The corpse of a woman named Dawn Marie Birnbaum was discovered by a motorist. When the investigators arrived to the scene, they noticed that the victim was strangled and they also discovered a set of tire tracks leading away from the dump stop. These tracks were later determined to be left by a large truck or semi. During the autopsy of the body, not only it was confirmed that the victim was raped, but also two strands of black hair were discovered amongst the victim’s blonde hair. Investigators discovered that this murder was similar to the murder of eight other women that had been found near Ohio interstate truck stops, all of them being strangled and raped. The tire tread casts made at the scene were compared to semis from various trucking corporations. Eventually, the tire tread casts led them to a trucking business located in New Waterford, Ohio. …show more content…
In addition, it was discovered that the semi in question was driven on a regular basis to Maine, and the driver’s name was James Cruz Jr. A search warrant was obtained to investigate the semi and the investigators were able to obtain one blonde hair from the passenger seat of the truck. This strand of hair was found to be a match to Ms. Birnbaum. With this discovery, the investigators were able to obtain a court order forcing James Cruz to submit blood testing for comparison to semen discovered in the victim’s vagina. The blood and the semen were a match and, five months after the discovery of Ms. Birnbaum’s body, James Cruz Jr. was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. After his arrest, a special task force was coordinated in an effort to try and prove James involvement in the unsolved murders in the area. No solid evidence linking Cruz to the other murders were found, but there is no doubt that he is the killer. We will most likely never know the full extent of Cruz’s involvement in the unsolved prostitute murders. To this day, the cases remain open and