ALBION, IL - Bruce Mendenhall, a 56-year-old truck driver, was arrested Thursday in Nashville, TN. Police say he confessed to six murders including that of a Suwanee woman.
Many people in his southern Illinois town thought Bruce Mendenhall was loud, hot-tempered and a little peculiar, but they were still stunned to hear police say he has confessed to killing six people.
``Everyone's in disbelief that we had an individual living here like this,'' Albion Mayor Ryan Hallam said Friday.
Mendenhall, a 56-year-old truck driver who once ran unsuccessfully for mayor in Albion, was arrested Thursday in Nashville, Tenn., at the same interstate truck stop where 25-year-old Sara Hulbert was found fatally shot two weeks ago.
Mendenhall was charged with criminal homicide, and police said he confessed to killing five other people: another Nashville woman; women in Indianapolis and Lake Station, Ind.; one woman in Suwanee, Ga.; and a person in Birmingham, Ala.
Illinois State Police were preparing to search Mendenhall's house Friday. The small white house surrounded by cornfields had been roped off with police tape since Thursday.
``We're looking for any items of evidence of first degree murder,'' state police Lt. Tom Oliverio said.
A court-appointed attorney for Mendenhall did not immediately return a call.
A Nashville police detective recognized Mendenhall's rig and trailer from a description of a truck that had been spotted at the truck stop shortly before Hulbert's body was found, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by a Nashville prosecutor.
When Sgt. Pat Postiglione approached Mendenhall he noticed blood inside the driver's door of his cab and what appeared to be blood on Mendenhall's left thumb and inside a trash bag behind the driver's seat.
Nashville police say Mendenhall confessed, and then gave them details about five other killings:
He told police he killed Symantha Winters, 48, of Nashville, whose body was found June 6 stuffed in a trash can at a truck stop in Lebanon, 26 miles east of Nashville. She had been fatally shot.
Police in Lake Station, Ind., are investigating whether Mendenhall was responsible for the Feb. 22 shooting death of 43-year-old Sherry Drinkard at a truck stop.
Indianapolis police said they have thus far been unable to match the information Mendenhall gave to Nashville detectives with any unsolved murders.
Police Capt. Clyde Byers in Suwanee, Ga., said Mendenhall was being investigated for the killing of Deborah Ann Glover, 43, of Atlanta, who was found dead Jan. 29 in a motel parking lot in that town.
Birmingham, Ala., police Lt. Henry Irby said that department is looking into whether Mendenhall could be connected to the July 1 shooting death of Lucille Carter.
Word of Mendenhall's arrest swept like wildfire through Albion, which has only about 2,000 residents.
The mayor said Mendenhall married with two grown children was ``a little different'' from other people in town. He had a loud voice, but generally kept to himself, aside from an unsuccessful campaign against a preacher for the mayor's seat about a decade ago.
``He didn't mix well with the others around him, but we never had any problems with him,'' Hallam said.
Mendenhall apparently ran for office because he was angry at the city for ordering him to clear junked cars from his property, Albion Police Chief Doyle Judge said.
``We've had a few encounters with him, but nothing of any great magnitude,'' Judge said, noting only one disruption over a traffic stop involving Mendenhall's daughter.
``Otherwise, you didn't hear from him,'' said Judge, a 34-year veteran of law enforcement in Edwards County, among the tiniest in Illinois, with about 6,000 residents. ``He had some different concepts on things. He appeared to be pretty easily upset, provoked, that kind of thing.''
Mendenhall has no known criminal record, Sgt. Joe Murphy of the Illinois State Police said Friday.
Neighbor Kiley Barnett, a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom, said she always thought the entire family was weird, ``especially him.'' She said they would never wave hello when they drove past her mobile home.
``I've tried waving at him a hundred different times and nobody in the car ever waved back,'' she said.
Associated Press writers Jim Suhr in St. Louis and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Thursday
January 30th, 2025
6:40PM
