The killer in the backseat is an urban legend from the United States and United Kingdom

The killer in the backseat (also known as High Beams) is an urban legend from the United States and United Kingdom. It was first noted by folklorist Carlos Drake in 1968 in texts collected by Indiana University students.

LEGEND
The legend involves a woman who is driving and being followed by a car or truck. The mysterious pursuer flashes his high beams, tailgates her, and sometimes even rams her vehicle. When she finally makes it home, she realizes that the driver was trying to warn her that there was a man (a murderer, or escaped mental patient) hiding in her back seat. Each time the man sat up to attack her, the driver behind had used his high beams to scare the killer, causing him to duck back down.

In some versions, the woman stops for gas, and the attendant asks her to come inside to sort out a problem with her credit card. Inside the station, he asks if she knows there's a man in her back seat. (An example of this rendition can be seen in the 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House".) In another, she sees a doll on the road in the moors, stops, and then the man gets in the back.

In another version, the woman gets into her car and then a crazed person leaps out from nowhere and starts shouting gibberish and slamming their hands on the car. The woman quickly manages to escape from them but no matter how far or which direction she drives, every time she stops, the same crazy person appears and attacks the car. The woman then arrives at a police station and tells the police about the crazed person. The police calm her down and offer to drive her back to her house (or a safe place in other versions). But when they go with her to get her things from the car, they find the killer hiding behind the driver's seat. As it turns out, the crazed person that was chasing the woman was the ghost of one of the killer's victims, trying to either warn the woman or get at the killer.

ORIGIN
The story has been identified as circulating at least as early as the late 1960s, and may have gained more widespread recognition after appearing in a letter to advice columnist Ann Landers in 1982. It has been speculated, including by Snopes founder David Mikkelson, that the legend may have been inspired by a vaguely similar case which took place in 1964, in which an escaped murderer hid in the backseat of a car, only to end up shot by the car's owner, a police detective. Other somewhat similar, though not identical, cases have since been noted, including by folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_in_the_backseat

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