Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer

by Bob Cyphers

In 1992, a store clerk was found shot to death in broad daylight at the Boot Village in St. Charles, Missouri. Nothing was stolen and there was no sexual assault. This bizarre and seemingly isolated murder was quickly connected with others in Indianapolis, Wichita, Terre Haute, and Raytown. The media dubbed the suspect “The I-70 Serial Killer.” He has never been captured, and the story quickly fell out of the media’s attention. But the cases never went cold for the officers in those cities.

In 2021, with the advancements in DNA, St. Charles Police Captain Raymond Floyd launched a task force, bringing all jurisdictions together along with federal agencies to take one final crack at solving the crimes. The task force selected Bob Cyphers of KMOV-TV to follow them along, city by city, in the hunt for the killer. Cyphers and his KMOV crew produced a seven-part award winning series called “Chasing the I-70 Serial Killer.” Their work led to national exposure of the case in People magazine and on the Discovery Channel, winning an Edward R. Murrow Award and being nominated for an Emmy.

Dead Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer follows on the work done by the task force with the important goal of keeping the story alive in the public eye. New evidence, never before available to the public, is revealed here, with the hopes of triggering a memory or revealing a new lead. The task force may be closed, but the drive to find this killer is alive and well.

Genres: True Crime

186 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 9, 2024

Reviews

[ForenSeek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The key thing to understand here is that this book is essentially a kind of companion piece to Cyphers’ earlier reporting on the ”I-70 Killer”. The actual murders are almost an afterthought, as the author concentrates on endless interviews with the investigators, whose words (and, by extension, the book itself) become repetitive. The most interesting aspect of this work is the portion dealing with the forensics of the case: for example, there’s a fascinating segment dealing with the bizarre, rare gun the killer used, an ”Erma Werke ET22”. If you’re not familiar with the I-70 Killer, I would recommend watching a documentary on the case before picking up this book. For those of us familiar with the basic story, there’s enough here to warrant the existence of this book for sure. A stronger linear narrative would have made ”Dead End” a better read.

[Tony Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bob Cyphers reported on this case in 1992 and he has written a fantastic book about the unsolved I-70 murders. I discovered this case years ago and have been interested in reading more about the case. I was pleased to hear Bob was writing a book about the case because I watched his documentary for KMOV TV in St Louis. Bob Cyphers delivered. He has worked with the families and law enforcement. This is a proper deep-dive into a mystery that needs to be solved. Well done, Bob!

[Nic Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

great job

This is a great book. Written by a man who lived portions of the story. Bob’s great work will certainly help this case. Because of “Dead End” we finally get to go beyond the headlines and the newspaper stories. Bob added color and character to the stories and hopefully was able to breathe new life into the investigation.