Since 1971 at least two dozen young women and girls have been abducted and slain along Interstate 45 from Houston, Texas, to Galveston. Certainly, there are multiple slayers responsible for the murders but many of the cases can be tentatively linked to one another and four almost certainly are the work of a single man. An odd proportion of the victims were last seen at or near convenience stores.

Because of the apparent lack of definitive links between many of the cases and coordination problems between the many jurisdictions involved, the I-45 slayings have only in recent years come under serious police scrutiny as a series. Media attention has been strangely light considering the scope of the crimes, possibly because authorities have been largely secretive concerning details.