably meaty NYT piece on Travis.
Internet Used to Find Man Who Is Charged in 2 of 10 Killings
NYT. June 11, 2002
Excerpt:
After the Post-Dispatch notified the authorities, searchers found human skeletal remains within 50 yards of the location shown by the map's X, about 300 yards from where the decomposed bodies of Ms. Wilson and another victim, Verona Thompson, had been found.
Four days later, investigators determined that the return address on the letter, ''I THRALLDOM,'' was a Web site featuring bondage and sexual torture. Thralldom is defined as the condition of a servant or someone in moral or mental servitude.
A search by Illinois State Police of Internet mapping companies led to an exact match between features on a map sent to the Post-Dispatch and one found on Expedia.com.
Full Article:
click here
That aside, I do find it rather curious that after all these years, they've renewed interest in this case, specifically wrt cracking the "
code." The sequences containing the dashes are odd. My first thought was that they were software serials. Then again, perhaps they're case numbers? Or... something else...
The number of murders in the area (
18, thx for bringing this up river & bessie), in that time frame, seems rather astounding. And I agree. Trafficking could very well be a possibility. Timing wise, this renewed interest would certainly make more sense. That is, since trafficking is gaining more prominence in the news. Occam's razor, of course, says the renewed interest is purely due to the very natural desire to crack codes. I suppose we'll have to wait to see if old Occam is right in this case.
Either way, I've downloaded all that I could find on the serial killings and will be setting up a crime map. Maybe it will help to tease out (
or rule out, for that matter) various angles.