In a way, the FBI's national Highway Serial Killings initiative originated with an Oklahoma man who needed to take a restroom break.

On Sept. 18, 2003, a Tulsa-area pharmaceutical salesman was driving east on Interstate 40 when his bladder began to get the best of him.

Realizing he couldn't make it to the next rest stop, he exited at rural Tiger Mountain Road near Henryetta.

At the end of the ramp, dirt roads led off in three directions. The area was isolated and undeveloped. High grass rose out of the ditches. And something smelled terrible.

At first, the salesman didn't recognize the object in the ditch about 10 feet away.

"She was buck naked and face down,” he said.

"Your mind tells you it's a deer. It's a goat. It's anything but a human being. My mind would not even allow me to entertain that as reality until, as I looked at her limbs and followed her arm out to one of her hands, I saw a ring on her finger.

"At that moment, in that second, it was undeniable, and my mind finally accepted that this was a human.”

Salesman's discovery prompts initiative

The salesman, whose story was confirmed by law enforcement and who asked that his name not be published, had found the body of 43-year-old Sandra Beard, a truck stop prostitute with ties to Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation began looking into Beard's death.

Terri Turner, a crime analyst, sent out a Teletype to other agencies. Within three days, she learned of two women who'd died similar deaths.

Beard was the third prostitute to die in the space of three months.

By Jan. 31, 2004, four more women had died.

A task force was formed to investigate the deaths, and information about each case was sent to the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP.

As the FBI got more involved, it became clear that the seven deaths in and around Oklahoma weren't isolated cases.

The FBI's Highway Serial Killings initiative, announced last year, grew out of the salesman's discovery and the hard work and diligence of Turner and other regional law enforcement professionals.

Over the past 40 years, the FBI has said, more than 500 people have been killed near or along highways.

Most are women like Beard "who are living high-risk, transient lifestyles, often involving substance abuse and prostitution,” according to the FBI's website.

"They're frequently picked up at truck stops or service stations and sexually assaulted, murdered and dumped along a highway.”

FBI analysts have compiled a list of about 200 potential suspects, mainly long-haul truck drivers.

The bureau will not identify the suspects or the victims, although USA Today reported recently that at least 10 suspects have been arrested in at least 30 deaths.

(The FBI denied a Freedom of Information Act request by the national newspaper, which was seeking names, abduction or death dates and locations of the victims.)

Turner said that to the best of her knowl- edge, none of the Oklahoma cases have been adjudicated.

There have been few recent developments

Charges have been filed in one of the 2003 deaths, though.

A grand jury charged John Robert Williams, 33, with capital murder in the death of Vickie Helen Anderson, 45, a prostitute who was last seen alive in Sayre.

Her body was found in the Texas Panhandle.

Williams, who was a truck driver, and his girlfriend, Rachel Cumberland, were arrested in 2004.

He pleaded guilty to abducting and murdering a Mississippi woman and was sentenced to life in prison.

His girlfriend pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a 20-year sentence.

They were charged in the 2003 death of Oklahoma City prostitute Jennifer Hyman, 24, but the charges were dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Williams remains a suspect in the 2004 death of prostitute Casey Jo Pipestem, 19, of Oklahoma City.

Her body was dumped in Grapevine, Texas.

There have been few recent developments, Turner said.

"The main thing is that at this point, it has moved on and is a national initiative through VICAP and the FBI,” she said.

"It has expanded in scope from where it started out in 2003 with the Sandra Beard case. Now it's able to reach investigators and provide training and education to other law enforcement agencies.”

The pharmaceutical salesman, who now lives in Edmond, still thinks about Beard often.

"It has affected me,” he said Friday.

"I haven't required therapy, and I haven't had professional help. But I drive extensively, and when I'm at a Love's Country Store taking a leak and a trucker walks in, I think, 'Are you the guy? Are you the one?'”