Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian hitchhiked from Arizona to West Virginia in the summer of 1980. They planned to attend the Rainbow Gathering, an annual event where like-minded, free spirits could peacefully gather and celebrate. Just before they arrived, someone killed them. The murder remains unsolved, and the question remains: Were the women killed by West Virginian locals, as law enforcement believed? Or were they victims of serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin? Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian?
It was a mess of intersecting roads and childish handwriting, but a few words stood out to her. Interstate, gas station, and most importantly, rainbow meeting. The map belonged to an inmate at a federal prison in Illinois, a white supremacist serial killer named Joseph Paul Franklin.
He said that he'd murdered the so-called Rainbow Girls, Nancy Santomero and Vicky Durian, during his multi-year crime spree. And he'd sketched the map as proof. There were markings to show where Franklin picked up the two hitchhikers, the roads he took up into the mountains, and the spot where he allegedly left their bodies on June 25th, 1980.
After briefly looking at the map on her own, DeFalco showed it to another state trooper who'd been at the scene the day of the murders. He said that it looked accurate. Some of the specifics were wrong, but the route to the murder scene and the positions of the bodies seemed to be correct. As DeFalco drove back to the state police headquarters, she continued to puzzle over the map.
It could be a false confession, but if so, it was hard to believe that Franklin just happened to get so many of the details right. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram, at Serial Killers Podcast, and we'd love to hear from you.
So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. In today's episode, we're taking a look at the Rainbow Murders. In 1980, a joyous adventure between two friends turned to tragedy and sparked a years-long hunt for the killer, or killers. Were Nancy Santomero and Vicky Durian killed by West Virginian locals, as law enforcement believed?
Or were they victims of serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, who made multiple confessions? Stay with us. On the evening of June 25th, 1980, a college student carefully drove through the winding, forested roads in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. He lived in a lean-to cabin on the face of Briary Knob, one of the dozens of small mountains in the area.
As the sun began to set and his truck bumped along the muddy road, he saw a sudden flash of color. Two people were lying to the left of the road. The young man instinctively averted his eyes. It looked like they might have been sharing an intimate moment and he didn't want to intrude. But as his truck trundled by, the bodies didn't seem to move at all.
The young man parked his truck in front of the cabin a few yards away from the pair. The people still weren't moving. The daylight was fading fast, so he hiked over to get a closer look. Two women lay next to each other on their backs, their feet facing the dirt path. One had a red University of Iowa sweatshirt on, the other a blouse with embroidered blue flowers.
And they'd both been shot multiple times. Panicked, he called the authorities. A sheriff's deputy arrived first, then a state trooper. A pair of volunteer EMTs slowly made their way up the mountain in one of the county's three ambulances. One of the EMTs examined the bodies. They were still warm. Rigor mortis hadn't set in at all, meaning that the girls had died in the last few hours.
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Chapter 2: Who is Joseph Paul Franklin?
She drove hours to the federal penitentiary and came face to face with him in a cramped, square room. DeFalco's recollections of this meeting are described in detail in The Third Rainbow Girl. According to her, the inmate arrived in shackles. He wouldn't stop staring at her through his one good eye. She sat across from him for more than an hour, asking question after question.
But he flatly dismissed everything. He even denied robbing the bank in North Carolina. DeFalco called the guards in, and they ushered Franklin back into a cell outside of the interrogation room. But then, as the state trooper was leaving, Franklin motioned to get her attention. He beckoned her to come closer, then whispered in her ear... That's when he told her he did it.
He added that he dumped Nancy and Vicky's backpacks in the forest. He remembered that one of them was green, which made it easy to hide in the foliage. Vicky Durian had been carrying a green bag. DeFalco told the author that she sped home to West Virginia and dug even deeper into the case.
She talked to more law enforcement agencies and compiled the evidence against Franklin in a comprehensive report. She presented everything to Robert Alkire and the other higher-ups. Her report concluded with a clear statement. Joseph Paul Franklin had the motive, means, and opportunity to commit the Rainbow murders. It was entirely possible that he was the killer they'd been looking for.
But despite all the evidence DeFalco presented, Alkire and his colleagues didn't buy it. They hardly even entertained it. This may have been because Alkire still thought the killer had to be local. Even though DeFalco presented plenty of reasons to suspect Franklin, the serial killer was an outsider.
In fact, Alkire and other investigators had been pursuing a few men from in and around Pocahontas County. In particular, he'd set his sights on a man named Jacob Beard. Back in July 1982, two years after the murders, Vicky Durian's father, Howard, got a phone call at home. The man on the line said he was calling from Pocahontas County.
It was really awful what happened to Howard's daughter, and he wanted to say sorry. The caller went on to say that he'd gone to high school with some of the investigators. They were small town cops, not the sharpest. Howard should probably contact the FBI if he actually wanted to know who killed Vicki. Howard was terrified. After a few moments of silence, he asked what the man's name was.
The caller refused to answer. All he said was that he wasn't the murderer. Then he hung up. Howard contacted Alkire, who put a trace on the Durians' phone line. When the man called again, the police were able to identify him immediately. It was Jacob Beard. Beard had lived in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, for almost all of his life, so of course he'd heard of the Rainbow murders.
One night, as Beard thumbed through the newspaper, he saw an article commemorating the crime. He said he felt awful that this had happened in his hometown and wanted to call the families of the victims and say sorry. He didn't know how to pronounce Santomero, so he opted for the Durians.
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