A Life Wasted

Traffic Accident

On September 7, 2001, I was ready to put my deception tactic to work in Memphis, Tennessee. I'd spent the night in a nice hotel and was headed out to look at a clinic to see if it would work for my planned deception. I was picking up speed on the on ramp for Interstate 40, westbound, and adjusting my laptop's GPS map as I drove. In front of me was a tractor trailer, also gaining speed before reaching the interstate. There was a feeder on-ramp that the truck and I were using, and a car had just used it to get in front of the truck. For reasons that I could not figure, the car hit his breaks, causing the big truck to lock his breaks up. I saw all of this, but since I was leaning over fiddling with my computer, it took me an extra fraction of a second to react. You can cover a lot of ground in a fraction of a second.

I had my right foot on the brake when I hit the back of that stopped tractor trailer. It was an empty flatbed trailer, but the heavy steel bumper was higher than the top of my car. I looked up and saw the truck drivers face in his rearview mirror. He saw what happened, then looked ahead and drove on as if he didn't know he'd been rear ended. For me it was just as well. I surely didn't want to file an insurance claim.

My car had stalled so I tried to start it but it didn't make a sound. It was then that I noticed how badly the front of my Ford was damaged. The front part of the car had crumpled. I tried to open the door but it was jammed. Then I realized I was injured. My seatbelt had cut into my chest yet my head managed to bang into the steering wheel. And my right foot, which had been on the brake, felt as if it might be broken.

I don't remember how I got out of the car but I did. A sharply dressed woman, grabbed my arm and asked if I was okay. I told her I was fine. She handed me a business card and said, "I'm a lawyer. I saw the whole thing. The truck driver saw you but left anyway. I wrote his plate number on the back of my card, and I've already called the police." I said thanks and she was off, apologizing about being late for a court appointment. Me too, I muttered. That the police had already been called was bad, but there was nothing I could do about it. I grabbed my laptop bag, which held my computer but also my extra ID's and cash, then walked to a restaurant just off the interchange.

My foot wasn't broken but it did hurt. My head hurt from hitting the steering wheel and my ribs hurt from the seat belt. I was pretty sure the seat belt had injured the ribs I had broken in my escape. Even though I was able to walk to the restaurant I was in a lot of pain. Once there I gave the hostess a twenty-dollar bill and asked her to call a taxi for me. A minute later she told me it would take five minutes. I stepped outside in time to see a police car pull up behind my broken Ford.

This wasn't good but I wasn't too worried. The restaurant was far enough away that he wouldn't think to look for me there, if he looked at all. The car wasn't stolen and the name it was registered to was also clean. I could see the officer well enough to tell that he was running the plates. I looked away to take in my surroundings, but looked back when I heard tires squealing. The officer had reversed away from my car so fast that he left a cloud of burnt rubber. The officer then jumped out of his car with a shotgun in hand and started screaming at my car.

I had no idea what had caused this reaction, but later learned that the salesman, who sold me the car, recognized me on America's Most Wanted a few days later and called it in. Somehow the FBI was able to confirm that it was me who'd bought the car and put an immediate BOLO out on the car. So for more than a month I'd been driving that car without a worry. I had no idea that it was the most hunted car in the country. I'll never understand why I wasn't caught in it.

Even though I didn't understand how it was possible at that time, I was sure the officer knew it was my car. Not having the time to wait for a taxi I walked across the street to a large mall. It was a long walk across the mall's parking lot. I expected to be surrounded by police with every step, but no one seemed to notice me. I walked through the mall and out the door on the opposite side. I spotted a young couple leaving the mall so I got their attention. I held up two $100 bills and offered them cash for a ride to the airport. I didn't want to go to the airport, didn't even know where the Memphis airport was located, but that was the lie that came to me.