‘Torture chamber’ trucker sentence to life in prison

Under the plea agreement was accepted on Monday, the life prison sentences in
Texas would have kept him behind bars if he somehow gets out of prison in
Illinois. The 66-year-old also agreed to waive any rights to appeals and
parole. It’s unclear whether he’ll stay in a Texas prison or be returned to
Illinois.

FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap in Houston said agents couldn’t comment on the
case because investigations involving Rhoades are continuing. District
Attorney Laurie English was not available Thursday, and messages left with
Rhoades’ lawyers were not immediately returned.

Rhoades’ Illinois conviction stems from the abduction and slaying of Regina
Walters, a 14-year-old runaway from Pasadena, Texas. She disappeared in
February 1990 with an 18-year-old boyfriend who told friends they planned to
hitchhike to Mexico.

Her body was found months later at an abandoned farm in Illinois. Her
companion has never been located.

By the time Walters’ remains were found, Rhoades was in custody – after
authorities discovered what was inside his truck.

A state trooper in Arizona stopped on Interstate 10 to check on a
tractor-trailer with blinking lights in April 1990. He discovered Rhoades
inside the cab with a hysterical naked woman who had been chained and
shackled to a wall.

She later told investigators that she’d been tortured and whipped, that
Rhoades told her he was known as “Whips and Chains” and had been
involved in such activity for years.

Houston police found another woman who’d managed to escape from Rhoades and
told a similar story of torture. FBI agents called into the case searched
his Houston apartment and found torture devices and photos of a teenage girl
handcuffed and shackled at a barn.

Rhoades was convicted and sentenced in Arizona on aggravated assault, sexual
assault and unlawful imprisonment charges stemming from the woman being held
in his truck, then was charged with the Illinois slaying. He pleaded guilty.

Source: agencies

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