Justice, finally (local story)

[Rebel Yell]

 

February 28, 2008

ASHBURN, Ga. (AP) - A former long-distance trucker faces a murder charge in the stabbing death of a woman hitchhiker eleven years ago in south Georgia.

Officials said yesterday that 40-year-old Jeffrey Lynn Speck is accused of killing Michaella Swaney, whose body was found near Interstate 75 in Turner County on February 11th, 1997.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says the 32-year-old Swaney had been hitchhiking from Florida to her native Ohio. Witnesses described a suspicious tractor-trailer in the area shortly before her remains were found.

Investigators were stymied until March 2006 when DNA recovered from Swaney was matched to Speck, who was jailed in Texas at the time. The GBI says release of that information was delayed in order to complete the investigation.

It ended this month when GBI scientists determined that blood recovered from a tractor-trailer once used by Speck was Swaney's. Speck is being held in the Turner County Jail, charged with murder and concealing a death.

 
http://www.walb.com/global/story.asp?s=7938294
 
 

[mamacags]

There was a serial killer getting his victims off of I80.  I often wonder if he is still operating or if they caught him for something.  They really tried to hush it up when I was living in Iowa in 1998.