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Years ago, in 1981, I was two years out of high school. I worked at a place called Moore Business Forms in Fullerton, CA. It was my first full-time job. I lived in Whittier, CA. To get to work, I drove down a long boulevard called La Mirada, which turned into a street called Malvern, and then Chapman, but I digress...
One morning, I was driving to work in my 1967 Mustang. My parents bought it for me. That morning, I got in a race with a PUNK in a Camaro. We pulled up to the light at La Mirada Blvd and Beach Blvd. I sidestepped the clutch when the light turned green, and broke both motormounts. The 302 in my car turned sideways, and not only pulled out most of the wiring harness, but snapped the radiator hoses. My car made into the middle of the intersection and that was the last time I ever drove it. I had to call home, and my mom came, picked me up, and took me to work. She had AAA, and they towed my car back home.
After work that day, I called home for a ride. No answer. I called every friend whose number I could remember from a payphone. No answer. So I started walking. After a while, I started thumbing for a ride. Stupid 20 Y/O that I was, I was sure that some WOMAN would stop and pick me up. So I walked, and thumbed.
I walked a long way on a busy street with my thumb out. Needless to say, it's the ONLY time I ever hitchhiked. I made it back to La Mirada, and some guy stopped in traffic in a lime green Ford Econoline van that had a ladder on top. He asked me if I wanted a ride, and I said no thanks. He asked me if I was SURE I didn't want a ride, and I promised him that I didn't. Traffic was building up behind him, and finally he had no choice but to drive away. A few minutes later, I saw the van going the other way. After that, I heard the honk of a horn and turned to see the same guy in the same van pulling up behind me. Again, he asked if I wanted a ride, and I said no. That's when things got scary.
He said "GET IN, I'll take you wherever you want to go." I said "No thanks", and he got mad. He almost demanded that I get in his van. I said no. Same situation happened; Traffic slowed behind him and he was finally forced to drive away. This happened two more times.
After the third time, I got scared, and ran up the hill away from the street into the Hughes parking lot. I stood there for a few minutes, and saw him drive by three or four times.
Finally, the van stopped driving by, and I walked back down the slope to the boulevard. Minutes later, by some stroke of fate, a friend of mine rode by on his Yamaha 250 Enduro, he noticed me, and stopped. He took me all the way home.
A couple of years later I was in the Navy. I was on my first overseas deployment when I noticed a news story in an L.A. Times that had been sent to a shipmate of mine, and was now laying in our berthing area, which we called the "coupe".
The L.A. Times story was about a guy named William Bonin who had been arrested and had been tapped as the "Freeway Killer". I really didn't give the story too much thought until YEARS later when I was sitting at home watching the Channel 7 News in the afternoon. A guy named Chuck Henry was doing a bit about infamous cars stored in a storage lot. He was standing in front of a green van, and talking about this guy who was up for execution in a few days. I NEARLY FAINTED. It was the SAME van that I had seen and refused a ride in. It was William Bonin's van.
Here's the strangest part: At the same time, I had a friend who delivered pizzas from a place next to a bowling alley called Keystone Lanes. There was this freaky guy who went to my high school named Vernon Butts, who fancied himself a magician. He did stupid magic tricks in front of the bowling alley. He had a briefcase and a TV tray. I knew him, ridiculed his silly tricks, and once punched him out in the parking lot in front of the bowling alley because he was all over a girl I knew who didn't want anything to do with him. The L.A. Times said he was William Bonin's accomplice. He would hide in the back of the van, and when they picked up a hitchhiker, Vernon Butts would creep up from behind and strangle the victim with a T-shirt. He hung himself in jail a few days after being arrested for the murders they committed, or so they say. He might have been assisted in his hurry to "check out".
I learned later that only one young man who got into the van got out alive. I saw a relative of his speak on the news the day that Bonin got executed.
I never told anyone other than friends about the encounter I had that day with William Bonin.
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