Intuition - a textbook example

Trusting your instincts when followed
Illustration photo, from sxc.hu

From Tulsa Oklahoma, here's a textbook example of why you should always pay attention to your surroundings and listen to your instincts/gut feeling when you get this "something isn't quite right here".

It is really impressive to see how this woman does everything right in handling this potentially dangerous situation - read it carefully and learn from it!

She got off work Thursday night, went home, opened the garage door and, as she does each night, took a moment to look around.
"When I turned around to check, I felt somebody was there. He looked me straight in the eye," Keely said.
Keely quickly realized she had been followed. She put the garage door back down and pulled out of her neighborhood, hoping maybe he was just lost, but he followed her.

What's your take on this article? Also, do you have similar experiences like this with using your awareness and trusting your instincts?

Didn't like the feeling

Seems very strange to me that the parents didn't check with the modelling agency, all the time her mother got this creepy "something isn't right" feeling.

Story:
Minnesota -- A 17-year-old girl told her parents a photographer had approached her at a local store, claiming to be affiliated with a modeling agency. The man even gave her $200 to buy clothes for the photo shoot.

"To make that money quick, there is something not right. I didn't like the feeling I got," said her mother. The parents took several steps to check out the man. They even contacted local police to check out his criminal history. They found out he had a clean record.

However, when the teen showed up at the hotel room in Brooklyn Park in March, she said she became frightened when the photographer locked the door. The man then showed her other teenager's pictures, some partially clothed, some younger than she. "Right there I was, oh my God, I mean, how much younger, I am 17-years-old and she looked very young and it scared me," the girl said.

After taking several photos of girl, she said, "All of a sudden he grabbed me by the shirt and ripped my shirt off and threw that on the ground." When the man stepped into the bathroom, the girl said she escaped, first peaking at his wallet to learn he had given her a fake name. She then ran to her car, called her Mom and then police.

Source

A coincidence?

Just a coincidence that this woman believed she was being followed, then notices she's got a flat tire, and then just out of nowhere the man shows up to "help her fix" the tyre ...?

Story:
New Jersey -- A 31-year-old Easton man was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and then tried to sexually assault her.

Authorities said the 26-year-old Hillsborough Township woman believed the man was following her Tuesday as she drove into Franklin Township and then noticed she had a flat tire.

The victim pulled into a motel and asked the manager to call 911 if he noticed anyone following her. She then drove away and pulled into a nearby service station.

Authorities said that's when the suspect pulled up and offered to fix the flat tire as the woman tried to make other arrangements to get home.

The suspect allegedly shoved her into his car and locked the doors before driving away with her. At some point he tried to sexually assault her. The woman escaped from the car at a red light and called 911, authorities said.

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Didn't feel right

Illinois - It started off as an ordinary walk to school Wednesday, just like others the 13-year-old Peoria girl has taken countless times. But something didn't feel right.

She looked over her shoulder and saw a man she didn't know walking not far behind her.

No one else was around on this overgrown path next to railroad tracks in a wooded, secluded area in the city's North Valley.

She looked behind her again. He quickened his pace. Her heart beat faster. She started running, knowing she was trapped.

Source

He acted that way

I commend this woman for fighting back and probably saving her own life.
But seriously, does anyone believe that self-defense/fighting back is as easy as it looks on television?
There's however another far more interesting observation here:
"I was aware of him, I saw him there. I thought he was a caretaker at the cemetery. He acted that way."
Most likely, if you are being that aware about someone, your intuition has told you that something is not right!
Think about it, we will register that someone has legitimate business being around us - like in working there.
If, however we are being aware of the person, there might absolutely be something else we have noticed. This may be that the person acts like it. Really, this phrase alone tells the whole story - acting. This woman has seen already that this was not real.

Story:
Texas -- A 43-year-old man has been charged with attacking a woman at a Beaumont cemetery.

The 45 year old woman from Beaumont said she was visiting her husband's grave on Valentine's Day when she saw the man who would soon attack her.

"I was aware of him," she told us. "I saw him there. I thought he was a caretaker at the cemetery. He acted that way."

The woman says he struck her with decorative items from her husband's grave."They were square cross luminary lights," she said. "He broke them on me. He beat my head to a pulp. I needed stitches in my forehead, left eye and eyebrow. I spent five days in a hospital. My jaw was injured. I had bruises down my cheeks and behind my ears, and scratches on my shoulders. My hands and arms were bruised."

"I'm alive, that's the main thing," she said. "I thanked my big brother for fighting with me while we were growing up because that made me fight that guy. It isn't as easy as it looks on television, but that definitely saved my life because I think he was going to kill me."

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Loan sharking

In his brilliant book: "The Gift of Fear" - you can read more about it here - Gavin De Becker also refers to what a criminal might do or say to get to his victims.
One of those things is what he calls "Loan Sharking"; offering some kind of help or assistance in order to have the intended victim to perceive some sort of "debt". This help can be anything from carrying bags, or like in this incident, fixing a flat tyre.

Story:
It was late September, 1995, and a 22-year-old woman was leaving a shopping mall in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. About the time she noticed she had a flat, a man approached her and offered to fix it.

The man fixed the flat and then asked the woman for a ride.

Perhaps understandably, the woman was willing to return a favor, but as she and the good Samaritan drove she realized he didn't seem to have any place to go. When the young woman refused to drive any further, the man held a screwdriver to her throat.

Luckily, she escaped and was able to flag down another motorist. The abductor took off in the woman’s car.

The good Samaritan turned screwdriver-wielding kidnapper was a man, recently arrested as a suspect in kidnapping a missing 13-year-old girl, called Kaitlin.

Kaitlin disappeared from the small community that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans on Thursday, February 1. She apparently vanished just after getting off her school bus.

The suspect is related to the girl by marriage and lives with his wife in a mobile home behind the girl's family residence.

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Instincts

The woman in the earliest incident here obviously trusted her instincts!
If you get this feeling that something isn't quite right, then leave immediately, it's always better to feel "stupid" than being robbed or assaulted, or something even worse.

Chicago - A man abducted and attempted to rob a female graduate student in the Hyde Park area on Thursday, January 25.

Police believe this may be the same man who parked a similar van in the area at 9:45 p.m., Thursday, January 18, and asked a passing woman for the time.

When she felt uncomfortable and subsequently fled, the man briefly pursued her. The woman was not hurt.

Source

Friendliness

A common way to have you lower your guard: (too much) friendliness.

Story:
Norway – An 18-year-old female was on her way to a friend in Trondheim. She had spent a night on town, had been arguing with somebody and was subsequently walking on her own.

As she was walking, she met an unknown male. The man noticed that she was upset; he asks her for her name and gives her his jacket when she says she’s cold.

The man also asks her where she’s going – suggesting to the young woman she might want to follow him home to his place.

The teenager says no. When she tries to leave, the man holds her back. The female breaks free and escapes. Running away, she believes she has lost the man. But after a while she can hear footsteps behind her.

Finding that she’s being followed by the same person, she presses a random doorbell to a nearby residence. She shouts and begs to be let in.

The assailant grabs her and pushes her against a wall while he attempts to sexually assault her. He holds a hand over her mouth and tells her to be quiet. The intended victim, however is screaming during the whole ordeal.

A young woman living close by has heard the commotion. When she arrives at the scene, the attacker takes off.

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It didn't look right

This news article is a great read! I think we have lots to learn from experienced police officers, and the way their intuition works.
Bottom line: If something 'doesn't look right', 'doesn't sound right', or 'looks suspicious', there's a high probability that something is going on.

Story:
When Warren Jeffs, one of the members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List was captured this last week, most of the story was focused on his religious sect, an unauthorized spin-off of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

What got less notice was that Jeffs was located, identified, and captured not by the estimable Federal Bureau of Investigation, but rather by a Mark I model of the World's Most Effective Crime Suppression Device: a uniformed patrol officer.

Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Eddie Dutchover stopped Jeffs' Cadillac Escalade for having a paper license plate that didn't look right. Jeffs was sitting in the back seat of the SUV, eating a salad.

Dutchover's cop radar went off when Jeffs wouldn't make eye contact with him. When the trooper was told that the folks in the Cadillac had just spent a single night in Vegas, it occurred to him that they were carrying a lot of luggage for an overnighter. Dutchover started asking questions and collecting IDs. The rest is history.

Source

She had a creepy feeling

Another person not listening to the inner voice telling her that something is not right. Oh, and let's not forget that talking on a cellular phone like this is a big no, no too - unless it is to get help.

Story:
Smith had parked her bright-orange Volkswagen in the Lake Avenue garage after working at a clothing store in West Town Mall. She spoke to her boyfriend in Chattanooga by cell phone as she crossed Terrace Avenue and ascended steps leading to the Presidential Complex and her dormitory.

She told her boyfriend she had a creepy feeling of being followed. That's when Christopher J. Gann, then 25, implemented his plan to steal Smith's car.

Gann smashed Smith in the head with a brick, but the athletic woman fought back. She shoved Gann down the steps and ran before falling to one knee from the blow to her head.

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