Robert Joseph Silveria Jr. (born March 3, 1959), also known as The Boxcar Killer, is an American serial killer currently serving double life sentences in Wyoming. Silveria was also convicted in Kansas for the killing of Charles Randall Boyd, and in Florida for the killing of Willie Clark.[1][2]
For 15 years, Silveria rode the rails, killing fellow freight-train riders throughout the United States. A police detective and prosecutor in Salem, Oregon unravelled the truth of Silveria's killing spree, which began with a murder in Salem. By the end of their investigation, Silveria had confessed to murdering 28 people.[3]
Willie James Clark, 54, was found dead on April 28, 1994, in Tallahassee, Florida. Clark, though homeless, worked as a Salvation Army bell ringer. He was robbed and suffered a fatal blow to the head.[5]
Darren Royal Miller, 19, was found dead in his sleeping bag on July 8, 1992, in Thompson Springs, Utah. Miller and two friends stopped to party one night near a pond, and Miller was found the following morning with severe head injuries. Though never charged, Silveria was linked to the murder of Miller following his arrest.[6][7]
Michael A. Garfinkle, 20, was found bludgeoned to death on August 2, 1994, in Emeryville, California. Garfinkle, originally from Tarzana, recently graduated from Pierce College and was planning to ride boxcars with a friend to Santa Cruz, California. After Silveria confessed, police noted that he had intimate knowledge of the crime.[6][7][8]
Roger Lee Bowman, 38, was found dead on April 21, 1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bowman was last seen walking his dog along the train tracks. Police had already identified Silveria as a suspect before he confessed to beating and stabbing Bowman, but they were looking for him using the alias Brad Foster.[7][9]
James E. McLean, 50, was found stabbed to death on July 23, 1995, in his shack at a homeless encampment in Albany, Oregon. Silveria confessed he met McLean walking along the railroad tracks near his shack. After McLean was murdered, Silveria stole his money.[6][7]
Charles Randall Boyd, 46, was found bludgeoned to death on July 28, 1995, in a collapsed tent in a Kanopolis Lake campground. Boyd met Silveria in El Paso, Texas while Boyd was building a bunkhouse for a youth ranch and later traveled with him to Kansas.[6][10][11]
Paul Wayne Matthews, 43, was found dead on October 15, 1995, in a homeless encampment outside Whitefish, Montana. Following his arrest on March 2, 1996, Silveria confessed to killing Matthews.[6]
Michael Andrew Clites, 24, was found bludgeoned to death on December 5, 1995, in Portland, Oregon.[6][12]
At the time of Silveria's arrest, he was found with Pettit's backpack, social security card, birth certificate, food stamps, and hair beads. Also in the backpack was Matthews' identification card and food stamp documents, as well as Boyd's credit cards.[6][10]
The Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) is a national group who move about America by freight hopping in railroad cars, particularly in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada, and have sometimes been linked to crimes and train derailments.
Carol Mary Bundy was an American double murderer and suspected serial killer. Bundy and Doug Clark became collectively known as the Sunset Strip Killers after being convicted of a series of lust murders in Los Angeles during the late spring and early summer of 1980.
William Lester Suff, also known as The Riverside Prostitute Killer and The Lake Elsinore Killer, is an American serial killer.
Keith Eugene Wells was an American murderer convicted of the 1990 murders of John Justad and Brandi Rains in Boise, Idaho. He was executed in 1994 by the state of Idaho at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution via lethal injection only one year and nine months after having been sentenced to death by Judge Gerald Schroeder. Wells was the first person to be executed in Idaho since Raymond Snowden was hanged in 1957 and only the tenth since Idaho gained statehood. He chose not to appeal the death sentence although it was appealed on his behalf. The United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed against his wishes.
Henry Ruhl was a spree killer and the only person executed in Wyoming by the U.S. government. This was also the second-to-last pre-Furman execution in the state and third-to-last as of 2022.
The Villisca axe murders occurred between the evening of June 9, 1912, to the early morning of June 10, 1912; in the town of Villisca, Iowa, in the United States. The six members of the Moore family and two guests were found bludgeoned in the Moore residence. All eight victims, including six children, had severe head wounds from an axe. A lengthy investigation yielded several suspects, one of whom was tried twice. The first trial ended in a hung jury and the second ended in an acquittal.
Scott William Cox is a suspected American serial killer, convicted on two separate counts of homicide in 1993 in Portland, Oregon, and suspected of many more. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was granted parole in 2013, five years early. He currently is serving a post-prison supervision term of life. He is also the prime suspect in 20 unsolved murder cases throughout the United States and Canada, although charges were never brought against him.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
William Paul "Bud" Thompson was an American criminal, spree killer, and self-described serial/contract killer. Convicted for three murders committed between March and April 1984 in California and Nevada, he later confessed to three additional murders in three other states. Sentenced to death for a Nevada killing, he withdrew his appeals and was subsequently executed in 1989.
Christine Lee Silawan, a 16-year-old high school student and church collector, was found dead in a vacant lot in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. Her body was discovered with multiple stab wounds and her face skinned beyond recognition. She was also naked from the waist down and raped.
John Joseph Fautenberry was an American serial killer. A long-haul trucker, Fautenberry befriended and subsequently murdered five people across four states between 1990 and 1991, and after his arrest, confessed to an additional 1984 murder for which another man was convicted. He was sentenced to death for one of his killings, and subsequently executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in 2009.
Phillip J. Coleman Jr. was an American spree killer and self-confessed serial killer who was convicted of a double murder in Lothrop, Montana committed on July 24, 1943, together with accomplice Louis Brown. On the day of his execution, he published a written confession admitting to 23 total murders across the United States and Canada, providing details for eight of them, including one for which he had been suspected previously but never charged.
Anthony Joe LaRette Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist. Convicted of one murder in St. Charles, Missouri in 1980, he later confessed to thirty-one murders in eleven states dating back to the late 1960s, fifteen of which were closed based on information provided by him. Sentenced to death for his sole conviction, LaRette was executed in 1995.
Harold W. Meade III was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who bludgeoned three mentally disabled individuals to death on August 12, 1970, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was later arrested in December of the same year, and pleaded guilty to the murders in 1972. In addition to the three murders he was convicted of, Meade is suspected of committing several other killings in Connecticut dating back to 1969. In 2007, Meade died from an illness in prison.
Leslie Leon Burchart was an American serial killer who killed three homeless men and wounded a fourth in Richmond, Virginia, from 1994 to 1996. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for these crimes, but not long after, he confessed to killing four women as part of the so-called Golden Years Murders.
The killing of Jim Matthews was the September 2022 killing of news-radio anchor Jim Matthews at his home in Chesterfield Township, Michigan.
The Great Basin Murders is the name given to a series of murders of at least nine women committed between 1983 and 1997 across the states of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. It derives its name from the Great Basin geographical area, as most of the victims had their bodies dumped near interstate highways that transverse it.
David Villarreal is an American serial killer who tortured and killed at least five gay men in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas, from 1978 to 1981. Additionally suspected in two other murders committed in similar fashion, Villarreal was convicted of his confirmed killings in two trials and was given multiple life sentences.
References
↑ "Death on the rails". The Guardian. 26 March 1999. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
