 Long Haul by Frank
Figliuzzi Mariner
Books, 2024 I don’t review much non-fiction here, or anywhere else, but
a slim true crime, Long Haul by a former FBI Assistant Director, Frank
Figliuzzi, grabbed me by the nose and kicked me in the gut. Long Haul is
a different kind of true crime tale than I usually read because its focus is a
broad view of a specific type of crime (murders around the U.S. highway
system) with a specific type of victim (generally female sex workers)
committed by men working in the trucking industry; i.e. long-haul truck
drivers. While Figliuzzi discusses specific cases
of truck driver murderers, such as John Robert Williams, the so-called “Big
Rig Killer,” who confessed to killing dozens of women he picked up at truck
stops, he primarily focuses on the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings (HSK) initiative
while questioning—without making any conclusions—if the lonely isolation of
the road creates murderous monsters or these monstrous men are drawn to the industry
for some reason. According to the HSK, there have been at least 850 killings in
the United States in the past few decades linked to long-haul truck drivers with
more than 200 of those festering in the unsolved bin. Figliuzzi tackles the murders from three
angles. The first is by gaining an understanding of the trucking industry. He
interviews an old-time truck driver, now retired, with more than 40-years pushing
rigs and tags along for a week with a current driver to see what the roads are
like today. He provides the reader with a bug-spattered view of both the
rewards and the problems of driving—isolation and a type of sedentary overwork
coupled with low pay and the chaos of quotas, deadlines and uncontrollable factors
like weather, traffic, and truck maintenance. Second, Figliuzzi interviews the FBI’s lead
analyst in the HSK, and an expert with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation,
to get a handle on the breadth of the issue. What he discovers is the problem
may be larger than the numbers indicate because the initiative relies on
local law enforcement agencies to enter data in the FBI’s ViCAP (Violent
Criminal Apprehension Program) database, but many don’t. And finally, Figliuzzi
interviews social workers and survivors of truck stop human trafficking. These
women’s stories are harrowing and sobering. Sobering to me because my father
spent the better part of his working life in the trucking industry as a
diesel mechanic and later, after retiring, as a driver for a large commercial
outfit. He told stories that seemed funny to my much younger self. Like, as a
mechanic, finding a woman stashed away in a truck’s sleeper against company rules.
She was screaming high and my dad figured the driver was trying to hide his
girlfriend, but maybe it was more sinister than that. Long Haul was
like listening to my dad tell stories about long roads, angry customers, spoiled
loads, infuriating break-downs, and all the strange things he encountered as
both a driver and a mechanic. But while his antidotes were meant as entertainment,
Long Haul’s perspective is darker. It is as fascinating and as hair-raising
as anything I’ve ever read; and I tell you, I’ll never look at a truck stop
the same way. |
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