WICHITA, Kan. ( The Active Age ) — On April 11, 1992, 23-year-old Patricia Smith and 32-year-old Patricia Magers were shot to death while working late at Magers’ bridal shop, La Bride d’ Elegance, on east Kellogg. Less than a month later, police announced that their killer had murdered four other people in locations stretching from here to Indiana.
The killer has never been identified. Now a retired journalist has written a book to keep the story alive. Bob Cyphers, a former news reporter for St. Louis television station KMOV-TV, was recruited and given unusual access by a police task force that formed in 2021 but disbanded without solving the case.
“They said, ‘We’re not going to do anything else. If you could write a book, it would be the last thing standing on this case. It just takes one person to read something that might flip the script here,’” Cyphers said.
Cyphers’ book, “Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer,” was published earlier this year. The book’s title reflects the fact that, except for Smith and Magers, all the victims were slain in businesses along I-70. The killer struck in Indianapolis on April 8, 1992; in Wichita three days later; in Terre Haute, Ind., on April 27; in St. Charles, Mo., on May 3; and in Raytown, Mo., on May 7.