Questions about the Merc in my sig....and a story

[Ms. Denmark]

Recently Eric and I came across a SIRIUS channel that does real life felony crime solving stories with interviews and commentary from those actually involved. It's a little gruesome but pretty fascinating, but it jogged my memory about something that happened to me years ago....

I have a couple questions but first a story: An incident I'd nearly forgotten about has started to puzzle and trouble me. It involves the '66 Mercury Park Lane in my sig and is raising some questions in my mind about the car and about what happened one night. Dad had given me this old Merc (which ran like a champ) and I drove it to my job at Macys (in the lingerie department) in a big mall in the Bay Area. I worked several evenings a week as well as Sunday afternoons. I was supposed to park waaay out on the periphery of the massive parking lot but because I worked 'til closing, and got off work after dark, I always parked about midway in the lot next to a light pole. One night I left the employee exit with 2 or 3 other girls and walked out towards my car. The others went their separate ways and I was alone as I got into the Merc. There were no other cars parked anywhere near mine, as the mall had closed an hour before. I put the key in the ignition and turned to start the car. The engine wouldn't turn over. I tried multiple times but it wouldn't start. Then from way across the lot a pair of headlights came on and a car came slowly driving towards me. It pulled up on my drivers side facing opposite mine. The light pole was between us. A guy rolled down the window and asked if I needed help. Something about the situation didn't seem right so I rolled the window down just a crack. The guy got out and came to my window and offered to give me a ride. I said No thanks. He said he'd take a look at my battery but I said that's OK and rolled up the window. He seemed unsure of what to do next but finally got in his car and drove slowly away. I thought about running back to the store, but was afraid the guy would find me out in the open( and I didn't even know if I could get back inside the store )so I sat in the locked car. I short time later the Mall security guys came along. I told them what had happened and they took me in their truck to look for the guy who had approached me. We never found him and so they took me to the security office where I called my Dad who drove out to get me. It was late, so we left the Merc where it was and came back the next day. When Dad popped the hood he found that the distributor cap was missing. That was why the car wouldn't start. I know I was disturbed by the incident at the time, but I never really analyzed what might have occurred. We never notified the police or anything. I wonder about a few things: Could the hood be opened without access to the cars interior? was the distributor cap attached by a tether? (I seem to remember it was sitting somewhere in the engine compartment when my Dad looked inside?) That raises the question of whether the guy was the one who took it off and what he was really after. (Me, the car?) If it was him, he had to have known things like where and when I worked and where I parked etc. I wonder now if he hoped I'd get out of the car so he could either take me....or replace the distributor cap which was sitting right there, and take my car? I don't know if the car was particularly coveted at the time. Funny how things you haven't thought about for years can come back into your thoughts and bring all sorts of questions with them....but I'll never know what really happened or more importantly, why. Maybe that's a good thing! ;)

[SC Cheesehead]

Wow, that's quite a story, Paula. IIRC, my '66 didn't have an interior hood release, you could just pop it open from the outside.

Hard to say what the guy had in mind, but your "spidey sense" was prolly working, and you did the right thing.

[RF Overlord]

Damn, Paula...you should write for those Harlequin true detective novels. :)

Many (if not most) cars of that era, like my '68 Buick Skylark, had hoods that opened from the outside.

I can't speak with 100% certainty about your car, but I've never seen a distributor cap with a tether.

I'd bet he didn't know you, he just saw the car sitting all by itself, disabled it, and waited to see if a female got in. If you'd been a guy, he would have just driven off.

[SC Cheesehead]

Damn, Paula...you should write for those Harlequin true detective novels. :)

Many (if not most) cars of that era, like my '68 Buick Skylark, had hoods that opened from the outside.

I can't speak with 100% certainty about your car, but I've never seen a distributor cap with a tether.

I'd bet he didn't know you, he just saw the car sitting all by itself, disabled it, and waited to see if a female got in. If you'd been a big, intimidating looking guy like Mr. Man, he would have just driven off really fast.

Fixed it for you, Bob...;)

[guspech750]

That's quite some story. And pretty disturbing to say the least. One could only wonder what that suspicious person had or has done since then.

Scary stuff.


Sent from my iPhone
Eaton Swap + 4.10's = Wreeeeeeeeeedom!!

[jflave]

Good Thinking, hood had two latches both out side the car,easy to open. Cap popped off in a second with a screw driver & you don't even want to think what could have happened.

[DOOM]

Smart thinking! You did the right thing.

So tell us more about the lingerie dept. :D

[RF Overlord]

So tell us more about the lingerie dept. :DI thought I told you two to get a room... :rolleyes:

[Ms. Denmark]

So tell us more about the lingerie dept. :D Ha! LOL You will love this....I was hired before the store was even opened. They held a lingerie fashion show (with real live models)for the sales associates to see all the merchandise. Every male store exec showed up and jammed the front row (it was standing room only) so my fellow sales girls and I couldn't see a thing! :D


.. my '66 didn't have an interior hood release, you could just pop it open from the outside.
Thanks Rex! That answers one of my biggest questions.


Damn, Paula...you should write for those Harlequin true detective novels. :) Does it pay?? ;)



I can't speak with 100% certainty about your car, but I've never seen a distributor cap with a tether.

I'd bet he didn't know you, he just saw the car sitting all by itself, disabled it, and waited to see if a female got in. If you'd been a guy, he would have just driven off. I like your scenario, Bob. It's a lot creepier to think he may have targeted me...


One could only wonder what that suspicious person had or has done since then.

Scary stuff.


Sent from my iPhone
Eaton Swap + 4.10's = Wreeeeeeeeeedom!! I have wondered that myself.:eek:


Good Thinking, hood had two latches both out side the car,easy to open. Cap popped off in a second with a screw driver & you don't even want to think what could have happened. You're right, I don't. All I know for sure is that my car was disabled on purpose. I'll never know by whom or for what purpose. :shake:

[Odinson]

My 66 impala also had no hood lock. Opened from the outside, just reach through the grill.

IMO you were smart. Could have been as simple as that guy pulled into the empty lot for smoke a prior night and noticed you walk to your car. Cased you, saw a pattern, saw you as an opportunity.

Some people have no conscience, no good will at all.

You're a skill writer BTW, half waiting for Clint Eastwood to drive by and ask him if he was feeling lucky. :)

[Haggis]

Ha! LOL You will love this....I was hired before the store was even opened. They held a lingerie fashion show (with real live models)for the sales associates to see all the merchandise. Every male store exec showed up and jammed the front row (it was standing room only) so my fellow sales girls and I couldn't see a thing! :D

Thanks Rex! That answers one of my biggest questions.

I like your scenario, Bob. It's a lot creepier to think he may have targeted me...

I have wondered that myself.:eek:

You're right, I don't. All I know for sure is that my car was disabled on purpose. I'll never know by whom or for what purpose. :shake:

I'm stalking you, I'm stalking you.

[sailsmen]

He was looking for a victim, he saw an older car that the hood could be opened from the outside.

I highly rec everyone read "The Gift Of Fear" by Gavin De Becker a 3 time presidential appointee.

We were walking back to our car with another couple in the French Quater at 8:00pm, one block off a well traveled street. Two guys a block ahead across the street saw us and had a brief conversation, then one crossed the street to our side and stopped. The guy on the other side of the street started walking towards us.

I had no doubt they were going to rob us. I tell the other couple we passed parking lot and need to turn around, he was from out of town and began to argue we had not passed it, being oblivious to the 2 suspectious men.

I then told him we don't wan't to go that way and he then caught on. On the next block there were two officers and I advised them what I saw, they proceeded to check it out.

I have dozens of such situations having lived in New York, New Orleans and London.

I saw a criminal turned security advisor being interviewed who said a criminal is an opportunists, take away the opportunity and you take away the criminal.

I believe that anything that is going to happen I am going to make it happen here and now. IF the criminal is able to move you it is only to bring you to a place where he has the advantage. Once he moves you he has aleady decided to kill you.

[slickster]

Yea that guy was bad. Good thinking. Except for working with underwear and parking in the middle of nowhere :D

[RacerX]

Sill can't get past lingerie department... :D

You Paula, were VERY lucky. Have you ever checked local newspapers for that time frame and city for missing or abducted young women?

[05crownsport]

Yeah, that guy was up to no good and looking for an easy target. Good thinking on your part!

[Krytin]

Sill can't get past lingerie department... :D

You Paula, were VERY lucky. Have you ever checked local newspapers for that time frame and city for missing or abducted young women?

+! on this^^^

Depending on how good your memory is you might be able to provide some important information to one or more cold cases.
Sometimes things happen for a reason.

Very glad to hear you came out ok - good story/lesson to learn for other people!

[J-MAN]

Smart thinking! You did the right thing.

So tell us more about the lingerie dept. :D


:camera: Any photos?

[Bluerauder]

I have a couple questions but first a story: An incident I'd nearly forgotten about has started to puzzle and trouble me. It involves the '66 Mercury Park Lane in my sig and is raising some questions in my mind about the car and about what happened one night. Dad had given me this old Merc (which ran like a champ) and I drove it to my job at Macys (in the lingerie department) in a big mall in the Bay Area. I worked several evenings a week as well as Sunday afternoons. I was supposed to park waaay out on the periphery of the massive parking lot but because I worked 'til closing, and got off work after dark, I always parked about midway in the lot next to a light pole. One night I left the employee exit with 2 or 3 other girls and walked out towards my car. The others went their separate ways and I was alone as I got into the Merc. There were no other cars parked anywhere near mine, as the mall had closed an hour before. I put the key in the ignition and turned to start the car. The engine wouldn't turn over. I tried multiple times but it wouldn't start. Then from way across the lot a pair of headlights came on and a car came slowly driving towards me. It pulled up on my drivers side facing opposite mine. The light pole was between us. A guy rolled down the window and asked if I needed help. Something about the situation didn't seem right so I rolled the window down just a crack. The guy got out and came to my window and offered to give me a ride. I said No thanks. He said he'd take a look at my battery but I said that's OK and rolled up the window. He seemed unsure of what to do next but finally got in his car and drove slowly away. I thought about running back to the store, but was afraid the guy would find me out in the open( and I didn't even know if I could get back inside the store )so I sat in the locked car. I short time later the Mall security guys came along. I told them what had happened and they took me in their truck to look for the guy who had approached me. We never found him and so they took me to the security office where I called my Dad who drove out to get me. It was late, so we left the Merc where it was and came back the next day. When Dad popped the hood he found that the distributor cap was missing. That was why the car wouldn't start. I know I was disturbed by the incident at the time, but I never really analyzed what might have occurred. We never notified the police or anything. I wonder about a few things: Could the hood be opened without access to the cars interior? was the distributor cap attached by a tether? (I seem to remember it was sitting somewhere in the engine compartment when my Dad looked inside?) That raises the question of whether the guy was the one who took it off and what he was really after. (Me, the car?) If it was him, he had to have known things like where and when I worked and where I parked etc. I wonder now if he hoped I'd get out of the car so he could either take me....or replace the distributor cap which was sitting right there, and take my car? I don't know if the car was particularly coveted at the time. Funny how things you haven't thought about for years can come back into your thoughts and bring all sorts of questions with them....but I'll never know what really happened or more importantly, why. Maybe that's a good thing! ;)

You certainly kept a cool head during this situation ... and I am glad that it all worked out for the best. :up:
Probably not a good idea to dwell on how, what and why .... what you did possibly prevented any possible criminal outcome ... if that indeed was the purpose.

You don't specifically mention at timeframe but I'll assume that this was in the late 70s or early 80s.

If the perpetrator wanted the car, it would have been gone when you came outside. Most cars from the 50s and 60s were pretty easy to get into and steal. Most hoods from that era opened from the outside and had no inside release latch. Don't think that we started to see those until the mid-to-late 1980s maybe even into the 90s.

Based on the scenario, I don't think that the objective was robbery. Carjackings and such are also unlikely. Probably rape or sexual assault was the objective of disabling the car and getting you out in the open.

Two of your observations puzzle me. The Distributor Cap didn't have to be removed to create the problem. Pulling the center wire to the coil would have had the same effect without removing the entire cap. Some distributor caps were held in place with 2 snap levers (sort of like our stock airbox). Pretty easy to release these two items, pull the cap and let it dangle on the coil wire. Maybe this was the "tether" that you mentioned. Either way, the car was disabled and you were forced to make a decision.

Unless he saw you walk to the car and get in from a distance, he wouldn't have known that you were in the car and had a problem. This may have been a complete coincidence and it could be that the guy was really a bonafide Good Samaritan offering to help. However, the comment that "he was unsure of what to do next" in the absence of any other indicators makes me think that he was NOT a Good Samaritan and his plan was going badly. The next option would have been to smash the window and proceed to step 2. What you took as being unsure may have been his decision NOT to go that far and just call it a day or go look for another victim.

Glad this ended well for you .... rather than as an episode on Sirius radio.

I assume that you altered your parking arrangement and your departure routine after this incident to park with the other "girls" so you could all leave together and look at for one another.

[RacerX]

Pop the distributor cap, pull the rotor and put the cap back on. That way it's not obvious to anyone that knows what a loose plug or missing cap looks like.

[Ms. Denmark]

Sill can't get past lingerie department... :D

You Paula, were VERY lucky. Have you ever checked local newspapers for that time frame and city for missing or abducted young women? I never have, but I think I will now. BTW when I lived in Aptos, CA my supervisor at the hospital was a woman who was married to the local sheriff. She told me that years earlier there had been a serial murderer operating in the Santa Cruz area. He had kidnapped and murdered several girls by enticing them into his truck. Low and behold he was someone she had met several times as he had become friendly with many law enforcement officers, hung out at the same bars etc. His name was Ed Kemper and she said he was the nicest guy. (by coincidence he had lived in Aptos, too). She always told me not to judge the book by it's cover 'cause things aren't always what they may seem.

http://www.ksbw.com/Santa-Cruz-Serial-Killer-Spotlighted-In-TV-Documentary/-/1824/4910038/-/i9mqx4z/-/index.html

[finster101]

I'm glad you are a thinking girl. He was after you! Or, whoever was driving that car. If he wanted the car, it would have been gone when you came out. The car made it's driver an easy target. Door locks are a piece of cake to get into, no steering lock. A short peice of copper wire and it's gone. I've hotwired a lot of cars in my day. He wasn't after the car.

[wickedmerc]

If the perpetrator wanted the car, it would have been gone when you came outside. Most cars from the 50s and 60s were pretty easy to get into and steal. Most hoods from that era opened from the outside and had no inside release latch. Don't think that we started to see those until the mid-to-late 1980s maybe even into the 90s.

I agree. Unfortunately the car was probably not the "target". That's some story Paula. That was extremely good thinking on your part. I wouldn't dwell on it too long if I were you...people suck!

I warn my wife, even today, if you ever get pulled over by an unmarked car and it doesn't look or feel right (not a Crown Vic or Charger), call 911. Too many pricks out there.

BTW...my '74 Malibu had an inside hood release.

[MyBlackBeasts]

1) Could the hood be opened without access to the cars interior? Yes, all vehicles in that era had exterior hood releases. Interior releases started showing up in cars late 70s/early 80s.

2) was the distributor cap attached by a tether? Some were held in place with screws, some with spring loaded hooks but majority had spring steel clips that popped over notches on caps. A person cpuld open hood, remove cap and close hood in less than 5 seconds

3) That raises the question of whether the guy was the one who took it off and what he was really after. (Me, the car?) Once in a while back then if the car had some miles on it the spring clips would stretch out, lose their tension and the cap would pop off from engine/road vibration. I would run on service call, pop hood, see cap askew, recurve clips and reinstal cap = start right up. If the guy truely disabled the engine, it would be to access you. It would not help him get the car. You were lucky you chose the correct course of action...

[Black_Noise]

pics of the lingerie dept or it didnt happen.


Glad it worked out the best way possible from how your story went

[Ms. Denmark]

pics of the lingerie dept or it didnt happen.


Glad it worked out the best way possible from how your story went
Sorry Ken, but I don't have one pic.....lots of lingerie out of the deal, but no pics!:D

[PonyUP]

Wow, just read this.

First off, very glad you stayed calm and sensible, story could have had a much worse ending.
The biggest advantage a person has in this situation is their brain and knowing how to use it.

Secondly, what Sirius channel had the criminal stories, that sounds interesting. Would mind listening on one of the Atlanta traffic jams


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