A trucker’s random murder puzzles investigators.

Smiling Dwayne McCorkendale with a mustache standing next to his semi-truck

Dwayne McCorkendale

A brown pinto car bumping into the front of a semi truck

Suspects were driving a brown Pinto

CASE DETAILS

A man picking up stuff from the ground by a payphone

Dwayne was killed and then robbed

On November 12, 1988, in Chandler, Oklahoma, an anonymous caller reported a body lying beside a phone booth at a highway rest stop. At approximately 8 PM, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol arrived on the scene. The man had been murdered. Coins were scattered around his body. The dead man was Dwayne McCorkendale, a 27-year-old truck driver and father of twin girls. He had been killed by a single shotgun blast, fired at close range into his back. The apparent motive was robbery.

Joan McCorkendale was shocked when she heard that her husband had been killed for money:

A woman Knocking on the driver side door of a semi truck

A suspicious woman was seen

“If Dwayne had been killed in an accident, I could have stood it a lot better. It seemed so ironic that he was killed for money, when the last thing a trucker will do is carry… much for that very reason.”

Every day thousands of big rigs travel the highways of America. C.B. radios are their life line to the rest of the world. But for Dwayne McCorkendale, a casual conversation over the air waves may have signed his death warrant. Dwayne’s final run began like any other. On November 10, 1988, he left Detroit, Michigan, on his way to Oklahoma City. Paul Renfrow of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was a lead investigator on the case:

“McCorkendale made a regular run bringing parts to an Oklahoma City automobile plant. We have no reason to believe anything was different that night. He enters the turnpike, he’s given a ticket with time on it. And through that ticket, we’re able to determine that he made no other stops. He drove directly from the turnpike gate to the rest area.”

According to Investigator Renfrow, Dwayne pulled into a Chandler rest stop to call his wife:

“We theorize that someone had been listening to him on the C.B. and actually followed him into that rest area or perhaps he was already there waiting for him. It looked like he was walking up to the telephone, perhaps counting change out in his hands… And was killed as he stepped up to make the call. Whoever was involved in this, killed McCorkendale, just shot him in the back and he was dead before he hit the ground. Then checked him to see if he had any money on him, any valuables at all. So people like that are, to us scary because those type of people in our minds are very likely to do it again.”

A man firing a shotgun

A gunshot to the back killed him

The only items missing were Dwayne’s keys and his wallet. Investigator Renfrow estimated that the killer’s take was no more than $25:

“Early on in the investigation, our leads were thin… the agents… started putting notices in the trucker magazines across the United States. And the calls started coming in.”

Within days, several truckers called about a brown Ford Pinto, equipped with a C.B. radio. According to Investigator Renfrow, Dwayne was caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse:

“At the time of the McCorkendale death, we had reports that the Pinto was driving very erratically on the highway… Trying to cut 18-wheelers off. Then when the truck driver would call them on the C.B., they were abusive. They said leave us alone or we’ll do to you what we did to this other trucker.”

Three weeks later, authorities received a call from another trucker, Ed Heitkamp. He was breaking for lunch at a rest stop when he was approached by a young woman who was acting strangely:

“She was… I hate to say but she looked kind of trashy. I mean it looked like she had been on something. And she was just awful shaky. I kind of tried to reach to get a map. The next thing she’s got her whole front half inside the truck. About that time this brown Pinto pulled up and then she jumped out off the truck and they took off.”

The next day, just thirteen miles south on the same highway, Dwayne McCorkendale was gunned down. Today, authorities are no closer to finding the Pinto and Dwayne McCorkendale’s killer than they were the night his body was discovered. Their only lead is the brown Pinto. The occupants of the car are described as a white male and a black male, sometimes accompanied by a white woman.

Dwayne McCorkendale was murdered doing the thing he loved best. But for him, the freedom of the road ended in one senseless and violent split second.


Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season three with Robert Stack and in season three with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu.

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18 Comments

  1. Unknown

    The murder might have been drug related!!!

    Reply

  2. Brad

    Dwayne and his family deserve justice. Poor bloke working hard for his family unnecessarily murdered probably by no hopers. It sickens me that hard honest working folk can’t even go to work without being murdered

    Reply

  3. Kelly was a nigger lover

    James McAlphin and Kelly Woods (previously known as El Dorado Jane Doe) committed this murder. There are pictures of her sitting on a brown pinto.

    Reply

  4. Trisha Theriot

    @willis smith
    Sounds like your referring to the light blue Cadillac these people were also using. There’s a photo out there somewheres, she’s sitting on car posing. In another photo of them, you can see a brown pinto and blue car.

    Reply

  5. Joannie

    Thank you to the driver that offered to stop with him. I never heard that. I was married to Dwayne and still have so many unanswered questions.

    Reply

  6. Petaa Motex

    I strongly believe that the El Dorado Jane Doe is connected to the case and is the strange female who approached the trucker. If she was the “strange female” then she could have been involved in Dwayne’s murder. She is said to have told a story about killing and robbing a trucker in a story identical to Dwayne’s murder, ssooooo…..

    Reply

  7. jeffery boswell

    willis you would think they would have a database on pintos owed in a hundred mile radius this hit close to home because im a retited driver myself and no family man should be done this way i do remember a rest area there wish we could team and solve this

    Reply

  8. Heather Callahan

    My dad played the role of one of the truck drivers in the taping of the episode for this case. He passed away a year ago. It’s good to see that this is still out there.

    Reply

  9. nm

    Alot of people think that the El Dorado Jane Doe was involved in this case.

    You can read more about her here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado_Jane_Doe

    Reply

  10. Black Bieber

    So sad how the truck driver Dwayne McCorkendale got killed. I think the killer was either that White Woman who was acting strangely or one of those guys who were described as the “Occupants”.

    Reply

  11. Clarence M C Mercer

    I have questions still these years after you shot this piece. I was just an extra. It was shot in the North bound rest though it happened in the South bound rest? Wouldn’t anyone familiar with trucking know that go to money is gone as a truck approaches end of the run? It reminds me of the MO of the fellow they executed for murdering a family on Interstate 35, near Purcell a couple of decades ago, as well as massacring the employees at a steakhouse. His female accomplice got a lesser sentence on a plea deal. Hmmmm…

    Reply

    • Willis Smith

      I was one of the truck driver that was talking to him on the CB and I was also approached by the girl for a couple cigarettes… want proof? That car was not brown. It was light blue. The two guys was about 18 or 19 and the white guy was driving the girl was in the middle and the black guy was in the passenger seat.the girl was maybe 16 or at least young looking. We tried to talk him out of stopping and even offered to stop and wait but he said no this was a regular stop and it’s not a problem. I was one of the trucks and I don’t know why they didn’t kill me to.

      Reply

  12. Elaine

    Just read the article about Hazel Head. Kinda similar – truck driver, shot in head……

    Reply

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