189. Maury Troy Travis: The Basement Tapes

About this episode

This episode explores the chilling case of Maury Troy Travis, a serial killer whose actions were uncovered through a letter and a map leading to a body.

In May of 2002, a St. Louis reporter received a letter with a map marked with an X and a chilling message: "To prove I'm real, here's directions to number seventeen." The map leads police to a body. And one digital mistake exposed a killer's darkest secrets. Between 2000 and 2002, at least twelve women vanished from the streets of St. Louis, their deaths barely noticed by a society that had already dismissed them. What investigators found in a suburban basement would out one of the most disturbing serial killers in American history. Sources: https://www.stltoday.com/ (Main site - archival articles from 2002) https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/us/internet-used-to-find-man-who-is-charged-in-2-of-10-killings.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jun-17-na-serial17-story.html https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132005&page=1 (Serial Killer's Home Movies) https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-found-serial-killer-lived-home-watching-tv/story?id=24467447 https://www.bnd.com/news/local/crime/article311186715.html https://fox2now.com/news/true-crime/serial-killer-maury-travis-the-street-walker-strangler/ https://www.semissourian.com/story/77256.html Forensic Files: "X…

People in this episode

Host: Paige Elmore

Topics covered

• true crime
• serial killers
• investigation
• missing persons
• St. Louis
• media coverage

Keywords

• Maury Troy Travis
• serial killer
• St. Louis
• missing women
• investigation
• Basement Tapes
• true crime

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: St. Louis, Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, Evil, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, ABC News, BND, Fox 2 Now, Southeast Missourian

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