Maury Travis

Before he could be put on trial for the crimes, Travis hung himself on June 10, 2002, in his jail cell. Travis had been placed on suicide watch (i.e. checked upon at 15-minute intervals); however two consecutive checks were missed by the guards, allowing Travis his opportunity.

At least one videotape showing Travis murdering and/or torturing some of his victims was found in the search of his home in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He is believed to have killed two women: Alysia Greenwade, whose body was discovered 1 April 2001 in Illinois (after having been last seen in Missouri), and Betty James, whose body was discovered about two months later in Missouri (after having been last seen in Illinois). Although Travis appears to have acknowledged at least seventeen murders, the police believe his victim count could be as high as twenty.

From May to October 2001, four other women were tortured and strangled: Teresa Wilson, Verona Thompson, Yvonne Crues and Brenda Beasley. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a profile piece on Wilson, to which Travis responded by sending an anonymous letter and a computer-generated map. The letter had a return address of I THRALLDOM, a bondage website, but no other identification. However, the map was recognized to have come from Expedia.com, and further investigation traced it back to Travis, leading to his arrest.

Maury Troy Travis (October 25, 1965 – June 10, 2002) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who committed suicide in custody in St. Louis County, Missouri, after being arrested for murder. Travis was named in a federal criminal complaint for the murders of two women. At the time of the murders, he was a hotel waiter and on parole for a 1989 robbery. While Travis claimed in a letter to have murdered seventeen women, some authorities were doubtful; others thought he may have murdered up to twenty women.