Billboards are a simple and clever way to advertise on busy highways by targeting motorists.
It is a marketing tool that attracts businesses in need of closure and grieving families. Three billboards outside the 2017 film Missouri Ebb cover this theme. The fictional Mildred Hayes details her daughter’s unsolved murder by placing billboards around town to shame the local police department into action.
Director Martin McDonagh came up with the idea while traveling in Texas, where he saw a huge roadside sign placed by the anguished parents of a murdered woman. McDonald can’t remember the exact location of the signs, but they bear a striking resemblance to the case of Kathy Page of Vito, Texas.
Since the film’s release, many families have raised their appeals, hoping that the raging traffic below will provide an answer. Let’s take a look at Kathy Page’s murder on a billboard.
Police arrived at the scene of a car accident in Vidor, Texas, and found Kathy Page, 34, dead inside the vehicle. It soon became clear that the crash had been staged when an autopsy revealed that Kathy had been strangled.
Suspicion fell on Kathy’s ex-husband Steve Page, who had been at her house that night. As time passed and no arrests were made, Kathy’s father, James Fulton, took matters into his own hands. He began to place small, handmade signs on the I-10 Highway in Vidor, naming Steve as the killer and exposing his close friendships with the local police force. Over time, the signs grew into giant billboards splashed with Steve’s photo and the words: “Steve Page brutally murdered his wife in 1991” and “Here you get by with brutally murdering women.”
The family filed a civil case for wrongful death against Steve and won. The signs remain a familiar sight in Vidor, and Steve moved away to Houston in 1995.
