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Frank Figliuzzi drove a trucker for a week, enduring harsh conditions, to get a feel for the advantages a predatory driver might have in finding victims. Although most truck drivers are law-abiding (like the one Figliuzzi drove), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believes certain types of serial killers gravitate toward this isolated profession. Victims are easy to find, and the truck can provide a private and highly mobile killing space.

He used embedded journalism for his book. Long distance, Figliuzzi drew on several sources: law enforcement, social workers, trafficking victims, truck drivers, and solved murder cases. The most intense effort to identify and catch these killers is the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings (HSK) initiative, which for 15 years has been linking long-distance truck routes to murdered women found along the roads. Unsolved cases can date back 30 or 40 years.

Many of the victims were hitchhikers, runaways or sex workers looking for clients at rest stops. The database initially included 500 murdered women and girls and 200 possible suspects. According to Figliuzzi, there are now more than 850 cases and about 450 people under investigation. Several have been charged and convicted.

An investigation in Oklahoma in 2004 inspired the HSK database, which officially went live in 2009. The most widely reported success story is that of truck driver Robert Ben Rhoades. Rhoades had a sexual fetish for imprisonment and torture. He was arrested in Casa Grande, Arizona, in 1990 after a police officer found a living woman chained in his truck. Through link analysis, murder victims were added to Rhoades’ criminal portfolio.

Linkage analysis is the process of comparing physical and behavioral evidence from multiple crime scenes to determine if they are linked to a specific offender or group of offenders. The psychological basis for the FBI’s profiling methodology is based on probability analysis. In the case of truckers, data from routes, driving reports, and camera footage are also used for the analysis.

Back to Rhoades. 14-year-old Regina Walters and her 18-year-old boyfriend Ricky Jones disappeared while hitchhiking in Texas. Walters’ body turned up in a barn in Utah. The timing and location matched Rhoades’ travel schedule. Through the cooperation of law enforcement, Rhoades was linked to this unsolved case, largely due to photographs of Walters in Rhoades’ possession. Jones’ body was found in Mississippi. Rhoades was eventually convicted of two murders, but he is suspected of committing as many as 50 murders. He has confessed to two more.

Figliuzzi, a former FBI deputy director of counterintelligence, interviewed one of the HSK analysts to provide a basic overview of how the program works. “I have been collecting information on the FBI’s Highway Serial Killing Initiative,” he told an A&E reporter, “and I am reporting and disseminating it with the intent of not only exposing and deterring the threat, but hopefully stopping some of the murders that are happening along our nation’s highways.”

By riding along with a trucker, sleeping in the cab, following a grueling schedule and talking with other truckers, Figliuzzi revealed the challenges that could lead some men to become aggressive. It’s stressful, lonely and often frustrating, not to mention unhealthy. Some truckers develop drug addictions, particularly meth. They barely move and often have to resort to junk food. On the darker side, those with predatory intentions can take advantage of the isolation to avoid getting caught. They can pick up victims, take them miles away from places they might have been seen together, kill them and leave the bodies somewhere along the route. The freedom of movement and victims willing to get into their trucks give them ample opportunity.

Victim research is key. Figliuzzi also spoke with people connected to the truckers’ sex trafficking. Truckers call the women and girls they recruit “load lizards,” devaluing them. These women have few advocates, but some fight to protect them. Celia Williamson, a social work professor at the University of Toledo and founder of Ohio’s first anti-human trafficking program, is dedicated to raising awareness about sex trafficking. Figliuzzi interviewed them to get a better picture of the murder victims (though many are also victims of rape, beatings and robberies).

Williamson described the power imbalance between the truckers, who are free and rich, and the women, who are addicted, hungry, homeless, scared and slaves to demanding pimps. Police, she said, often fail to take their plight seriously. As for the type of woman most likely to become a murder victim, Williamson offered a complex typology that included drugs, pimp control, income and transaction locations. Those with strong “chat and control skills” are more likely to stay safe. They can spot signs of trouble with customers or cops and “plan a quick escape.”

And what about prevention? It seems that things have changed in the transportation industry, especially in corporate transportation, where there is much more accountability. Technology allows for close monitoring of drivers’ behavior and whereabouts. This helps the HSK program and can also prevent random murder. Yet, despite the increase in online appointments, victims are still quite vulnerable. The trucker may take a taxi or use a rideshare to a location where he is difficult to find. In addition, some perpetrators leave their trucks to search for victims. Edward A. Surratt drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania and got out of his truck to break into homes looking for women to rape and kill. He confessed to a dozen murders.

Figliuzzi’s immersion in this subculture draws attention to a special type of investigation that deserves support. Some of the victims are still children. They all need better protection. The FBI takes this seriously.