Real Encounters

*When Not to Pull Over for the Police*

This happened to my aunt and uncle in the early 80's or so. They were living in Austin, Texas and had attended a party in a neighboring area. They were driving back very late and at one point were driving along a very long, completely deserted stretch of road, bordered by woods/brush on one side. No houses, no streetlights, no other cars on the road, nothing. Until my uncle, who's driving, notices a car coming up behind them which then speeds up and gets very close. My aunt and uncle start talking about how weird this guy is - they can see it's just one man driving - since there's no reason to tailgate on an empty road in the middle of the night. Then the guy speeds up even more and pulls up alongside them, in the other lane. He starts yelling at them to pull over and is flashing what looks like a police badge.

My uncle starts to slow down to pull over and my aunt absolutely freaks out and tells him not to. She is really creeped out that this guy, who is driving a car that has no police markings and no flashing lights, pulled up to them out of nowhere and is now trying to get them to pull over just by flashing a badge. While they argue about whether to pull over or not the man in the other car is getting more and more angry, yelling at them to pull over, beeping his horn and flashing the badge, saying he's the police.

My aunt starts crying and my uncle says fine, if the guy's really a cop and they NEED to stop for him they will stop when they reach the next populated area/business. Which will be a while. But they reason that if he really is a cop he would have to understand their point of view. My aunt and uncle keep wavering between worried this guy is out of his mind and worried it's a real cop and they're going to be in big trouble for not pulling over when told. Finally they see a gas station up ahead and plan to stop there. As soon as they pull into the station the "cop" speeds off, never to be seen by them again. They didn't think to try to get his license plate number at the time and were just thoroughly creeped out. They drove the rest of the way home without incident.

But ohhhh no the story doesn't end there! It gets much, much worse. A few months later on the exact same stretch of road a man is rescued who tells a horrifying story which is then big news in Austin. Fake-cop (flashing a badge, beeping his horn, etc.) had gotten this man, who was driving at night with his girlfriend on that very same road, to pull over. Once pulled over, Fake-cop forced the man and his girlfriend out of the car (by gunpoint, maybe? I'm not sure of all the details at this point. My aunt refused to read too much about the story back then because she was so freaked out and my uncle doesn't remember everything in detail) and into the woods on the side of the road. He ties the man and his girlfriend to separate trees, facing each other. And then does horrible things to both, ultimately killing the woman, while the other is forced to watch just a few feet away. I'm not sure how the man ended up eventually getting rescued, but it was long after Fake-cop was gone. Either someone must have found the man tied there or he got finally got loose and found help. They never caught the fake cop/murderer.

That could have been my aunt and uncle, if they had pulled over their car that night like my uncle wanted and started to do. My aunt always ends the story with "and that's why my husband always always always has to listen to me".

My aunt and uncle were almost raped/killed by a man posing as a police officer.