Fate and the I-70 Serial Killer: Dead End Essay
Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer by Bob Cyphers
Small decisions. Split seconds. A series of seemingly innocent moments… that ended in murder.
In 1992, a store clerk was shot in broad daylight at the Boot Village in St. Charles, Missouri. Nothing was stolen. There was no clear motive. Soon, similar murders were linked across multiple states—and the media named the suspect “The I-70 Serial Killer.”
Though headlines moved on, investigators never gave up. In 2021, a renewed task force formed, and journalist Bob Cyphers followed them through each city, helping bring national attention to the case. His writing, like this essay, explores the quiet moments that changed everything.
This piece is a meditation on fate—and how a single choice, or chance moment, can lead to tragedy.
Fate
I often think about fate. How sometimes, just seconds can change your life's destiny. I lost a dear friend who left a restaurant, forgot her purse inside, ran back in, and then merged onto the highway where she was struck and killed by a semi-truck. Forgetting her purse cost her 30 seconds, and her life.
On the I-70 case, Robin Fuldauer was not supposed to work that fateful day in Indianapolis, but another employee called in sick. The Payless store was already short staffed, so Robin came in to cover the shift, as she had so many times before. Robin was not sure where life was taking her yet, but she was moving very quickly. She was the salutatorian of her Lawrence Central High School class, located just down the street from the Payless Shoe store. She graduated a few years later from Indiana University. And now, she had already risen to become a manager for Payless. Fate brought her in on the last day of her life.
Just days later, hundreds of miles away, in Wichita, fate would strike again when a random man running late needed a cummerbund. The La Bride d’Elegance and Sir Knight Tuxedo and Formal Wear store was due to close at 6 p.m., but the customer was heading to a wedding and called just before closing time. Was it possible, he asked, if they could please stay open a few extra minutes just in case he was late? Both Pat Smith and Pat Magers, working alone, happily agreed to help him. That act of kindness would cost them their lives.
In Terre Haute, Michael Milo "Mick" McCown’s back had been flaring up for quite some time, and he had a chiropractor appointment on the morning of April 27. When he returned home afterwards, he still did not feel well, and considered taking the rest of the day off and not opening Sylvia’s Ceramics Shop, in a busy area of Terre Haute, named after his mother. But he eventually decided to go in. That decision would cost him his life.
Nancy Kitzmiller was not supposed to be working that Sunday afternoon. It was her day off, but when a co-worker asked if she could switch days, Nancy volunteered to come in. She knew that she would be working alone. Shortly after opening, her killer walked in the front door.
The Store of Many Colors was a small health care store sitting on the very end of the strip mall. The store was owned and operated by Sarah Blessing and five of her friends, and the group just celebrated a successful grand opening of their store three weeks earlier. To make their schedules work, Sarah and her friends would take turns working alone at the store, each choosing a day. And Sarah chose the day a serial killer entered her store.
Fate strikes all of us at different times. It struck me in 1983, when I was a young sports reporter working at KOSA-TV in Odessa, Texas. High school football was big in those parts, as evidenced by the Permian Panthers becoming legendary in the movie Friday Night Lights. Thanksgiving weekend meant playoff games, and that meant KOSA would be traveling to tape record the game, and play it back on the air the next morning. I had done prior Permian games, but on this week, my voice was almost shot. So as our crew boarded their airplane, I stayed back to do the 10 p.m. sportscast. Permian won their game, and the crew boarded their flight home. At 2 a.m., their twin engine plane crashed on landing about two miles from the airport, killing all eight people aboard. But for a sore throat and bad voice, I could have been on that plane.
Fate finds all of us. My hope now is that somehow, some way, someday, fate finds a killer.
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