This is a true story about a young woman with long dark hair and big brown eyes. Her name was Aletha and she was a 17-year-old waitress at a local pizza joint. In spite of the fact she’d had a tough childhood, she had grown up to be the kind of person that both coworkers and customers raved about. Wearing her mandated white shirt and long black skirt, Aletha was friendly and kind and conscientious. But none of that would prepare her for what would happen after her shift that night.

You see, while Aletha was trying to make a living and do the right thing, there was a bad guy out there doing just the opposite. He started as a bit of a pathetic figure several months earlier, just trying to get a date. This was back in the day before eHarmony so our bad guy had the brilliant notion to meet women by flagging them down on the road. He’d spot a pretty girl, get behind her in his blue pick-up truck, and start flashing his headlights at her. No one had cell phones back then and headlights flashing behind you generally meant either someone you knew wanted to chat or there was something seriously wrong with your car. 

So as crazy as it sounds, back in the day, people would often pull over to see what was up. When the woman pulled over, he’d walk up to her car window and start chatting her up. Seriously, right there on the roadside, he’d try to generate a relationship out of thin air.

At the time I was a patrol officer and when we first started getting reports at the police department, his demeanor was passive and his approach polite. Of course, as more women rolled up their windows and sped away, his tactics became more aggressive. We knew it was just a matter of time before he got physical and hurt someone.

After a few months of investigation, we developed a suspect and started running some surveillance on him. Things had escalated to the point that he was jerking open the door of his victim’s car, but had never been able get his hands on anyone, nor had he resorted to the use of a weapon. This particular summer night our detective had followed the suspect all evening long and to work at 11 pm. After a couple of hours he figured the guy was going to finish his shift, so he called it a night and went home. 

Thirty minutes later our bad guy went home sick. But he didn’t actually go home.

Within an hour he was following our waitress down West Walnut Street, flashing his lights behind her. She naively pulled over into the parking lot of a flea market and lowered her window expecting to greet a friend. Instead, she saw a stranger’s face and felt the cold steel of a knife blade on her throat.  What would she do?

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