{"id":18116,"date":"2025-01-21T21:51:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T21:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pro-truckdrivers.com\/blog\/truck-driver-in-distinctive-yellow-rig-on-trial-for-3rd-out-of-10-suspected-murders\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T21:51:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T21:51:48","slug":"truck-driver-in-distinctive-yellow-rig-on-trial-for-3rd-out-of-10-suspected-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pro-truckdrivers.com\/blog\/truck-driver-in-distinctive-yellow-rig-on-trial-for-3rd-out-of-10-suspected-murders\/","title":{"rendered":"Truck driver in distinctive yellow rig on trial for 3rd out of 10 suspected murders"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A truck driver previously convicted of two murders is on trail again for the 2007 death of a woman whose body was found years after her disappearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

73-year-old Bruce Mendenhall went to trial on Tuesday, January 21st for the July 2007 murder of Carma Purpura. Purpura disappeared from a Flying J truck stop in Indianapolis, Indiana and remained missing until 2011, when her body was found on the side of a Kentucky interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Fox 59<\/a>, Mendenhall was pulled over by an officer investigating another truck stop murder just a few hours after he murdered Purpura. During the officer\u2019s investigation, he noticed the inside of the cab was splattered with blood, and the distinctive yellow color of the truck was hard to miss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI saw a truck coming towards me that looked like the truck we\u2019d been discussing for the past two days,\u201d Sgt. Pat Postiglione with the Nashville Police Department said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cab of the truck was literally awash with blood,\u201d former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said of the investigation back in 2008.<\/p>\n

Investigators were able to match DNA from the blood to Purpura, and some of her things were also found inside the truck cab. Mendenhall was taken into custody, and implicated himself in at least six homicides during his interview with police: two murders a truck stops in Tennessee, two murders in Indiana, one in Georgia, and one in Alabama.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mendenhall has since been convicted of two different first-degree murders for his two Tennesee victims, and was sentenced to life in prison for both cases. Now, he is on trial for the Indiana murder of Purpura, and scheduled to go on trial in Birmingham, Alabama for another suspected murder.<\/p>\n