Beauty

[Mona Dahl]

WARNING: Please don't read this if you are easily freaked out.

The place where my family and I spend Christmas, a very rural area up North, has an unusual number of murders and abductions of women/missing persons cases. Recently, there was a case where it was believed that a young woman was stopped at a local rest stop at night and a man stuffed a rag in her exhaust pipe and/or slit her tire. Several miles down the road, her car stalled and crashed, and no one knows what happened after that, except that she has not been heard from for 8 years.

No arrests have been made in the case, nor are there any official suspects. Supposedly the area where her car crashed was a spot with no cell phone coverage.

It is a horrific story and obviously heart-rending for the family, so I hope that you will pray for the family and the girl herself, although I'm not sure I want to mention her name here.

Anyway, I was wondering if you ladies had any tips for self-protection? And also, what would you do if something like that happened--if your car broke down in the middle of the night, in a deserted area with no cell phone coverage? I know "stay in the car" would probably be the answer, but couldn't someone break the window if they wanted to...?

I'm sorry to scare anyone, but I honestly have no idea what I would do in this kind of circumstance, and wanted to hear your thoughts. Plus, I think personal safety is (unfortunately) an important topic for women and needs to be discussed.