Maury Travis' house

This is Maury Travis' former house.

It is situated at 1001 Ford Drive in St. Louis, Missouri.

Travis was a serial killer who is believed to have murdered 12 to 20 women during the early 2000s.

Travis' family moved to the area when he was 10 years old.

Former neighbors and teachers remembered him as "incredibly quiet" and "withdrawn."

Bi-State Strangler

Nicknamed the Bi-State Strangler, Travis targeted sex workers and women struggling with substance abuse, many of whom he tortured and then murdered at this address.

At the time of the killings, Travis was still on parole for a spate of shoe store robberies he committed in 1988. The detective who arrested him for those crimes stated that he wasn't a "typical criminal." Instead, he was unassuming, respectful, and reserved.

Travis pleaded guilty and claimed he held up the stores with a toy gun to fund his cocaine habit.

After being sentenced to 15 years in prison, he sent a letter to the judge asking for a reduced sentence. He wrote, "This whole situation is horrid and phantasmic," and begged for another chance in society.

However, his pleas for leniency were unsuccessful, and he served another five years before being released on parole.

During the 1990s, he worked at several restaurants. He also served short stints in prison on drug-related charges.

Killings

Travis' killings began in the early 2000s while he was employed as a hotel waiter.

He targeted women in red-light districts and street stroll areas across the St. Louis region. Posing as a regular client, he brought them to his home, where he tortured and murdered them.

During a conversation with a news intern he met through a mutual acquaintance, Travis asked whether her television station had reported on the murdered sex workers. He specifically used the term "serial killer," even though no connection between the killings had been made public.

Arrest and death

Travis was caught after he anonymously contacted the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. Seeking notoriety is a common trait among serial killers, as many attempt to instill fear in the community and gain media attention.

Travis contacted the publication because reporter Bill Smith had recently written an article on one of the victims, Teresa Wilson.

After reading the profile about Wilson, Travis printed a map from the internet, marked the location of another victim, and mailed it to Smith.

His opening sentence read, "Dear Bill, Nice sob story about Teresa Wilson."

The police began focusing on the origins of the map following the discovery of a skeleton at the site.

Upon learning the map had been printed from Expedia, they subpoenaed a list of IP addresses that had zoomed in on the area.

A few days later, Expedia responded that only one IP address had looked at that specific spot.

When the police showed up at Travis' house on Ford Drive, he asked how they had tracked him down. Once investigators explained that they had traced his IP address, he reportedly said, "F*cking computer. Damn internet."

During a search of the basement, investigators discovered a makeshift torture chamber, ligatures stained with blood, and a hidden videotape of Travis torturing multiple women. Blood belonging to six individuals was present in the room. Police discovered that Travis had also been keeping newspaper clippings about his murders.

The video footage of his physical and psychological abuse was so graphic that the officers who watched it required counseling.

Following his arrest, Travis remained adamant that he wasn't going back to prison.

Although officials at the St. Louis County Jail were told that he should be put on suicide watch, few precautions were taken.

On June 10, 2002, Travis hanged himself in his cell.

Aftermath

The property has been leased out multiple times. One rental ad described the home as having a "spacious basement for entertaining!"

In 2014, a tenant named Catrina McGhaw discovered she was living in Travis' former house while watching a documentary about his crimes. McGhaw was shocked when photographs of her home appeared on her television screen. She claimed that the killer's mother, Sandra Travis, had rented it to her without disclosing its history.

When McGhaw asked to be let out of the lease, Sandra refused, telling her she had to stay until it expired. The St. Louis Housing Authority intervened in the matter, and McGhaw was allowed to leave. According to the property listing website Zillow, the house sold for an undisclosed price one month later.