Military murder is an independent project and is not endorsed by the Department of Defense or any military component.

The views expressed are those of those.

The content of this podcast is not meant to be legal or medical advice.

Warning, this episode contains graphic details of murder and is not suitable for young listeners.

Welcome back to TrioCrime Army. I am your host Margo and this is Military Murder, a show where I focus on crimes committed by military members and veterans.

But don't worry, you don't have to know anything about the military to listen, I promise.

You just have to be a TrioCrime enthusiast and if that's you, welcome home.

Today I am bringing you another serial killer, just like I did the last couple weeks, but this guy is one of the lesser known serial killers.

I mean, he's barely a serial killer if I'm being honest because he had two versus three victims that we know of, but he was definitely on his way.

That being said, this guy, just like last week's case, was a currently serving military member.

And with that, let's talk about a man known in Texas simply as the suitcase killer. Now, let's dig in.

My sources for this episode include a few true crime television series, including buried truths, Dino evil on the case with Paul Azon, forensic files and solved.

We also relied on news sources, ABC 13 Texas news and law and crime. I also referenced two court opinions, one from the fifth circuit court of appeals and the other decided in 2011 at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals level.

Trigger warning for this case, it does involve murder, of course, because it's called military murder, but it also involves rape. So everybody, if this is something that triggers you, please skip this episode.

On Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 in Lubbock, Texas, a landfill worker called a spotter was screening a load of trash for hazardous materials when he noticed a suitcase in a load of debris that had been dropped for him to check.

The suitcase was definitely out of place for some reason. I don't know, something about it. It looked like it was in pretty decent condition to have been thrown away.

Well, this peaked the spotter's curiosity, so he went over to it and opened the zipper. As the zipper opened, he made a startling discovery.

He could see a set of toes curled up inside. He tried to decide if it was a mannequin or a person, but he knew this was a human body. He immediately called a supervisor over and they called 911.

Inside the suitcase, the body of a badly-be-in, completely-newed young woman was curled in the fetal position. Her knees were to her chest and her head was tilted down with her chin touching her chest and her head was churned slightly up.

No identification was found in the suitcase with the body, but the woman had red hair and a tattoo of the word, or possibly a name, summer on her left ankle.

The woman in the suitcase had been dead for less than 48 hours according to the medical examiner.

Herrifically, the Emmy concluded that the victim was still alive when she was placed in the suitcase. Her cause of death was determined to be blunt-forced trauma and asphyxiation.

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