FBI Suspects Highway Serial Killer in Slaying of Arizona Woman Patricia Peterson

(Sept. 6) -- Authorities in Arizona have identified the partially decomposed body of a Mesa woman who went missing nearly four years ago. The victim is believed to be one of more than 500 victims in a series of unsolved highway serial killings.

Patricia Peterson was 24 years old when she disappeared in November 2006. She was last seen hitchhiking at a truck stop in Tulsa, Okla. What happened to her after that remained a mystery.

In 2009, skeletal remains were found along I-40 near Lupton, Ariz. Investigators found no identification on the victim and she was listed as a "Jane Doe." The county medical examiner determined the woman had been beaten to death, KPHO News reported.

The identity of the victim remained a mystery until last month, when authorities received DNA from Peterson's family members and made a positive identification.

"I've always beat myself up because I didn't think that I looked hard enough for her," Peterson's mother, Tina Preston, told ABC 15. "But when I thought about looking for her, I didn't know where to start."

No suspects or people of interest have been named.

The FBI has since taken over the investigation into Peterson's homicide, but the bureau isn't commenting. Peterson's family members told ABC 15 that the FBI suspects her daughter could be one of more than 500 victims who are being investigated as part of the FBI's Highway Serial Killings initiative.

The FBI announced the initiative on its website in April 2009.

"In 2004, an analyst from the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation detected a crime pattern: the bodies of murdered women were being dumped along the Interstate 40 corridor in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi," reads a briefing on the FBI website.

The crimes were entered into a national database, during which officials found more than 500 similar killings throughout the country, involving victims who had been dumped along or near highways in the past 30 years.

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The victims are primarily "high-risk" and "transient" women. Investigators believe the majority of them were picked up at truck stops and were sexually assaulted and killed.

The FBI suspects multiple long-haul truck drivers could be responsible for the majority of the slayings. As of last year, the bureau had assembled a list of 200 potential suspects and arrested at least 10 suspects who they believe are responsible for about 30 of the homicides. Two additional suspects have been charged with homicides that occurred along the Interstate 40 corridor.

The FBI says the mobility of the offenders and the transient nature of the victims make the cases difficult to solve.