Sandra Janel Beard, 43, was found dead off Interstate 40 near the Tiger Mountain exit in McIntosh County, Oklahoma on September 18, 2003. A salesman who stopped there at first thought he had encountered an animal but then saw a ring on her finger; investigators determined she had been asphyxiated.

Born July 26, 1960, in Enid, Oklahoma and sometimes known as Sandy, she was a Northwest Classen High School graduate and a mother who struggled with cocaine addiction and survival sex work at truck stops. Those vulnerabilities were noted in reports of her life and death.

Investigators explored links between her killing and a series of highway murders in Oklahoma and neighboring states and identified long-haul trucker John Robert Williams as a possible suspect. Williams was convicted in another woman’s murder and became a person of interest in several similar cases, but he was never charged in Beard’s death and the case remains unsolved.

If anyone knew Sandra, saw her along I-40 in September 2003, or has information about activity at the Tiger Mountain exit, please come forward.