INDIANAPOLIS — It took a Marion Superior Court jury less than 90 minutes to convict a serial killer truck driver of the murder of an Indianapolis woman more than 17 years ago. Bruce Mendenall showed no emotion as he heard, for the third time in his life, that he was being found guilty of murder after a two-day trial. Mendenhall was charged with the July 2007 murder of Carma Purpura, an Indianapolis mother of two, whom he met at the Flying J truck stop on the southwest side of Marion County. Purpura’s body was discovered four years later down a steep 75-foot ravine off the side of a Kentucky highway with indications of a fatal bullet wound to the head. The morning after Purpura met Mendenhall, said investigators, the trucker and his blood-spattered rig were discovered in Nashville, Tennessee, by Metro Police Sgt. Pat Postiglione who was investigating the murder of woman at a truck stop there the month before. Carma Purpura (left) and Bruce Mendenall Postiglione testified that Mendenhall granted him permission to search his truck cab and inside he found a .22 rifle, a bag of bloody clothes and identifications belonging to Purpura and blood spatters that were later linked to the missing Indianapolis woman. The defense put on no witnesses to push back against the State’s case, though Attorney Ted Minch was turned down by Judge Angela Dow Davis in a request for a directed not guilty verdict because he claimed prosecutors had not proven Purpura was killed in Indianapolis, therefore the Marion County Prosecutor did not have jurisdiction to bring a murder charge. In closing arguments, Minch took aim at a statement his client gave to Metro Nashville Police in 2007 in which he admitted the bloody clothes found in his truck belonged to Purpura. ”Ladies and gentlemen, what you do not hear is, ‘I shot Carma Purpura.’ You didn’t hear that. Ladies and gentlemen, you did not hear that Carma Purpura was shot at a Flying J truck stop in Marion County, Indiana, Indianapolis.” Minch also questioned why jurors were shown video of Mendenhall’s interrogation in Nashville but not allowed to hear the audio. ”Ladies and gentlemen, the State of Indiana talked about this statement that was attributed to Mr. Mendenhall. You didn’t get a chance to hear that statement. You didn’t listen to that statement. You didn’t hear Mr. Mendenhall’s actual words.” Prosecutors, outside of the presence of the jury, said there was a very good reason for that. During the interview, Mendenhall admits to carrying out several other murders of women he met at truck stops from Northern Indiana to Georgia. ”The only evidence you’ve heard are the defendant’s own statements,” Deputy Prosecutor Curtis Nysmith told the jury. “Yes, we couldn’t play that statement because there were items in there that were inadmissible for this court.” Postiglione told FOX59/CBS4 News that while Mendenhall has been convicted of two murders and of having attempted to have witnesses against him killed, the retired detective suspects his suspect may be involved in eight other unsolved killings, and Mendenhall’s style of murders stopped with his 2007 arrest. Nysmith told jurors that Mendenhall confirmed details of Purpura’s murder. ”He admits he knows exactly how she was killed. He admits it was his rifle. He admits there are no other fingerprints on that rifle but his. He admits that if there’s gonna be blood on that gun, which there very possibly may, its gonna be hers, which it was,” said the deputy prosecutor. ”But then he admits he cleans up the blood from the body. During Sergeant Postsiglione’s interview with him, he sees blood under his fingernails. ‘Where’s that come from?’ ‘Cleaning up the body.’ ‘What body?’ ‘The girl from Indianapolis,’ who we now know is Carma Purpura.” The State argued successfully that while Mendenhall’s truck was, “a mobile crime scene,” so the question of the venue was moot. The judge agreed. After the verdict, Nysmith said it was the initial investigation by Tennessee police that provided the jury with all the evidence it needed to convict Mendenhall. “Definitely Sgt. Postiglione’s stop and bloody clothes and the statements he made during that interview certainly made the case.” Purpura’s family attended the trial but offered no comment after the verdict. ”It means a lot to this office to finally bring the justice that this family so desires,” said Nysmith. “Its been a long time coming.” Mendenhall will be sentenced February 17th. He faces 65 years in an Indiana prison. He is already serving two life terms in Tennessee for a pair of murders and still faces trial for an Alabama murder.