Kristin Laurite was 25 when she stopped at an Interstate 40 rest area outside Morrilton, Arkansas, on August 25, 2000, during a cross-country drive from Scotch Plains, New Jersey, to the West Coast. She let her two dogs run near a small cattle pond; the next day one dog was found loose and, via its tag, truckers reached Laurite’s mother. Searchers followed signs to the pond and found Laurite slain—sexually assaulted and stabbed repeatedly in the neck, her sundress discarded nearby.

For years the case remained unsolved until biological evidence from the rest area was entered in a national DNA database and matched to Ronald James Ward Jr., a Montana prisoner whose profile was in the system after an unrelated homicide conviction. Arkansas charged Ward; in June 2007 he was extradited from Montana and entered a no-contest plea to Laurite’s murder, receiving another life sentence. Subsequent records connected Ward by DNA to additional killings in California later in 2000.

The rest area where Laurite was attacked later closed. Did anyone who knew Kristin or who traveled that stretch of I-40 notice anything unusual around August 25, 2000?