I could frighten you with stories of bad hairstyles I’ve had in the past.
I could frighten you again about the bed-shaking experiences I had in Connecticut.
But this one is for real, though… a real life horror story.
Let me just start by saying, the world is full of creeps.
During my mother’s childhood in Connecticut there was a boy named Michael Ross who grew up close to my mother’s hometown. My grandmother babysat this boy, so my mother and her siblings knew him quite well. He was a disturbed child from an abusive, fatherless home, and when he was very young he took out his frustrations on small animals. Nothing like hurting a defenseless creature to make yourself feel more powerful.
Michael Ross was a few years older than my mother. When she was a bit older, a high school student, she was walking home one day from field hockey practice. Michael Ross was a college student at Cornell University at the time. Because my mom was very young, she didn’t have a car yet (not that her family could have afforded to buy her one anyway, but that’s another story).
Anwyway. So. Mom is walking home from field hockey practice one day, and up the road in his very own car comes, you guessed it, Michael Ross. He slowed down beside her, put the window down, and told her to get into the car, offering her a ride.
Something about him gave my mom the creeps, though, so she made up a lie to Ross and told him that the family had moved to a new house, and she pointed to the house that was closest to where the two of them were at that particular moment. She walked up the driveway, up to the front door, opened it (thankfully it was unlocked), and walked into the house of another family. Michael Ross believed her and drove away.
If that door hadn’t been unlocked… If Michael Ross had dragged her into the car anyway… There’s no doubt in my mind that my mother would have been one of his victims.
Years later Ross was revealed as a serial killer, who took the lives of 8 young women between the ages of 14 and 25, mostly around the small rural towns of Northeastern Connecticut, where my mother grew up.
It’s scary to think that there are creeps like this in the world, and that they can get away with such heinous acts for long enough to let it happen more than once. If I think about it too hard, the world becomes a scary place.
I’m so glad my mother, even though she was only a teenager at the time, had the gut feeling she did to run from this psycho. Such a close call.
Ladies, there are creeps out there. If you ever feel that you’re in jeopardy, follow your instincts and get to safety. Here are just a few tips from Cosmo on how you can keep yourself safe during times of creepiness.
This is so weird, I had to profile this guy for a Forensic Psychology class (along with a few other’s). All I can say is bless your mother for listening to her instincts and making it out safe!
Wow, that is scary! She did exactly the right thing though…. of course down here, everyone locks their doors, but then it was probably during that time period when none of us did. Good story to share!
Yep. This was during the 80s in small-town Connecticut but I still think she got pretty lucky.
He dated the mother of a girl we went to middle and high school with, and when the murders were happening the police came to my parents’ house in Canterbury asking them if they’d seen “this car” and warning them about being vigilant.
Yeah, and he actually killed the daughter of one Brooklyn woman my family knows. So incredibly creepy.