Bruce Mendenhall

Case record: Bruce Mendenhall

Background

Bruce Mendenhall grew up in Crawford County, Illinois. He was married and has two daughters. Mendenhall ran a long-haul truck.

Neighbors reported that Mendenhall had shunned neighbors as he drove home in his semi and ignored friendly waves. One neighbor said Mendenhall and his wife, Linda, unexpectedly stopped in her driveway and Linda showed items in a catalog while Mendenhall stayed in the car. A separate neighbor said Mendenhall had not really had run-ins with the law, and that his family had a normal life with a steady job and healthy daughters.

Albion Mayor Ryan Hallam said Mendenhall had been upset with Rev. Bill Rucker over a trash ordinance violation and that Mendenhall dominated conversations around town after the arrest.

The offence

Mendenhall was convicted of plotting to kill three witnesses in his upcoming murder trial. Jurors did not find him guilty of trying to kill two Metro police detectives while behind bars.

Mendenhall had been charged in separate cases involving killings in multiple states, including Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, and Georgia. Police suspected his involvement in other killings in Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Investigation

A Nashville police detective arrested Mendenhall at a truck stop where the body of Sara Nicole Hulbert was found June 26. The detective planned a follow-up interview in the Hulbert investigation and noticed a tractor-trailer rig that matched the description of one that was spotted shortly before Hulbert’s body was found.

The detective searched Mendenhall’s semi and saw blood in several places, including:

• on Mendenhall’s left thumb,
• on the inside of the driver’s door,
• inside a trash bag behind the driver’s seat, as described in a police affidavit.

Under questioning, Mendenhall reportedly confessed to killing Hulbert and five other women.

Police also searched truck stops south of Indianapolis where Mendenhall claimed they would find two bodies, but found nothing. Indianapolis authorities alerted the Indiana State Police in Evansville about a possible connection to a missing person case in the district’s six-county area, and forwarded information to the FBI.

Illinois State Police searched Mendenhall’s home and declined to say what they were looking for.

Arrest

Mendenhall was arrested at a truck stop on Interstate 24 in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 12, 2007, after Detective Sgt. Pat Postiglione spotted a truck matching surveillance footage from the night Sara Nicole Hulbert was murdered at another truck stop in downtown Nashville.

Upon inspection, police found a large quantity of bloody clothing in a plastic sack and took Mendenhall into custody.

Police catalogued 300 items from the truck, including:

• a rifle,
• knives,
• handcuffs,
• latex gloves,
• several weapons cartridges,
• black tape,
• a nightstick,
• sex toys.

Sampling of these items turned up the DNA of five different women.

On August 2, Mendenhall waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was expected to return to court in six to eight weeks.

Trial

Not guilty plea (Nashville homicide)

On October 24, 2007, Mendenhall pleaded not guilty in a Nashville homicide case involving Sara Nicole Hulbert, 25. His attorney was Jason Gichner, and the plea was entered by video arraignment.

Murder-for-hire trial (soliciting murder while in jail)

On January 15, 2010, Mendenhall was convicted of plotting to kill three witnesses in his upcoming murder trial.

Jurors began deliberating around 2:30 p.m. and reached a verdict just before 6 p.m.

In the week before the verdict, jurors heard testimony from two inmates who said Mendenhall approached them and asked them to commit murders:

• Former inmate Roy McLaughlin said he was serving time for explosives charges when Mendenhall came to him for help. The courtroom exchange included:
  • McLaughlin: "There were her and two others. I had to get rid of them."
  • Prosecutor Rachel Sobrero: "What were his words to the best of your recollection?"
  • McLaughlin: "How much C-4 would it take to blow up a trailer?"
• Michael Jenkins testified that he met Mendenhall in the Metro jail in 2008 and that Mendenhall asked him to kill two Metro police detectives investigating the death of Sara Hulbert. Jenkins said:
  • "He was belligerent about those two officers,"
  • "He wanted those two officers dead. That's point blank what he said."

The jury did not believe Jenkins and did not find Mendenhall guilty of soliciting the murders of the detectives. Sobrero said:

• "He had a long criminal history, and they didn't have the corroboration. It wasn't on tape."

Hulbert’s family expressed approval of the conviction:

• Roxanna Wayman, Hulbert’s sister, said: "We're happy with the three out of the five verdicts. We're just one step closer to getting the justice we've been waiting two years for."

Mendenhall was scheduled to return to court for sentencing in the murder-for-hire case on February 26.

Sentencing

On February 26, 2010, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier sentenced Bruce Mendenhall to 30 years in prison for soliciting murder while in jail.

Mendenhall received 10 years for each count to be served consecutively.

Metro Detective Pat Postiglione, who was a target of the plot, said:

• "When you are putting people away in prison, potentially for the rest of their lives, I guess you could possibly become a target for those reasons, so we take it very serious,”

Mendenhall was described as being scheduled to go to trial for Sarah Hulbert’s death in May.

Appeals

No appeal outcome was provided.

Outcome

Mendenhall was convicted of plotting to kill three witnesses in his upcoming murder trial and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for soliciting murder while in jail.

Aftermath

Hulbert’s sister Roxanna Wayman said after sentencing:

• "I guess it's a little more closer to closure for us. Hopefully this will help with Sara's case, because now he actually has a record,"

Postiglione said it was the first time in his more than 30 years of law enforcement work that he had known of someone trying to kill him.

While Mendenhall was in jail, his wife died of natural causes. He also approached two inmates with offers to pay them $15,000 to murder the three associates he had fingered for murders in his original statement to police. One planned murder was described as a “copycat” fashion to lead police to believe the killer was still at large.

Mendenhall was initially accused of solicitation of the murders of two detectives involved in his arrest and questioning, but those charges were later dropped.

Other details

Mendenhall implicated himself in multiple shootings across states. Police described his victims as primarily young prostitutes, usually found shot, and detectives determined his method of killing may have changed over the years.

Police said Mendenhall implicated himself in the shooting death of:

• Sara Nicole Hulbert, whose body was found June 26, 2007.
• Symantha Winters, whose body was found June 6, 2007 in a trash can at a truck stop in Lebanon, Tennessee. Winters had a criminal record showing at least one previous charge of prostitution.
• A July 11, 2007 killing where Mendenhall left a body in a car at a Flying J truck stop on Interstate 465 in Indianapolis, Indiana; the body had yet to be found or identified.

A Wilson County grand jury indicted Mendenhall for the murder of Winters on August 17, 2007.

Police in Birmingham, Alabama charged Mendenhall with the murder of Lucille "Gretna" Carter. Carter was found nude in a trash bin with a plastic bag taped around her head on July 1, and she was shot with a .22-caliber pistol.

Investigators said police were investigating additional murders possibly involving Mendenhall, including:

• Deborah Ann Glover, whose body was found near a Motel 6 in Suwanee, Georgia on January 29, 2007. Police said they were certain Mendenhall was in Georgia on the day Glover was shot.
• Sherry Drinkard, a prostitute from Gary, Indiana whose body was found naked in a snow embankment.
• Tammy Zywicki, a student found stabbed to death on September 2, 1992. She vanished from Interstate 80 near LaSalle, Illinois nine days before after dropping off her brother at Northwestern University.
• Jennifer Smith, a prostitute found nude at a truck stop in Bucksnort, Tennessee in April 2005.
• Robin Bishop, a prostitute who was run over at a truck stop on Interstate 40 in Fairview, Tennessee on July 1, 2007.
• Belinda Cartwright, a hitchhiker who was run over at a truck stop in Georgia in 2001.

A composite police sketch made of the suspect based on information from witnesses was described as bearing a striking resemblance to Mendenhall.

The record also described Carma Purpura, a 31-year-old mother of two, who was last seen July 11, 2007 at a Far-Southside Indianapolis truck stop. Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi charged Mendenhall with murder in her case on April 10, 2008. Her body was never recovered, but DNA tests linked a large quantity of the blood from Mendenhall’s truck cab to Purpura’s parents. Investigators found Purpura’s cell phone, ATM card and clothing she wore on the day she disappeared.

The record described Mendenhall as initially cooperative with investigators but later ceased to implicate himself in other murders.

A Nashville homicide plea referenced Sara Nicole Hulbert, 25, and noted that she was found dead with gunshot wounds on June 26 at a truck stop along Interstate 24 in Nashville. Her case was followed by charging and arraignment steps described in October 2007.

The record linked Mendenhall to a Nashville missing woman, Latisha Yvonne Milliken. A sample of Milliken’s DNA matched blood found in Mendenhall’s truck. Milliken was 28 when she was reported missing on June 26, 2007. The family reported her missing the same day Sara Hulbert’s body was found at a North First Street truck stop. Milliken was last known to be homeless and living near Tent City, a makeshift camp off Hermitage Avenue for Nashville’s homeless, and had a history of prostitution offenses in Metro. The investigation continued with Milliken still considered a missing person.

Mendenhall was described as being charged in multiple places, including murder in Tennessee, Alabama, and Indiana, and as a suspect in a homicide in Georgia. He was also described as charged with five counts of soliciting help in an alleged plot to kill homicide detectives Postiglione and Lee Freeman as well as three witnesses in the murder case.