Early in the evening of Sunday, March 22,
1970, Kathleen Johns, 23, was driving with her infant daughter Jennifer on Highway 132 in San Joaquin County, several miles west of Modesto, when a man in
a light-colored American car started honking his horn and blinking his lights at
her. Driving alongside her car, he said that one of her wheels was wobbling and
volunteered to fix it. He followed
her as she pulled over at Bird Road, a turn-off just west of Interstate 5, then
got out with a lug wrench and pretended to tighten the nuts on her right rear
wheel. In fact, he removed them, and when Johns tried to drive off, the whole
wheel spun loose. Again, the man offered help, this time in the form of a ride
to 
a nearby service station. She accepted, and they continued in the man's car
westward on 132 until he pulled into a Richfield station at Chrisman Road. It
was closed, and there followed an hour and a half or more of silent and
apparently aimless driving through the city of Tracy and its rural environs. As
they passed occasional other service stations, she asked a few times "What's
wrong with this station," or "Why can't we go in that station," to which he
replied that it was not the right one. A police report states, "she said she
was very scared of this man, did want to get out, but did not tell him to stop
the vehicle or let her out". Ms. Johns soon realized that the stranger wasn't
taking her to any service station, and asked him if he always went around
helping people like this. The man responded, "By the time I get through with
them, they won't need my help". From time to time he would slow down, as if he
were about to pull over, and then would speed up again. Finally, he stopped the
car short at a stop sign, and Johns took the opportunity to escape. She held her
baby tightly and jumped from the car, running across a nearby field and up an
embankment where she hid in the shadows. The man turned his headlights off,
moved his car a few feet, and waited silently without leaving the car. After
about five minutes, he turned his lights back on and drove away.