The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Told by Pauline Caughtry and Cyndi Burns

Joel Harris was driving home one night from a business trip, and as he was driving it began to rain. To make matters worse he was very tired, and as he was driving along he noticed a flash of white, and as he got closer he realized that it was a young girl in a white party dress. She was wet and she was crying, so he stopped to ask her f she wanted a ride, and when he did she said thank you, she‘d love one, so she got in the back seat. He offered her his jacket because she was shivering and when he got to the place where she had told him to stop at, he turned around to ask if this was the right place, and she was gone.

He realized that she must have jumped out of the car when he got to the house, and ran in. So he went up to the door and knocked on it. An old lady answered the door and asked what he wanted. Joel asked, "Do you have a daughter named Linda?" The lady answered, "Yes, but she died ten years ago in a car accident on her way home from a party." So Joel told her the story of how he picked Linda up on the freeway and drove her home. He expected the lady to call him crazy or mad, but instead she just said: "I know. It happened many times before. It seems she is trying to get home. Her grave is in Oakville Cemetery a couple of miles up the road." So Joel got into his car and went down to the cemetery. When he looked around he finally found Linda‘s tombstone, and lying neatly folded on top of her tombstone was Joel‘s jacket.