I Survived A Date With A Serial Killer
Ten years ago I saved my own life. At the time I worked at Barnes and Noble in the music department. I didn’t enjoy being paid $8.50 an hour, but there were tons of jobs which were much worse. I frequently closed the store, which meant that I left work around 11:30 p.m. I had a lot of creepy experiences there including being stalked by a young guy named “Cornrows” and I endured antics from nut jobs who visited my department regularly. I’ll never forget this one lunatic who showed up with black and purple makeup rings around his eyes. He came up to the counter to pay for a CD. After I told him the amount, he opened his billfold. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Go ahead, take it. Don’t be scared.” I looked at the bill. It was covered in dried blood.
Back then I did really stupid and thoughtless things. I was really into taking risks. I had really low self-esteem and was desperate for male attention. These two attributes don’t mix well. One night a tall, blonde, clean-cut, drop-dead gorgeous 20-something guy came to the music department. I was bored and struck up a conversation with him. He seemed pretty normal, low-key and looked a lot like Dolph Lundgren. I suggested we go get coffee after work and he agreed.
I met him outside the store and he had a duffel bag with him. I asked what was in it and he showed me several changes of clothes, all of which were sparkling clean. We talked about mundane topics until he sat down in my car.
The second our car doors shut, he began telling me a super disturbing story of how his sister had raped him with a hot dog when he was 8 years old. He continued talking about inappropriate things, like how just two nights before he had slept with two different women at the same time. He followed this up with detailing how he had found a man doing karate in his backyard. He explained to me how he’d put his hands around the guy’s neck and squeezed the last breath out of him. He showed no emotion while talking about last night’s murder and he didn’t care at all how his story was affecting me.
At this point, fear gripped my mind and it was clear I really screwed up by letting this guy into my car.
Would I be killed, raped, mutilated? Probably. A thousand ways to die flashed before me.
I had to think of a way to get out of this fast. I settled on a plan quickly and decided to speak up. I said, “Hey, you’re really freaking me out. No, you’re scaring the shit out of me. Why would you do that? I wonder how your back would look if I clawed it with my nails until it bled? I wonder who will end up raping whom? I could rape you this instant. Then you’d be as afraid of me as I am of you right now.”
He stopped talking and looked at me. I had no idea how he was going to react, but I succeeded in taking control of the conversation. We then talked feverishly about all sorts of strange and savage topics which I cannot recall. I would give anything to have recorded that conversation. I remember it being completely bizarre, like something out of a David Lynch film.
When we reached the coffeehouse, I looked at him squarely and gave him a directive, “You are going to get out of my car now. We’re not getting coffee. This is where it ends. I can’t help you with your mountain of problems. You really need someone else, like a professional.” He looked at me as he grabbed his duffel bag and replied,
“You know, I usually get my way and do exactly what I want. I think this time I’ll just let it go.”
The look in his eyes was super fucking disturbing. I saw death and murder in them. I could tell he meant what he said. I am lucky to be alive to tell this story.
I SAVED MY LIFE BY TAKING CONTROL OF THE SITUATION
I have no evidence that he was a serial killer but he was either that or a sociopath. In either case, he was someone who did not respect me as a human being and who was not interested in my well being. This experience could have turned out horrifically if I had not paid attention to my gut instincts and taken control of the situation.
Looking back on this experience, it’s clear I saved my own life. In the beginning of the car ride I noticed adrenalin flooded my body and my heart was racing uncontrollably. I paid close attention to these signals which alerted me to danger. Gut instincts are there for a reason. Pay close attention to them!
Then, I spent a fair amount of time listening to the psycho. I asked probing questions to understand his fears, desires, weaknesses, psychology, strengths and current emotional state. After listening to him, I carefully analyzed his responses. I came to the conclusion he completely lacked empathy. I reached this conclusion because when he told me his story of being raped as a child, he wasn’t interested in my reaction. He never looked over at me to gauge my response. As he continued on, he divulged more gruesome details while he stared off into space. He was just using me as his tool. Also, we were strangers and what kind of person tells such intimate details to a stranger? Only psychos do. These realizations scared the crap out of me. It was the first indicator I was dealing with a sociopath or a killer.
The next thing I had to do was calm down so I could formulate an escape plan. I decided in order to take control of the situation I would first admit to him that his stories were making me scared. When I confessed my feelings of fear, he snapped back to reality, stopped talking and just looked at me. This was the first time he reacted to me. Once I admitted my feelings of fear, I began to realize I could survive this encounter.
This little success gave me confidence to try another method of taking control: the crazy talk. I decided I would get on his level of insanity and see if I could take full control of the conversation. I did what he did to me: I scared him. I mirrored his personality. It worked. As my confidence grew, I decided the time had come to get him out of my car. When I gave him the directive to get out, I delivered this in an authoritative tone. Also, before I told him to get out, I explained I would be of no use to him in resolving the deep psychological wounds of his tortured past. I told him he should seek professional help. This method helped to focus the psycho on his own problems and away from me. When it came time for me to tell him to get out of my car, it was easy because I had been laying the groundwork of control for some time.
Actions arose from power dynamics. It is absolutely essential you create a plan to take control of your situation. It starts with your ability to assess the psycho and ends with you following through with your plan of escape. Remember all people have weaknesses, even those who are completely insane.
This experience also taught me people are not what they appear to be. I was really naive about people before this experience. I wish I could say it taught me a lesson and I never trusted a stranger again. My life was about to get really bad before I learned that lesson for real. I never saw this guy again and I never learned if he really was a serial killer or just an escapee from a lunatic asylum. One thing I’m sure of: he was fucking out of his mind and didn’t have my best interest at heart.
EXERCISES
What is your gut telling you?
Are you paying close attention to your emotional reactions?
Ask the psycho probing questions to understand his weaknesses.
Ask questions to assess whether the psycho feels empathy or not.
Calm your mind before creating an escape plan.
Experiment with conversational topics and repeat whatever gives you the most control.
TAKE ACTION: Visualize yourself escaping from the psycho.
This story is the second chapter of my book, Un-Crap Your Life. You can buy my book here on Amazon USA.
And for international Amazon stores:
Amazon India 60 rupees (I greatly reduced the price for India after learning that 60 rupees was the standard ebook rate)
Amazon China: I couldn’t get the Chinese Amazon to load.
And, my current favorite writers are Ellie Guzman and Alana Massey. Check out their stories, you’ll die laughing or crying.
And if you want to learn who the heck I am, read this one that contains lots of videos of me talking (barf).
Thank you for your attention in this matter,
Leah
Writer at Interesting Engineering & Editor of Into The Raw
