Radio Vérté

Presents

~SEASON TWO~

“DEATH RIDES The HIGHWAY”

A Cross-Country Thrill Ride Fueled by Murder & Terror!

“KANSAS CARNAGE CAME BY WAY OF SEWER PIPE”

Many people who populate this storybook chunk of American heartland with the endlessly straight rows of corn, neatly painted barns, and carefully tended fences call the highway just outside of town “the sewer pipe.”

Late last week, death flowed into northwestern Kansas through that “sewer pipe,” which most other Americans know as Interstate 70, during a two-hour nightmare of screaming tires, hostage-taking, executions, and gunfighting.

When the last shot was fired almost precisely at sundown Wednesday, four people were dead, two had been severely wounded, and three suspects were in police custody.

Signs of carnage still are visible across a 60-mile swath of countryside stretching from Stuckey’s Restaurant, where the killing spree began, to an abandoned farmhouse—final resting place of the bullet-riddled pickup in which one of four suspects died in the climatic gunfight.

There are still red stains in the snow alongside Kansas Highway 25, where the bodies of two hostages were found after each was forced to lie down on the ground and were so repeatedly in the head with a .357 Magnum.

A map outlining the route over which the tragedy was played out was printed in the Colby Free Press throughout Friday—curious residents drove that mapped route on grim pilgrimages.

And, seemingly everywhere, residents spoke of how all the years of dread and mistrust of the strangers who traveled I-70 was more than justified.

“What do you boys do in your cities that drives people like that out here to torture us?” asked old-timer Bob Ackard, a lifelong resident of Thomas County. “What kind of people do you create? What kind of people are these? Monsters, that’s what!”

An absorbing narrative of two individuals

whose paths seemed destined never to cross—

yet had.

Meet 18-year-old honor roll student Lisa Dunn, whose seemingly idyllic life and background were undoubtedly worlds apart from 28-year-old, self-proclaimed “bad boy” Daniel Eugene Remeta, a product of a turbulent, neglectful and abusive upbringing, who found himself on a collision course with the criminal underworld from a young age—growing up in the shadow of alcoholism, a childhood marked by habitual encounters with law enforcement, Danny's life was marred by violence and chaos from the start.  

In stark contrast, Lisa Dunn's life was on a trajectory toward college and a promising future. Until shortly before their fateful meeting, she embodied a well-cared-for, academically successful teenager from a loving and well-to-do middle-class home. But then, suddenly, her grades slipped, she experimented with drugs, and even ran away from home to Florida, signaling her growing discomfort with the life assigned to her. And when Lisa and Danny’s paths crossed, it was at that crossroads, that crosshair in life, that caused an abrupt turn into not only uncharted territory but terror.

At Radio Vérité, we aim to unravel this captivating tale of how these two vastly different individuals came together. We will deeply explore the intricate dynamics that led to a cross-country, multi-state killing spree, one marked and dogeared for all-time by early onset mass murder, in that time of social change, at that dawn of the murderous violence that would spill out across a nation.

As we delve into the narrative, we'll grapple with the haunting question:

Who was manipulating with magnetic control?

Who transitioned into an active accomplice in the vicious, sociopathic crimes committed?

And with the complex interplay of Danny and Lisa’s terrible choices—along with the influence of consequence figures like former altar boy turned cold-blooded killer Mark Walter and hitchhiking Vietnam vet J.C. “Catfish” Hunter—just what are those horrid crimes that shall transpire?

Follow along with Spoon River Gothic - Season Two: “Death Rides The Highway,” as we present a compelling true crime road saga that will challenge your understanding of “human capacity” for both darkness and redemption.

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