Photo by Associated Press Mednenhall

Police found Dusty Shuck, 24, murdered on I-70 near a truck stop east of Bill Moxley Road.

Bruce Mendenhall, 56, an independent truck driver from Albion, Ill., was arrested Thursday at a truck stop in Nashville after a detective for the Metro Nashville Police Department saw blood on the inside door in the cab of a truck, said Rick Gentry, a spokesman for the Davidson County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff took Mendenhall, who was driving the truck, into custody, Gentry said. Upon questioning, Mendenhall implicated himself in six homicides in four states: Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Indiana.

He has refused all media interviews, Gentry said.

The six victims are women, and two bodies in Indiana have not been found, according to Nashville police.

Victims include Symantha Winters, 48, found shot to death at a truck stop in Lebanon, Tenn., on June 6, and Sara Nicole Hulbert, found dead at 12:40 a.m. June 26 in the parking lot of Truck Stops of America in Nashville. A third victim was found shot to death at a truck stop in Birmingham, Ala., on July 1, according to Birmingham Police Department Sgt. Cory Hardiman.

The other victim is in Georgia. Police there could not be reached Friday.

Maryland State Police Trooper 1st Class Howie Leggett confirmed Friday state police are looking for a connection between Shuck and Mendenhall.

On Thursday, detectives contacted Lori Atwood, Shuck's mother, about Mendenhall, she said.

"There's a very good possibility he is the one," she said. "He's confessed to six murders."

The victims were killed in different ways, but many of the bodies were found at truck stops, Atwood said. Shuck's killer slashed her throat, but a lack of evidence at the crime scene led police to believe she was not killed where her body was found.

"I absolutely want the man behind bars," Atwood said. "He belongs behind bars whether he killed my daughter or not. I would like closure, to know this is the one."

Homicide investigators are looking for any connections, said Maryland State Police Sgt. Arthur Betts. An independent trucker would have to be hauling loads for somebody and detectives will look at credit card transactions.

"One of the most important things about this guy is to see if he ever traveled in the state of Maryland, where and when," he said. "Where he got fuel could be a problem if he used cash."

Atwood wants to know if the timeline of her daughter's fateful journey is linked to the six murders Mendenhall confessed to or the routes he took.

Her daughter left Silver City, N.M. on April 24, 2006, with no car, no credit cards, no bank checks, and very little cash, Atwood said.

"She was the perfect victim. There was no way to track her. No cell phone," she said.

Her daughter suffered from schizophrenia, a condition that developed in the last eight months of her life. Her persona changed as a result of the mental illness, Atwood said.

"She would grab her backpack, load her stuff. This was so unlike her. All her life she was quiet, afraid," she said.

The route out of Silver City is I-10, Atwood said. It runs east into Alabama, five hours south of Birmingham. The death of the girl found at a truck stop in Birmingham occurred on July 1, 2007, more than a year after Shuck's death. I-70, a highway truckers use to and from Indianapolis, goes through Breezewood, Pa. where witnesses say they saw Shuck on May 3, 2006, the night before her death.