Serial Killer found guilty for 2007 murder INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — 73-year-old Bruce Mendenhall, dubbed the “Truck Stop Serial Killer” was convicted in a Marion County courtroom for the 2007 murder of an Indianapolis woman. Mendenhall is a former truck driver from Illinois. Carma Purpura, who was 31 at the time, was last seen by a witness near Mendenhall’s semi-trailer at the Flying J truck stop on the south side of Indianapolis. Her body was found four years later on the side of an interstate in Kentucky. Shortly after the murder, a Tennessee police officer pulled Mendenhall over in his big rig. The police officer noticed blood in the cab and a bag of bloody clothes. After searching the truck, police found Purpura’s ATM card and a receipt from an Indianapolis gas station. Mendenhall told police that Purpura was shot in the back of the head at the Flying J in Indianapolis and put into a vehicle. He also described the bloody clothing in the bag found in his truck. Mendenhall has denied killing Purpura. Police say the blood in Mendenhall’s truck was a DNA match to DNA provided by Purpura’s parents. The trail started Monday, with the jury reaching the guilty verdict Wednesday afternoon. Mendenhall’s defense attorney, Ted Minch, tried to stop that guilty verdict from coming down minutes before. During closing arguments he said all the evidence was circumstantial and that Mendenhall’s constitutional rights were being violated, claiming there wasn’t proof Carma Purpura was murdered in Marion County. “The State of Indiana, I will submit to you, has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Bruce Mendenhall committed a single count of murder. Much less, by a preponderance of the evidence, that that murder happened in Marion County Indiana,” said Ted Minch. “He’s actually misstating the venue law. It’s not our burden to prove beyond the preponderance of the evidence that the murder took place in Marion County. The law is actually that any act in furtherance of the crime occurred in Marion County,” said Prosecutor Curtis Nysmith to the jury. Nysmith reminded the jury about the bag of Purpura’s bloody clothes found in Mendenhall’s truck and what he told the detective in Tennessee when he was arrested, “He admits that he knows exactly how she was killed. He admits it’s his rifle. He admits that there’s no other finger prints on that rifle but his. He admits that if there is going to be blood on that gun, that there very possibly may, that it’s going to be hers, which it was. The only thing he doesn’t admit is that he had sex with her, but then he admits that he cleaned up the body. During Sgt. Postiglione’s interview with him he sees blood under his fingernails. Where does that come from? Cleaning up the body,” said Nysmith. Purpura’s family walked quietly out of court following the verdict, declining to speak with new reporters. Police say Mendenhall is responsible for several killings across the country that closely resemble the circumstances surrounding Purpura’s murder. Mendenhall was previously convicted in the murders of two Tennessee women. He received two life-sentences for those crimes. Sentencing is scheduled for February 13.