Wednesday, May 26, 2010
ALBION, Ill. — For the foreseeable future, accused serial killer Bruce D. Mendenhall's life will be filled with little more than serving jail time and being moved from state to state to stand trial for murder.
Last week, Mendenhall, a 59-year-old trucker from Albion, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of Sara Nicole Hulbert, a young Nashville, Tenn., woman.
On June 21, Mendenhall is scheduled to be in court in Wilson County, Tenn., for the slaying of Symantha Winters, 48, of Lebanon, Tenn. Just as in the slaying of Hulbert, Winters' body had also been dumped at an interstate truck stop.
Wilson County Assistant District Attorney Brian Fuller said Mendenhall is scheduled for an appearance June 21.
At that time, a series of court dates will be set and Mendenhall will meet with his court-appointed attorney. Fuller said it likely will be several months before Mendenhall's trial begins.
After Wilson County, Mendenhall's next trial is expected to be in Indianapolis for the July 12, 2007, shooting death of Carma Purpura. The Indianapolis trial could be challenging for prosecutors, as the victim's body has never been found.
In a probable cause affidavit filed in the Purpura case, Detective Tom Tudor stated that he received information from Nashville detectives that Mendenhall had made statements about a victim who had been shot in the back of the head at the Flying J Truck Stop on the south side of Indianapolis.
Mendenhall stated the victim was placed in a vehicle at the Hardees restaurant near the truck stop.
A search warrant obtained for Mendenhall's truck in Nashville yielded items belonging to Purpura.
Inside a bag full of bloody clothes, crime scene investigators found an ATM card belonging to Purpura, along with an ATM receipt from the same card. From the bag, police also recovered a floral blouse.
Video from an ATM that Purpura used shows she had been wearing the same blouse recovered from Mendenhall's truck. Investigators took a sample of blood from the blouse and matched the DNA to the biological parents of Purpura.
Despite an extensive search of the Flying J Truck Stop property and the nearby fast-food restaurant, authorities never located Purpura's body. Detectives discovered that all the trash bins near the Flying J Truck Stop and Hardees restaurants are routinely taken to a processing plant and incinerated.
On April 8, 2008, Dr. Bruce Levy, the chief medical examiner for the state of Tennessee, wrote in a report that it was his opinion that Purpura was no longer alive, based on the amount and location of the blood on various items of Purpura's clothing and other items belonging to the victim.
An assistant prosecutor from Indianapolis sat through Mendenhall's Nashville trial, gathering information for the upcoming Purpura trial.
After the Indianapolis trial, Mendenhall is expected to stand trial in Birmingham, Ala., for the July 1, 2007, shooting death of Lucille "Gretna" Carter, 44 of Birmingham.
Her body had been dumped in a ravine behind an interstate truck stop.
Although Mendenhall has given police detailed statements about the string of killings, he maintains that others committed the murders and he only disposed of the bodies.
Mendenhall remains in a Tennessee prison near Nashville pending transfer to Wilson County for his next trial.
While not formally charged, Mendenhall remains the prime suspect in the Feb. 22, 2007, slaying of Sherry Drinkard, 43, of Lake Station, Ind., and is under investigation for several other unsolved killings.