Tonya Teske (The 2 of Spades, Idaho)

[dramatic music] August 15th, 1997 was a Friday afternoon, and a trucker named John and his wife had just picked up a load of produce in East Idaho.

John hopped into the passenger seat while his wife took the wheel, and off they went.

But when they turned onto the on-ramp of US Highway 20 near Yukon, Idaho, something out the window caught John's eye.

It was a naked woman lying motionless on her back down the grassy embankment off the highway ramp.

John told his wife to pull over onto the shoulder, and when she did, they got out and flagged down two more cars behind them.

John, his wife, and one of the other drivers stayed put while the other motorists took off to the nearest truck stop to call for help.

Deputies from the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene at about 5:45 PM.

When they walked down the grassy hill to the woman, it was clear right away she was dead.

But there wasn't any noticeable blood on her at the scene, so it wasn't immediately clear how she died, though she did have some noticeable scratches and bruises.

Officers secured the scene and called for the coroner as well as the Idaho State Police forensic lab to come quick.

Here's Detective Prescott Sagers, who is the lead on the case today.

It appears that the body had been dumped roadside and had rolled to its final destination, which was several feet from the road.

As medical personnel arrived, they took a closer look along with detectives, and something about the woman's body perplexed them.

They noticed that the body had two different states of decay.

The left shoulder and arm and the head were in a much further state of decay than the rest of the body.

This was something none of them had ever seen before.

Honestly, I've covered hundreds of cases now, consumed thousands, and it's something I had never even heard of.

But they weren't gonna figure it out right there on the side of the highway.

So as the coroner's office took the woman's body to prep for an autopsy, detectives stuck around.

They took statements from the people who found the body, but none of them had anything else to add.

They hadn't seen anyone stopped on the ramp or any suspicious cars or anything like that.

So John, his wife, and the other two motorists were allowed to leave, and detectives took a more detailed look around the scene.

scene.It was odd finding a body with no, no clothing, no identification.

So they searched the area for any, any kinda clues that they could find, and they took a lot of evidence, most of it being roadside trash.

But one item of note, they found some, some shoelaces.