Louis Angel & Harmon Cordray

The Route 40 Hitchhike Slayers

Who knows what goes through the minds of two 18-year-old boys when they decide to abandon their posts as United States Marines? Louis Angel and Harmon Cordray went AWOL from a Naval Hospital in South Carolina in 1952. The two young men hitchhiked West and found themselves in Ohio.

Perhaps they were making their way to Cordray's home in Mooresville, Indiana, but their story doesn't end with a happy homecoming. On an early Tuesday morning in March, the young men were hitchhiking along Route 40, East of Kirkersville. Unfortunately Allen Drake, a taxi driver, took pity on the pair and stopped to give them a ride. This would be the last thing that Drake ever did.

Angel and Cordray were convicted of Drake's murder and both spent time as residents at the Old Jail. Will you run into the killers who committed this senseless crime? Make sure not to take them for a ride.