Behind the Cab Door: Regina Walters, Patricia Walsh and Douglas Zyskowski

The truck was parked on the shoulder of Interstate 10, its hazard lights blinking.

It was the early morning of April 1, 1990, at the city limits of Casa Grande, Arizona. Arizona trooper Mike Miller pulled over to check on the driver.

When he shined his light into the cab, a woman inside screamed. She was naked, handcuffed and chained in the sleeper.

The driver got out. By Miller’s account, the man calmly told him everything was all right.

His name was Robert Ben Rhoades. He was a long-haul trucker from Houston. He later pleaded guilty to the murders of a 14-year-old girl, Regina Walters, and two newlyweds, Douglas Zyskowski and Patricia Walsh.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 4

Two people headed east

In November 1989, Douglas Scott Zyskowski, 28, and Patricia Walsh, 24, left Seattle together. They were newlyweds. They were hitchhiking to Georgia to preach, authorities said. The Deseret News gave Douglas’s age as 25.

Near El Paso, Texas, they accepted a ride from Rhoades.

Police believe Rhoades held Patricia captive for about a week, torturing and assaulting her, before he shot her several times. That week is an investigators’ estimate. No one has laid out the exact timeline in public.

In January 1990, Douglas’s body was found beside Interstate 10 east of Ozona, Texas, about 320 miles east of El Paso. He had been shot. He went unidentified until 1992.

Sources for this section: 2, 3

A girl from Pasadena

Regina Kay Walters was last seen at her mother’s apartment in Pasadena, Texas, on February 3, 1990. She had left with an 18-year-old boyfriend, who told friends the two of them planned to hitchhike to Mexico.

The public record says little else about who Regina, Douglas and Patricia were.

Sources for this section: 1, 2

The notebook

The woman in the truck in Arizona survived. She told investigators that Rhoades had tortured and whipped her.

Rhoades was arrested that day. He was later convicted in Arizona of aggravated assault, sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment.

Among the things inside the truck was a notebook. It belonged to Regina.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 4

Houston

After the Arizona stop, investigators got a warrant to search Rhoades’s home in Houston. They found women’s clothing and items that could be used to restrain a person. They found photographs of women. Regina was in some of them.

Some of the pictures showed her inside his truck. Others showed her standing in front of a barn.

Sources for this section: 1

The women who got away

The Illinois court record describes another woman, identified there only by her initials. Rhoades took her from California to Houston, the record says, and kept her chained in the back of his truck for about two weeks while he raped her. She escaped. Tucson Weekly reported she was 18, and that she got away when he failed to close a handcuff.

Houston police also found a woman who had escaped him, and she told a story of torture much like the one told in Arizona. The reports don’t say whether she is the woman in the Illinois court record.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 4

The barn on Interstate 70

Rhoades kept trip logs for his job. Those logs put him on Interstate 70 in Bond County, Illinois, in February or March 1990.

On September 29, 1990, Regina’s body was found in a barn along Interstate 70. It was an abandoned farm near Greenville, Illinois. She had been strangled with baling wire.

The photographs from Houston showed her in front of that same barn.

Prosecutors later charged that she was killed sometime between February 3 and March 17, 1990.

The boy she left Texas with was never located, according to reports at the time of Rhoades’s 2012 plea.

Sources for this section: 1, 2

Millard County

In October 1990, deer hunters found Patricia’s remains 22 miles south of Fillmore, in Millard County, Utah.

No one knew who she was. Her remains sat unidentified in the basement of the Millard County Sheriff’s Office for 13 years.

Sources for this section: 3

Natural life

In May 1992, Illinois prosecutors filed notice that they would seek the death penalty. On September 11, 1992, under a negotiated deal, Rhoades pleaded guilty to Regina’s first-degree murder. He was sentenced to natural life in prison.

He later challenged the plea and the sentence. In July 2001, the Illinois Appellate Court let the judgment stand.

Sources for this section: 1

Her name

In 2003, dental records identified the woman found in Millard County.

Patricia Candace Walsh.

Sources for this section: 2, 3

Sutton County

Utah charged Rhoades in Patricia’s death first. That charge was dropped after Utah agreed, at the families’ request, to let Texas try him for both murders. Texas authorities said that was where the couple had been kidnapped. Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty. The trial was delayed again and again.

In March 2012, in Sutton County, Texas, Rhoades pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder. He took two life sentences with no chance of parole, and gave up his right to appeal. The Texas sentences would keep him locked up even if he were ever released in Illinois.

Sources for this section: 2, 3

Menard

Investigators have long suspected there were more victims. In 2012, the FBI said investigations involving Rhoades were continuing.

No court has tied Rhoades to any killing beyond these three. The full count of what he did on those highways has never been established.

Rhoades is still alive. As of October 2026, he is 80 and held at Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. The state lists him as ineligible for release.

Regina Kay Walters was 14. Douglas Scott Zyskowski was 28. Patricia Candace Walsh was 24.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5