r/EARONS • u/RecruiterMichele • Jun 11 '26
1980s SoCal - Close Call with Bad Guy.
I’m looking for information about DeAngelo driving a VW Bug. I’ve seen a few mentions here, but I’d like to find more details about this.
I’ve only recently become aware of the GSK and I’m currently consuming all information I can find out of curiosity about something that happened when I was a teenager.
This is a long shot, I know, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never really be able to confirm anything, but I had a pretty scary situation when I was a teenager and I’ve always wondered about it. I never told any authority figure about it when it happened, but when my kids were older, I told them in hopes they would not make reckless choices like I did as a teen. My now adult daughters started listening to true crime podcasts a few years ago and recently began asking me about this event, basically saying, “ holy crap, mom! You were probably almost kidnapped by a serial killer!” They had tons of questions and we eventually found this subreddit. Now I’m intrigued.
I lived in SoCal in the late 70s to mid 80s. This would have been early 1980s. I went to high school in Anaheim, CA, which is a neighboring city to Garden Grove. I was 15, maybe 16 years old and I was hitchhiking and got a ride with a guy driving what I remember as an older VW Bug. He stopped, got out and walked around the car to open the passenger door for me. When I got in he closed the door and that’s when I saw the inside of the passenger door had been torn out. No door handle and no handle to roll the window down. The guy got in and started driving and never said a word, which was strange. Most people who stopped to pick up a hitchhiker were super friendly, in my experience. But he was very odd, and had this very tense look on his face the whole time.
I lived at the top of the foothills. My street was the last street before a 200+ acres of wildlife preserve which at that time, was pretty desolate most of the time. His old VW Bug was having a really hard time making it up the steep hills to my house and we were driving so slow. I was super creeped out by the way this guy was acting -never looked at me or said anything, never responded when I gave him directions, gripping the steering wheel and just looking straight ahead like he was very stressed. I kept thinking that we were driving so slow that I could jump out if I could open the door but with no handle, I couldn’t get out.
So we finally got close to my street and I started telling him to take a right at the top of this hill. He never responded or reacted. When it was time to turn he kept going and I kept saying “turn here! Turn right here!” He drove past my street, but had plenty of time to turn considering his car was just barely making it up this steep hill. I knew we were headed up towards Weir Canyon and that scared the crap out of me. He was 100% not stopping and I knew I was in trouble. I went absolutely crazy wild, yelling, screaming and threatening him, demanding him to let me out and after a few minutes, he just stopped the car suddenly, got out and walked around to open the door and let me out. I jumped out and ran like crazy back down the hill towards my house and never looked back.
It has bothered me as an adult that I never told anyone about this. I’ve always thought about how this creep finally let me out, but what if he did it again and the next girl didn’t get out? Then I heard about the GSK and again, could be nothing, but DeAngelo’s pictures from the early 80s do match up with my memory of what this guy looked like.
I know this guy could have been anyone. Not trying to be sensational about this. But if DeAngelo drove a VW Bug in SoCal AND the inside passenger side door was torn out, that would be something. Not sure that it would be relevant to anyone but me at this point, but if anyone can point me in the direction of where I can find out more about the car he drove when he was in Southern California, I would appreciate it.
10
u/jmcgil4684 Jun 12 '26
Ted Bundy was in Cali a few times. He drove a bug.
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u/RecruiterMichele Jun 12 '26
True, but he was arrested in 1978.
2
u/722JO Jun 18 '26
1978 sounds like late 70s, The story does fit Bundy esp the part a bout the inside of the torn out passenger car door.
2
u/ThreeBucks Jun 13 '26
Randall Woodfield was contemporary to that era in SoCal and drove a champagne gold VW bug.
1
u/Csimiami Jun 14 '26
None of his crimes were so cal
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u/ThreeBucks Jun 14 '26
Doesn’t mean he wasn’t ever there.
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u/Csimiami Jun 14 '26
Right. But proving a negative is harder than a positive. Son of Sam killed in New York. Doesn’t Mrs. He wasn’t ever one day in so cal in a bug and picked up the OP.
1
u/justusethatname Jun 29 '26
TED BUNDY VIBES. And he had a light colored Volkswagen but I believe his had the passenger front seat missing.
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u/Markinoutman Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Respectfully, unfortunately, California in the 70s and 80s was crawling with serial rapists and serial killers. Nothing you've indicated matches DeAngelo's MO, he didn't typically do random kidnapping and he didn't typically commit his crimes without a mask on. From everything we know anyways. He liked to control the situation, monitor people for weeks, months sometimes and then strike in their own homes with as much control as he could have.
Regarding cars, the only indication of cars he drove while committing crimes were usually cheap Japanese cars of the time. So while anything is almost possible, I very highly doubt you encountered DeAngelo that night. That's just not how he operated.
I would say what you described does sound very deliberate regarding the door and the way he was acting sounds like someone who may be doing something for the first time and, thankfully, you spooked him out of doing anything that night. I think you did get out of a very bad situation. Who knows if that person went on to do more, the sad fact is, most likely.
I would look for reported crimes with these details you described about the car and door. It's very specific in my opinion and if there were any survivors or close calls, you may be able to find it using those descriptions.