Nine Tips

Claim: Nine safety tips e-mail offers effective counters to being victimized in random violent crime.

MIXTURE OF TRUE AND FALSE INFORMATION

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

We can now add to the list of victims the retired 77 yr. old TCU professor from Ft Worth whose body was found last week in Oklahoma — and the 11 yr. old in Sarasota, FL. Because of these recent abductions in daylight hours, refresh yourself of these things to do in an emergency situation...This is for you, and for you to share with your wife, your children, everyone you know.

After reading these 9 crucial tips, forward them to someone you care about. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do!

2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you....chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.
a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:
A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.
B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.
C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out.
IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably in a zig-zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door."

The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night.

Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby — This e-mail should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana. I'd like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well.

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it's better to be safe than sorry.

Variations: The April 2008 e-mailed warning quoted below began appearing as the tenth item on the list in December 2008:

10. Water scam! If you wake up in the middle of the night to hear all your taps outside running or what you think is a burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO INVESTIGATE! These people turn on all your outside taps full ball so that you will go out to investigate and then attack.

Origins: While the above list is often titled "Safety Tips for Women" or similar, its advice is intended for members of both sexes, as is the advice offered in this article.

We have encountered versions of this list since 2001, when it began as a summary of the teachings of Pat Malone, a personal safety expert and former bodyguard who instructs on defensive and survival tactics. The much-longer original (which is displayed on a number of web sites) appears to have been penned by someone who attended one of Mr. Malone's seminars and so might not accurately reflect what had been presented in that class. The advice provided should therefore not be viewed as "the teachings of a self-defense expert" but as "the teachings of a self-defense expert, as remembered by someone

else."

Pat Malone's seminars are described as "self-protection from predators, without self-defense or weapons" and "not self-defense classes." On his web site, he offers for sale a video entitled "Taking Control," which he represents as "A self-protection training program using common sense as a weapon."

Over the intervening years, the e-mailed list of crime avoidance tips has been edited by various anonymous folks whose cyber hands it has passed through, being severely pared down from its original form and added to in a number of places. It has thus become even less reliable in terms of the quality of advice being offered than it was in 2001, and even then it would have had to have been regarded as suspect. By 2005 it included this intro:

We can now add to the list of victims the retired 77 yr. old TCU professor from Ft Worth whose body was found last week in Oklahoma — and the 11 yr. old in Sarasota, FL.

Laura Lee Crane is the 77 year old Texas Christian University professor described in the e-mail's intro. She was abducted from the parking lot of a grocery store in Fort Worth, Texas, on 30 January 2004, and her body was found on a service road off Interstate 35 near Davis, Oklahoma, a few days later. She died of asphyxiation after her face, from her eyebrows to below her chin, was covered with layers of duct tape by her abductors. In November 2005, Edward Lee Busby was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. In February 2006, his accomplice, Kathleen "Kitty" Latimer, pled guilty to murder in exchange for a life sentence.

Carlie Brucia is the 11-year-old described in the e-mail's intro. She was abducted on 1 February 2004 in Sarasota, Florida, while walking home from a friend's house, her kidnapping caught on tape by the surveillance camera of the car wash whose parking lot she was traversing when taken. After her body was found in some brush on a church property five days later, investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted and then strangled to death. Her killer, Joseph Smith, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death in December 2005.

Regarding the nine tips the e-mailed list has currently devolved to:

1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do!

This is poor advice in that it recommends a course of action far more likely to result in the victim's being physically harmed than do other potential counters such as running away and screaming for help. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an attacker should be an option of last resort unless you are very well trained in self-defense.

While the elbow is one of your body parts that can be used effectively in a fight, it is not the strongest — that honor goes to the humble knee.

2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you....chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

This ploy would likely work if the assailant's objective were robbery, but if he were intent upon kidnapping, rape, murder, or simple assault, throwing your handbag away would do nothing other than rid you of an item you could have used as a weapon.

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

The odds of being confined in the trunk of a car are slim to begin with, and they lessen when the extra requirement of the victim's being placed in there with hands and feet unbound is added. Very few vehicles have tail lights that are accessible from the trunk, so even if one's legs were free, there would be nothing to kick out to wave at others through.

A better plan would be to look for the glow-in-the-dark trunk release tab incorporated into some newer vehicles. Also, the back seats of many recent models fold down to accommodate the transport of larger items, so go deep into the trunk and push on the rear of the back seats to see if they open. If pushing fails, feel about on this area for knobs or levers that serve to latch the folding seat backs in place and work them.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.

A good habit to get into is immediately locking your car's doors as soon as you are in your vehicle. Train yourself so that it becomes one smooth motion that you don't even have to think about — your rump's landing on the seat should trigger your hand to reach out and hit the lock button. The tips list's assessment of the behavior of women who have just entered their cars is unfortunately accurate: most women we've observed do indeed settle their purses on the passenger seats, sling briefcases, jackets, and packages into the back seat area, get out their car keys, rummage about in their handbags for various items (e.g., lipstick, cell phone, address book) which they might or might not use right then, put their keys in the ignition, fasten their seat belts and only then get around to locking their doors. During that interval they are indeed vulnerable to someone's getting into the car with them or pulling open the driver's side door.

Driving away immediately rather than taking a moment to make out this year's Christmas card list is advice worthy of following in any parking garage (because the structure prevents others not in your immediate area from seeing what might be happening at your car) and in any open air parking lot that is somewhat deserted rather than teeming with other folks coming and going.

a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

If the assailant has gotten into the passenger seat, the passenger's side air bag (which is a standard feature in many newer model cars) will also protect him from the crash. Another plan would be to drive him to a police station rather than to where he orders you to go, reminding him that if he shoots you, the car will veer out of control and hit something, which will injure or kill him too.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:
A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.

Another good habit to adopt is taking a moment before going to your car to look about and see who else is around. Pause for a few seconds to judge your surroundings rather than unthinkingly heading for your vehicle with your eyes down and your mind occupied with other matters. Once your arrive at your vehicle, but before entering it, do give its back seat a quick glance to ensure no one is hiding there.

B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.

Most serial killers do not grab women from parking lots and thrust them into vans; they hunt for potential victims according to their personal killing rituals, with each murderer following his own personal script. Some drive about looking for lone hitchhikers. Others seek out solitary travelers who have paused in their journeys to use the facilities at rest areas along the interstate highways. Others go after late night gas station and convenience store clerks who are working alone and unprotected. Yet others troll areas known to be frequented by streetwalkers, presenting themselves as customers interested in buying the prostitutes' services. Others break into houses they have minutes or hours earlier seen their desired victims enter. Some place ads in newspapers, luring their victims to them with promises of great bargains on desired items or offers of employment. Yet others frequent lonely spots that have personal meaning to them, preying upon whoever attempts to traverse these areas. Each serial killer has his own method of acquiring victims, and it is unique unto him.

C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out.

The proffered advice makes the assumption that every man sitting in a car parked next to yours is a would-be attacker. Rather than assume every fellow who finished shopping before his wife did is an abductor lying in wait and scurry back to the mall to get a guard or police officer to see you safely past this menace, continue toward your vehicle as you normally would, but stay alert to the perception of sudden movement from the direction of the suspect parked car or the sound of that car's door opening.

If while unlocking the driver's side door of your own car you hear behind your turned back the door open on the vehicle you're parked beside, kick backwards into that other door and scream, then launch yourself into your own car, lock its doors, and drive off. Almost certainly, rather than escaping an attacker who was making a grab for you, you will be giving some poor innocent fellow the shock of his life, but that will have to be the price he pays for opening his door when you were trying to get into yours, which is in itself a suspicious activity.

Yet the question is mostly academic because someone trolling for a victim is highly unlikely to be doing so via waiting patiently within his own vehicle for whoever was parked beside him to return. He could be left twiddling his thumbs for hours only to discover his intended target comes back accompanied by three friends she met up with inside. Even if the gal returns alone, there's no guarantee she won't do so during one of those moments when the lot is awash with other people getting in and out of their cars and thus at a time when no attacker would dare make a move for risk of being interfered with.

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

Stairwells are far less trafficked than other public areas of buildings, which does make them more risky places to traverse. When taking the stairs alone, stay alert to the presence of others rather than allowing yourself to become lost in your thoughts and so losing focus on your surroundings. When at all uncertain about the behavior of someone else in the stairwell, exit onto the nearest floor. Never use a stairwell unaccompanied where the doors lock behind you, thereby preventing you from exiting anywhere other than the ground-floor egress.

Elevators also pose risk, but since they are better trafficked and more public, the possibility of being harmed while using one is much reduced. Even so, don't get into an elevator car unaccompanied if at all uncertain of the car's occupants — if something strikes you as not quite right, wait for the next car.

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably in a zig-zag pattern!

We don't know the origin of the "will only hit you 4 in 100 times" claim — it's not a statistic we're familiar with. Lack of familiarity aside, common sense would tell us to mistrust the statement that a gun-wielding bad guy hits what he's aiming at only once out of 25 times.

If you do choose to run in such situations, up your chances of getting away unharmed by first misdirecting your assailant before making your dash for safety. "Hey, what's that over there?!?!?" might buy you that extra split second that makes all the difference, as might throwing your purse or briefcase at the head of the guy holding the gun, because his instinctive response would be to duck or flinch. If you run, do indeed zig-zag because you will be harder for him to line up in his sights than if you race off in a straight trajectory.

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

While Ted Bundy did trick some of his victims into going with him by appearing injured and in need of assistance (e.g., arm in a sling and attempting to hoist a canoe onto the roof of his car), he picked up others while they were hitchhiking, and others he attacked in their homes while they were sleeping — there was no "ALWAYS" about his methodology. Bundy is regarded by those who study criminals as a highly unusual serial killer because he was intelligent, charming, had well-honed people skills, and varied his mode of securing victims. It is therefore a mistake to assess the threat posed by those who murder random victims for the thrill of it by using Ted Bundy as a yardstick.

However, it is not a mistake to keep in mind people aren't always what they appear to be and that someone who looks disabled or encumbered might well be entirely able-bodied. Stay alert when you are around strangers, always allowing for the possibility of being the target of deception rather than letting yourself be lulled into a false sense of security by the other party's apparent limitations.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door."

A more lengthy debunking of the "crying baby" lure can be found on our page devoted to that hoax, but in a nutshell: no serial killer used that ruse, and the story about helpful policemen who instructed the woman who heard such cries to stay inside and not open her door is fiction. The "audio tape of a baby's cries used by a murderer to draw women from their homes" fabrication was born of the anxiety surrounding the hunt for the Baton Rouge serial killer in 2002. That case was profiled on America's Most Wanted in September 2002 and again in January 2003, but neither airing made any mention of the purported "crying baby" theory.

While we've hopefully assisted readers in making sense of which of the nine tips contain good advice that should be followed and which should be regarded as codswallop, our efforts to sort them out aside, we would still hate to see this list circulated any further because of the overall tenor of its recommendations, which is to make like Wonder Woman or Captain America when confronted by someone intent upon doing you harm. As stated earlier, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an attacker should be an option of last resort unless you are very well trained in self-defense. Rather, here are two options that should be exercised first: If attacked or threatened, run, and if you can't run, scream. (Even if no one comes to your assistance, your attacker may very well turn tail and get out of there, figuring the noise you're making is attracting attention to him and that others will now remember his face.)

A far better counter is to avoid becoming the victim of random violent crime in the first place, which these next tips will help with:

Avoid potentially dangerous places. The more isolated and devoid of other people a location is, the more potentially dangerous it is. Hence, stairwells are more perilous than elevators, underground parking garages more risky a proposition than open air parking lots. As a general rule of thumb, anywhere other people aren't is a good place for you not to be either.

One mistake folks do make time and again is letting their sense of familiarity with a place lull them into a presumption of security. More simply, though you may know the parking lot at the local grocery store like the back of your hand and have never experienced any problems there, you should still regard it as a potentially dangerous location if your plan is to park there at midnight on a Sunday while you reprogram the buttons on your car's radio. A location that can be perfectly innocuous during the day when there are all sorts of other people around is not necessarily just as safe in the dead of night when the place is empty.

Stay aware of your surroundings. Get into the habit of noticing not only the details of your physical surroundings (such as where exits are located) but who else is there with you. Maintain focus on the here and now instead of letting it drift to where and what you will be doing ten minutes from now. If trying to do two things at once, strive to stay alert to what is going on around you. Rather than wander towards your car with your head down while you're yakking on your cell phone, take a break from the conversation to look about. The same goes for getting into an elevator — look at the other people in the car before getting in yourself.

Also, as stated in "Assaulted Tale" (our debunking of a widely-circulated list about what rapists supposedly look for), not only is it important to see trouble coming before it gets to you and avoid it, but an alert stance can help discourage a would-be attacker. Those looking to prey upon others — whether their aim is robbery, rape, or mayhem — generally choose as victims those who appear preoccupied or tentative in preference to those who exude a sense of purpose. Or, as I was told long ago, "Always look like you know exactly where you're going and move like you're expected to be there at exactly a certain time." Mooning about aimlessly can make you a statistic.

Do not get into vehicles with strangers or allow them into yours. A murderer is not going to approach you by saying, "Hi, I'm interested in killing you; please get into my car." Rather, it's going to be, "Please, miss — can you help me? My little boy has been in an accident and I have to get to the hospital but I can't find the place. No, don't give me directions because I'll just get turned around; come with me — I'll pay for a cab to get you back here afterwards." Or, "I'm the new minister in town. My car broke down a few miles back, so I walked here to call the tow truck. Can you give me a lift back to my car? My wife is there, and I don't like leaving her out there all alone for any longer than I have to, her being pregnant and all."

Also, be wary of helping strangers when you are unaccompanied. Don't help them load packages into vans or trot over to them like a good little Girl Scout when summoned to give directions by someone you don't know. Save your helpful impulses for when you have other people with you, but when on your own keep walking even as you call, "Nope, sorry, can't" back over your shoulder.

Do not let strangers into your home. If someone appears at your door saying his car quit running and he needs to call a tow truck, offer through the closed door to make the call for him. If he says his wife is ill and asks if he can have a glass of water for her, offer, once again through the closed door, to call 911 for him. If someone dressed in work clothes says he's been sent by the building superintendent, your home owners association, the electric company, the city, or anything else, leave him standing outside until you've called that entity and ascertained that it has sent that person and does indeed vouch for him.

The world is not awash with rapists, murderers, thieves, and kidnappers, but a bit of common sense routinely applied can help you avoid meeting up with any of the handful that are actually out there. Rather than fret about how to properly throw an elbow, or whether you should run from someone holding a gun on you, or how to crash a car into a barrier so as to incapacitate an attacker but leave yourself unharmed, learn these three tips by heart: Keep away from deserted places, stay alert to what is going on around you, and when something feels the slightest bit wrong, get out of there. While there's nothing of Lynda Carter or Steven Seagal in those three tips, they will serve to keep you out of a pine box far better than all the more flashy "saw it on the Lifetime Movie of the Week" moves put together.

Barbara "learn how not to be where the trouble is" Mikkelson

Last updated: 5 July 2011

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
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Sources:

Norris, Joel. Serial Killers.: New York: Anchor Books, 1988. ISBN 0-385-26328-7.
Schneider, Mike. "Jurors Recommend Death for Mechanic Who Murdered Carlie Brucia.": Associated Press. 2 December 2005.
Associated Press. "Man Sentenced for Killing Retired TCU Professor.": 17 November 2005.