Route 40 Killer: Steven Brian Pennell and the Blue Van of Death

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November 29, 1987. It's Thanksgiving weekend. Two teenagers looking for a little privacy pull

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off on Route 40 in Delaware and spot what they think is a mannequin in the road. The boyfriend

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drives closer and that's when they realize it's a woman's body, bound and brutalized.

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This is the beginning of Delaware's only serial killer case.

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[Music]

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In the late 1980s, the stretch through Bear and Glasgow was lined with budget motels,

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truck stops and 24 hour diners. During the day, it looked like any American highway. At night,

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near construction sites and industrial areas, it felt isolated, vulnerable.

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Sex workers and hitchhikers used Route 40 because traffic was constant. The highway had this

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quality where you're near Wilmington, near civilization, but when darkness fell, you may as well

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have been in the middle of nowhere. That combination made it perfect for Stephen Bryan Penel.

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Shirley Anna Ellis was 23 in November 1987. She'd worked as a prostitute but was turning her

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life around, enrolled in nursing school. During the AIDS epidemic, when most people were terrified

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and healthcare workers refused to go near AIDS patients, Shirley was visiting them,

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bringing them food, showing up when society had abandoned them. On November 29, three days after

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Thanksgiving, Shirley left her family home around 6 p.m. carrying a platter that she'd prepared for

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an AIDS patient at Wilmington Hospital. She needed to make the 14-mile trek. Public transit basically

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didn't exist, so Shirley walked to Route 40 to hitchhike. That evening, a couple drove to a

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construction site looking for privacy. The boyfriend spotted something in the road. He told his

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girlfriend, "Hey, that looks like a mannequin." They drove closer. It wasn't. Shirley was found

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partially nude, hands and feet bound with adhesive tape, a ligature wound around her neck,

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her head bludgeoned with a hammer, the crucial detail. No sexual assault. The person who did this

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got off on the torture itself. Seven months passed, then on June 28, 1988, Catherine DeMaro, 31,

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was seen walking Route 40 around 11.30 p.m. By morning, construction workers found her naked body.

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Same pattern. Beaton-bound tortured. No sexual assault. Hammer. Strangulation. The

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Catherine's body gave investigators something new. She was covered in thousands of blue carpet fibers.

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Forensics determined they came from the vehicle's interior. Catherine had been forced to lie on a

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carpeted surface for an extended time. Every time she struggled, more fibers transferred to her body.

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Police now knew they were looking for a vehicle with distinctive blue carpeting.

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The FBI profile said they were dealing with a sadist who didn't need sexual penetration.

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The torture itself was the gratification. August 22, 1988. Margaret Lynn Finner, 27,

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goes missing. Last scene getting into a blue van. Her body was found near the Chesapeake and

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Delaware Canal, but decomposition destroyed most evidence. Penel was never charged, though

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everyone believes she was his victim. September 18, Michelle Gordon, 22, was seen entering a blue

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Ford van. A witness who knew both Michelle and a local electrician named Stephen Bryan Penel

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watched her climb in. Michelle's body was found September 20 on the rocks along the canal.

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The autopsy revealed cocaine in her system. The medical examiner believed the drugs weakened her

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heart and when Penel started torturing her, that shock caused her heart to stop before he'd finished.

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Michelle's body was dumped differently, tossed onto the rocks.

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Three days later, September 23, 26-year-old Kathleen Mayer vanishes. An off-duty officer spotted a

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young woman hitchhiking around 9.30 pm. He watched a blue Ford van pull over. Something felt off.

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So instead of intervening, he wrote down a license plate number as she climbed inside.

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The plate came back to Stephen Bryan Penel. Kathleen Mayer's body has never been found.

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Delaware police formed a massive task force. Over 60 officers, they brought in the FBI's

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behavioral science unit. They made a gutsy decision. Sinden a decoy. Officer Renee Trachner volunteered.

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She dressed like the women working Route 40. Got wired for sound and walked the dark highway while

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backup teams shattered her. On September 14, Renee noticed a blue Ford van cruise passed her seven

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times in 20 minutes. She moved to a darker stretch. The van stopped. The driver motion for her to come

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get in. Renee approached but did not get inside. She talked to the driver, a nervous white male who

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barely made eye contact. She later described his eyes as blank and cold, like there was no life

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behind them. While backup ran the plates, Renee had to think fast. She needed to see the inside

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without actually getting inside. She pretended to be interested in the van. She got him to turn on

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the dome light. When that light came on, Renee's heart stopped. The entire interior was covered

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in a distinctive blue carpet. The same fibers found on one of the victims. Renee made an excuse

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about being tired, saying that she needed to sleep. Penel got suspicious and drove off, but Renee

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had pulled fibers from the carpeting. Her backup team had the license plates, the driver's information

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everything. Stephen Bryan Penel, 31 years old, electrician, married father of two, without a criminal

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record. Police watched Penel for weeks. Renee ended up sitting next to a meta-moody blues concert

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during surveillance. His young daughter approached Renee to ask for a donation to a school fundraiser.

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Police observed Penel continuing to cruise Route 40, still hunting, even as the community panicked

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and the net was closing. On November 29, 1988, exactly one year after Shelley Ellis's body was found,

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Penel was arrested. Police searched the van. It was a mobile torture chamber. Eight pairs of

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pliers, handcuffs, whips, knives, needles, flex cuffs, two rolls of duct tape matching the tape

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used on victims. The blue carpet shedding fibers everywhere. Blood and hair samples matching the

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victims. Penel's trial began September 1989. First time DNA profiling was used in a Delaware criminal

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case. The science was so new that the judge held extensive hearings to determine "admissibility."

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They used RFLP testing to match blood from Penel's van to victims. The probability of it being someone

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else was essentially zero. The fiber evidence was equally damning. Perfect match. The jury convicted

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Penel of murdering Shelley Ellis and Catherine Demaro. They hung on Michelle Gordon because of her

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cause of death was complicated by cocaine. Penel received two consecutive life sentences,

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but prosecutors were not done. New evidence linked Penel to Michelle Gordon and Kathleen Mayor.

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They indicted him again. Penel then fired his attorneys and did the thing that I would encourage

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all serial killers to do? Represent yourself. He entered a no contest plea to both murders and then

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he asked to be sentenced to death. He cited the Bible, Numbers 3530 and Genesis 96. He framed his

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execution as God's law and state law aligning. He claimed he wanted to spare his family years of

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appeals. On October 31, 1991, the court sentenced him to death. A psychiatric evaluation described

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Penel as pleasant, attractive, friendly, no psychosis, no depression, no paranoia. The weird word

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there obviously being attractive. Because one, no he's not and two, why are you measuring that?

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So on March 14, 1992, Stephen Bryan Penel became the first person executed in Delaware in 46 years.

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In the days before, reporters tried to get him to reveal where he'd hidden Kathleen Mayor's body.

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Her family was begging. Penel refused almost every interview. Finally, he agreed to one with his

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lawyer present. He revealed nothing. When the time came for his last meal, Penel refused it. He

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didn't apologize to the family. He didn't show any remorse. He talked about abortion. He said he was

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refusing his last meal because 33 million babies had been aborted. Babies who died for no reason.

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While he was dying for a deed, he deserved death for. He was glad Christ forgave him. He said,

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"Those babies never got a first meal, so he wouldn't take a last meal in their memory." A man who

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tortured women to death with pliers and whips refused to tell a family where their daughter's body was

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hidden. He used his final breath to lecture about abortion and position himself as spiritually

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redeemed. After the conviction, prosecutor Kathleen Jennings received flowers. The card read,

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"You made us feel human again, from the women of Route 40." The women working that strip, women,

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society often ignored, sent flowers thinking the prosecutor for treating them like they mattered.

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Because to Penel, they didn't matter. They were objects he could use to satisfy his compulsion.

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To this day, Kathleen Mayor's family doesn't have a body to bury. Penel took that location to his grave.

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The case forced Delaware to professionalize its homicide investigations. It established DNA

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precedent still used today. But more than anything, it's a reminder that evil doesn't look like what we

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expect. Evil can be the guy who waves from his driveway. Evil can be the electrician with a wife

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and kids. Stephen Bryan Penel drove a blue van down a busy highway for over a year, hunting women

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in plain sight. Route 40 is still there. People still drive it every day. But for the families of those

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five women, that highway will forever be marked by the man who turned it into his personal nightmare.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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