A Potentially New Kidnapping Scam

Eve Carson Source: USA Today This message could save your life or the life of other. Is what you about to read true? The sad part is that it could be in this day and age where our broken criminal justice system and its progressive bleeding-heart judges have failed to protect us again and again. This story may not be unlike what happened to the young college woman who was murdered by a repeat criminal while she was attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a state where injustice seems to have become its middle name.

Please take a minute to read this. It could save your life. And it could happen to any of us.

Today it seems that the kind things Americans used to do for each another have now been perverted by a corrupt and twisted society where continued violence and murder coming into homes has taken its toll in large numbers, murder all to much a common place in Ameica. And now comes a new twist on kidnapping, which is reported to be from a survivor who may have realized that today's world is not the one she had known once upon a time. The question put to you now is, "Would you have had the courage to react in the same way this potential victim?"

While this is just a story, I have placed actual news reports below of crimes taking place because of a flat tire that include rape and kidnapping. So be aware of your surroundings and take heed. It really can happen.

The story on the Internet goes as follows:

A woman was dedicating her time standing in front of a mall entrance giving out flyers to other women that passed her by on their way to shop. She had created the flyers herself to warn others of an experience she had recently encountered. Again, this story could be made up, but knowing what criminals are capable of today it probably has happened, victims unable to tell their story from the grave. But after we had read it, we decided it was so frightening a scenario that could easily come true in today's America, we had to publish it in the Scam section of our Web site.  
 
Here is what is said to have happened to this woman at the same mall a few weeks earlier.

She says she had just finished shopping, went out to her car and discovered that it had a flat tire. As she pulled the jack out of the trunk and began to change the tire, a nice looking man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase walked nearby as if looking for something. He looked over at her and said, "I noticed you're struggling with changing that flat tire. Would you like some help?"

The woman of course was grateful for the kind offer and accepted. They chatted amiably while the man changed the flat tire and rolled it toward the back of the car. He continued talking as he lifted it up and put it into the trunk along with the jack, closing the lid as he dusted off his hands. 
 
The woman thanked him profusely. But as she was about to get into her car, the man looked about again and then mentioned as he started to walk away that he realized now he had left his car around on the other side of the mall, and asked if she would mind giving him a quick lift. 
 
She was a little surprised and asked him why his car was on other side. 
 
He explained that he had met an old business partner in the mall that he hadn't seen for some time. They had a bite to eat and visited for a while. But in the time that has passed he had gotten himself turned around and left the mall through the wrong exit, seeing her with the flat tire as he looked for his car. But now he was running late and wondered if she could just take a quick drive around to the other side of the mall. 
 
The woman, of course like anyone else, hated to tell him "No," feeling silly that she had done the same thing herself. And she thought he had helped her from getting dirty while change the flat. But she still felt uneasy with the unexpected request, trusting a gut feeling that had come over her. She then suddenly remembered she thought she saw a glimps of the man putting his briefcase into the trunk as she had started to look away, just before he had shut the lid.
 
Figuring it was best to be a little embarrased rather than sorry, she quckly invented a story telling him she'd be happy to drive him around the mall to his ca but that she had just remembered she had left a package at the information desk, not wanting to carry it around the mall and that she would be right back.

She hurried into the mall and found a security guard, telling him what had just happened. The guard followed her out to her car to check out the man, but he was gone! She opened the trunk, took out the man's locked briefcase putting it into the backseat, and then drove down to the local police station, thanking the guard for his time.  
 
Once at the station the police opened the briefcase, thinking they could find an ID to return the property to the man that had assisted the woman, probably accidently dropping his briefcase into the trunk they had reasoned.

But what they found instead was rope, duct tape, and a few different sized knives among other things. When the police went out to check her 'flat' tire in the trunk, there was nothing wrong with it. The air had simply been let out.

It was obvious to everyone standing there at that moment what the helpful man's real intentions were, obviously carefully thinking out his plan well in advance. The police were amazed the woman was so lucky to have escaped harm with her quick thinking.

But think how much worse it could have been if she had children with her, having them wait in the car while the man had fixed the tire . . . or if she had had a baby strapped into a car seat. Or even if she'd gone against her better judgment and given the assumed Good Semaritan an innocent lift just around the corner to his car . . . a lift that could have driven her to eternity that fateful day when for some reason she had stuck out in the crowd. 
 
So what do you believe? Fact or fiction? We believe this could have already occurred with someone who was not alive to talk about it. We think you might want to therefore consider forwarding this page to all the women you know.

It may save the life of a friend, sister, mother, or wife.

Of course, then there are the actual news stories below, one from the New York Times of an actual abduction and murder involving the changing of a flat tire, the link provided by the Web site Hoax-Slayer.

You decide. It's your life.

Metro Datelines; Death Penalty Voted In a Rape-Murder

Then there are these other news stories related to flat tires:

- A 1976 story, where the good semaritan is also a victim.

- A 2007 story, where a woman checking her vehicle for a flat tire near the fountain in San Elijo Town Square was carjacked and kidnapped Saturday evening . . . read more

- And a 2008 story, Man stabbed while changing tire.

- And of course who could forget this 1997 news story: Bill Cosby's Son Is Slain Along Freeway.