Why The I-70 Killer May Have Killed A Man By Mistake

Serial killers often target their victims according to a "profile," per A&E. Which is to say, they often select a specific type of victim — perhaps only female sex workers or only blond-haired men. In the case of the so-called "I-70 Killer," who was active in the spring of 1992, all of his victims fit a specific profile as well. With one exception, according to KMOV, all of them were women working at specialty shops along Interstate 70 in the Midwest. The victims were killed at a time when there were likely to be few customers, and though the stores were robbed, the money didn't appear to be the murderer's primary motive. "[The killer's motive] has always simply seemed to be the thrill of killing," said St. Charles, Missouri Police Detective Donald Stepp.

However, there was one exception to the killer's targeted group. According to The DuBois County Herald, the murderer, who has still not been identified to this day, killed a man. What's more, evidence suggests that the perpetrator may have made a mistake in killing the man, whose murder ticks off all the other boxes that identify an I-70 Killer victim.

According to KMOV, at least six deaths have been definitively tied to the unidentified I-70 Killer, and authorities believe the murderer killed the man by mistake.

Specifically, according to WTWO, on April 27, 1992, the killer entered Sylvia's Ceramics in Terre Haute, Indiana, and shot and killed clerk Michael "Mick" McCown. But for the fact that McCown was a man, the murder bore all the other hallmarks of an I-70 Killer case: a single victim, at a specialty store, at a time when there would be few customers.

McCown's sister, Teresa Lee, said that she believed the murderer was expecting a woman inside. "I think he went into the ceramics shop because it's named 'Sylvia's.' My mom's name, expecting a woman," she said.

Whether the murderer thought McCown was a woman, or whether the murderer expected a woman and shot McCown simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, remains in dispute.