Homicide detectives and cadaver dogs are searching truck stops south of Indianapolis for what could be the final victim of alleged serial killer Bruce D. Mendenhall.

Investigators said Mendenhall, who was arrested Thursday as he climbed out of the blood-spattered cab of his semi at a Nashville rest stop, told them he killed a woman Wednesday and left her body in a car at a Flying J truck stop, near a Hardee’s restaurant, somewhere on the south end of Interstate 465.

Other details followed. Under questioning, Mendenhall, a 56-year-old long-haul trucker from Albion, Ill., made statements implicating himself in at least six murders over the past seven months, police said. The death toll consists mainly of known prostitutes shot and dumped at or near truck stops in Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Investigators believe these six deaths may be only the beginning. Mendenhall has worked as a long-haul trucker for 18 years.

“This could be just the tip of the iceberg,” said Danny Davis, owner of Quality Oak Products in Noble, Ill., where Mendenhall has worked, making interstate deliveries for the past year. “Basically, we run our trucks all over the Midwest … Arkansas, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota. He’s been in all them states.”

Davis said he had been going over Mendenhall’s records — and finding troubling gaps and trips that took far longer than they should have. Just last week, Mendenhall was supposed to make an eight-hour run to Fayette, Ohio. He wound up in Fayetteville, on the wrong side of the state, and took another day to reach his destination.

“I asked him, ‘What’s taking you so long?’ ” Davis said. Mendenhall said he got confused, Davis said.

He said Mendenhall’s wife had confided to him earlier Friday that her husband kept a gun in his truck, in violation of the law. He said police told him that the victims had been killed with a .22 rifle.

Police share information

Nashville police released a list of places where they said Mendenhall either confessed to having been or placed himself in the vicinity of a homicide this year. Local law enforcement officials filled in the details.

On the afternoon of July 1, a semi with a mustard-yellow cab and white trailer was parked at a small local truck stop in Birmingham, Ala. According to police, several local prostitutes climbed onto the truck, trying to coax out the driver. But the cab’s curtains remained tightly shut. Eventually, the truck stop owner came out, shooed the women away and banged on the truck door and ordered the driver to leave.

The truck pulled out. Ten minutes later, a passer-by spotted the body of Michelle Carter, 43, of Birmingham, splayed on the pavement next to the spot where the truck had been parked.

“She’d been shot and killed and thrown to the side of the road with a bag over her head,” said Birmingham Police Detective Mike Allison.

Allison said he hoped to interview Mendenhall about the murder.

Allison said Birmingham police had a strong circumstantial case against Mendenhall — whose truck has a bright yellow cab — based on eyewitness reports.

Investigators from Sewanee, Ga., will arrive in Nashville on Monday to interview Mendenhall about the Jan. 29 death of Deborah Ann Glover, 43, an Atlanta prostitute who was found shot to death beside the parking lot of a Motel 6 that is often used as an overnight rest area for truckers in the northeast Atlanta suburb, just off Interstate 85.

It was the first murder in Sewanee in 40 years, and until Thursday there had been no leads in the case.

“What we hope during the course of this is that we will be able to find some physical evidence to connect it, if in fact they’re connected,” said Sewanee police Capt. Clyde Byers. “Or, if nothing else, we will be able to rule Mr. Mendenhall out.”

Body showed up in snow

On Feb. 22, the body of Sherry Drinkard, 43, of Gary, Ind., a prostitute with a lengthy arrest record, was found stripped naked, shot once in the head and dumped in a snow bank at a TA truck stop in Lake Station, Ind. News reports at the time speculated that she probably had been killed a week and a half earlier, when a snowstorm blanketed the area.

Lake Station Police Lt. Ruth Smith said Mendenhall had not confessed outright to the murder but told Nashville police that he had been in Lake Station before. The police are in the process of checking his travel schedule to see if he was passing through at the time of the murder.

The two Tennessee victims were killed in June. Symantha Winters, 48, was shot and dumped in a garbage bin at a Pilot truck stop in Lebanon on June 6.

On June 26, the body of 25-year-old Sara Hulbert was found at the TA truck stop in downtown Nashville.

Indiana hunt goes slowly

The search for an Indianapolis victim has been frustrated by what police said was Mendenhall’s vague description of the scene and by the fact that I-465, the beltway that circles Indianapolis, covers “a huge area,” said Indianapolis police Detective Tom Tudor.

Police have conducted aerial searches, and every homicide detective in the department was out Friday looking for cars that could be concealing bodies at area rest stops. Tudor said he hoped that Nashville investigators would find a gas receipt or other evidence that might pin down Mendenhall’s location.

Meanwhile, Nashville-area truck stops were buzzing Friday with talk of a serial killer.

“He’s giving us all a bad reputation, basically,” said Charlie McCarthy, a trucker from Michigan who stops at the Pilot Travel Center whenever he drives through Lebanon. “There’s enough people out there that are aiding this idea of a bad reputation for truck drivers. I’ve been at it for 40 years. It used to be a respected profession. It’s not any longer.”

Suspect’s town buzzing

Mendenhall’s hometown of Albion, pop. 2,000, was still reeling Friday as Illinois State Police arrived to search his home. He was the sole support for his ailing wife, Linda, who is nearly blind from diabetes.

“It’s been quite a shock, naturally. That’s all anybody’s talked about,” said Albion Mayor Ryan Hallam. “In a town of 2,000, everybody’s pretty much aware of everybody here.”

Mendenhall grew up in Richland County, Ind., Hallam said, but moved to Albion to be close to his wife’s family.

“He wasn’t active in the civic groups. They mostly kept to themselves,” he said. Nevertheless, about 10 years ago, Mendenhall did run for mayor of Albion — apparently in retaliation for several citations he was issued for keeping junk cars in his front yard, Hallam said.

He received 49 votes in the election.