Thursday, December 15, 2011

True Crime

Most of the crimes my blog sisters and I write about are personal. Someone does something to another person for a reason. And they usually know them. But sometimes in real life there are random crimes. Sometimes so random it’s hard to comprehend.

A friend of ours had pulled into a busy Studio City parking lot in the middle of the day. It’s right by CBS Television City and a few blocks from an apartment we lived in a long time ago. It’s the same parking lot where I saw Jay Leno coming out of a store. It’s also the same parking lot that houses a restaurant where we used to always see Robert Blake in his Baretta days.

Our had just stopped to drop off some dry cleaning. He was standing by his open trunk taking out the clothes, talking on his cell phone to his son when a woman he didn’t know came up to him and said something. He felt something odd and thought he’d been hit by a car, but the woman had stabbed him in the back. He saw her knife and raised his arm to protect himself and she stabbed him in the arm. Then she calmly started to walk through the parking lot and down the street.

I saw a picture of her. She appeared nicely dressed, though she was later referred to as a transient. Who would have figured? There were lots of pictures of her because people in the parking lot saw what was happening and took out their cell phones. They didn’t come to our friends aid, but then it probably happened so fast, they didn’t have time to react. And there was the fact she was 6'4" and she had a knife.

However lots of people called 911 and someone had the presence to follow her (no doubt at a safe distance) and was able to give the police her location.

Our friend didn’t realize how badly he’d been hurt and was still walking around. The man who owned the cleaners knew him and had him sit down inside to wait for the ambulance.

It turned out he lost half his blood supply and went into cardiac arrest. But he got more blood and they restarted his heart, probably not in that order. He was in the hospital for a week and came home, shaking his head with disbelief at what had happened.

The woman had been in trouble with the police before and was clearly mentally unbalanced. Even so, the cops were going to let her off with a plea deal, until someone our friend knew (he’s a lawyer) convinced the cops they had to make sure she wasn’t back on the street and she was charged with attempted murder.

If I wrote that in a book nobody would believe it. Maybe they wouldn’t want to believe it. Who wants to think you could be minding your own business, doing errands and end up getting attacked and almost dying?

There is one more detail that makes it even creepier. It’s what the woman said to him. She said “you’re not the only one who has lost a son.”

And what she said was true. Our friend had lost one of his sons a few years back. It makes you wonder.

7 comments:

Linda O. Johnston said...

How awful, Betty! So glad your friend survived. Which parking lot was it? I may want to stay away from there--although it's good news that the decision was to prosecute the woman.

Planner said...

That's quite a story with a really creepy twist. Fact can definitely be stranger than fiction, and I'm so glad your friend made it through. I hope he won't have residual effects.

Monica Ferris said...

What a strange story! But you know something? The woman's seemingly psychic comment moves it right over to a great opening of a mystery with supernatural elements.

Betty Hechtman said...

Linda, it was the Dupar, Trader Joe parking lot. No reason to stay away. It was a freak occurence.

Betty Hechtman said...

Planner, I hope he doesn't have any residual effects, too. It's the kind of thing that could leave someone with anxiety attacks.

Betty Hechtman said...

Monica, yes, that comment does make it a great beginning. It could be a psychic comment, or it could turn out that since the character is a lawyer that he had something to do with the loss of her son. Like, how about someone he helped get off, turned out to be guilty of murder and then goes on to kill again - her son.

Monica Ferris said...

Great idea, Betty!