My wife and I were driving home from a party around 2 AM when our car broke down in a remote area. With no mobile phones back then, we waited helplessly until a college-aged man stopped and kindly offered to drive us into town. We offered him money, but he just smiled and said, “Happy to help.”

Years later, my wife called me in tears. She had just seen a news report about that same man. He wasn’t a college student at all—he was a 35-year-old wanted criminal who had robbed over 30 people in remote areas, often posing as a helpful stranger.

His tactics were terrifying. He’d either ask for rides pretending to be lost or pick people up, gain their trust, then rob and abandon them. Police across several states had been after him for years.

To this day, we don’t know why he spared us. Maybe it was because there were two of us, or because I looked intimidating. Whatever the reason, we were extremely lucky to make it out safely.