The Case of Russell Turcotte

I remember seeing this case on Haunting Evidence back in 2007, but since there was relatively little to write about it I thought it would be hard to come up with any useful ideas. I still have very little to say about the case, but I thought it would serve as a good example of vulnurability in crime.

If there is one idea that I disagree with, it is that you have to do something to be a victim of crime. You have to make some stupid mistake, etc. This is a false assumption as far as I am concerned. Just because you have not hurt anyone does not mean they will not hurt you.

In order to be a victim, you simply have to do one thing, whether directly or indirectly: look vulnurable. Criminals prey on vulnurability. It really is that simple. They simply look for some sign that you are vulnurable.

Russell Turcotte was a 19 year old American Indian from Wolf Point, Montana who was traveling home to get to a friend's wedding scheduled for August. He hitchhiked his way home from a concert he attended in Michigan. On July 13, 2002, he called his mother from a mini-mart in Grand Forks, North Dakota, at about 10:30pm that night to request money for train fare back to his Montana home, about 700 miles away. After learning the money would not be available for pickup until morning he walked over to the truckstop nearby to wait and ordered a cup of coffee. The waitress that served him his coffee could tell he was just there passing time. As it became July 14th, he finished his coffee and left. She is the last person to see him alive.

According to the psychics from Haunting Evidence, he then waited outside in the truck stop parking lot watching pedestrians fill up their gas tanks. He either asked or was asked if he needed a ride by two men, one of whom wore steel tip cowboy boots. On November 5, 2002, his body was found about a half mile off U.S. 2 in North Dakota about 12 miles northwest of Devil's Lake in a thicket of trees. The manner of death was blunt force trauma to the head. After 9 years the case remains unsolved.

There are a few strange things about the case. Geographically where his body was found, about 12 northwest of Devil's Lake off U.S. 2 is a little strange. In order to get to that area, the killer or killers would certainly have to pass by all the state parks and state reserve area signs which means that if he was beaten in one area and dumped in another(off U.S. 2), why? State park or reserve areas I would think would be rather desolate and quiet at night. If one person could tell he was waiting, why couldn't somebody else? I would think the police probably checked all the surveillance tapes though to confirm no one followed him.

The central question would be: Why does someone determine to call their mother for money to take the train home, then up and change their plans BACK to hitchhiking? If he does not get a ride, where does he plan on sleeping?

So one of the stronger assumptions that one might make is that he was more likely to have been asked if he needed a ride and given a good reason to accept it versus going out to ask someone. I think that because I ask myself how many other people the police managed to come up with that he asked for a ride from at the gas station? Maybe he met his killers on his first attempt but that seems rather unlikely. I think many people tend to be suspicious about hitchhikers. It would be surprising if no one else at the gas station remembers him asking for a ride or saw him walking around asking others where they were headed. All people have to do when they are pumping gas is look and watch.

If the answer was that police came up with no one else who remembers him asking around outside, the next step would be to try and find out who he might have talked to inside the truck stop diner. Who else sat at the counter where he drank his coffee?

The final step would be trying to figure out why his body was left in that location near Penn, South Dakota. In rural areas I am a believer that most people tend to get from point A to point B in a straight line. From where his body was found using the four direction points of North, South, East, and West, where does each one lead? Then there is the train tracks. Train tracks often need maintenance. Who maintained the tracks near where Russell Turcotte's body was found? Maybe that is how the person(s) became familiar with the site. Russell Turcotte decided to either take a ride or was kidnapped versus picking up the money his mother had sent him. If he did sit at a diner waiting, truckers like to talk. They sit and talk about their loads, politics, routes, and just about anything else. Depending on how long Russell sat at the counter, it is a little strange no one engaged him in conversation. It just seems reasonable that if a person is going to skip taking a sure route to take a ride from a stranger, they would want to get to know that person before they hop in their vehicle. Common sense question: If someone has determined that they want to make the final part of their journey in one trip without stopping by getting a train ticket, why would they then go back to hitchhiking? Maybe he was going to hitchhike to a place in western North Dakota and then hitchhike again, but that seemed strange to me because of asking for money for a train. He lived in Montana. Why would a person who is looking for a ride home choose to ask a car with North Dakota plates?