“The Killer in the Backseat” is a popular urban legend that began circulating in the 1960s. The legend involves a woman driving a vehicle, completely unaware of a murderer hiding in the backseat. People attempt to warn the woman of the killer’s presence, but they usually end up frightening the woman, leading her to regard them as the threat rather than the murderer. The woman is terrified, but in the end, she is always saved by the actions of those whom she initially fears.
Although the tale is almost entirely fictitious, this urban legend may have been inspired by an actual event. In 1964 a police officer in New York found an escaped murderer hiding in the backseat of his car. No woman was present in this incident, nor is there any evidence that a third person warned the potential victim. Still, the incident contains the most crucial element of the legend, the killer in the backseat, and it serves as a possible origin of this tale. Perhaps this real-life event is the reason why the occupant in the backseat is always referred to as a murderer, even though the woman survives in every version of the legend.
Variations of this legend often contain a mysterious vehicle in pursuit of the woman’s car, flashing its high beams, tailgating, and even ramming her vehicle. Naturally, the woman is scared by the pursuant vehicle and sees the driver as a threat. However, she later learns that the other driver is simply trying to alert her to the presence of the murderer. In most instances, the killer in the backseat has a knife and is poised to strike, but the driver’s high beams repeatedly scare the killer into hiding again. Other versions of the tale specify the weapon of choice to be a meat cleaver or an ax. In these variants of the tale, the woman arrives home, and the rescuer is actually pulled from his vehicle by the woman’s husband or apprehended by the police before revealing the presence of the killer.
In still other versions of the tale, the woman stops at a gas station and is asked to come into the station to resolve some sort of problem. In some instances, the reason given is that the ten-dollar bill she used to pay for the gas is counterfeit. In more recent versions, a declined credit card is the problem. Regardless of the ruse perpetrated by the attendant, once she is safely inside the station, the woman is told of the murderer’s presence, and the authorities are called. In nearly every instance, the gas station attendant’s behavior is described as odd, making it appear that he is the threat.
In fact, in this urban legend, the woman almost always is fooled by the actions of those trying to help her. In the versions in which she is pursued by another motorist, the person is often described in some generic, frightening manner, or is more specifically identified as a truck driver, a lumberjack, or a black man. The moral of the story appears to support the notions of not judging a book by its cover and that it is foolish to make hasty judgments of people based on their appearance, profession, or race. The person the victim most fears is the one who ultimately saves her life.
Not all versions of the tale include this implied moral lesson. During the 1990s, versions of the tale seemingly did more to justify racial fears by stating that the killer in the backseat was a minority gang member undergoing initiation, presumably looking for women to rape. As with any good urban legend, “The Killer in the Backseat” made its way to the Internet in the late 1990s with variations warning women of the danger awaiting them in their cars, particularly those posed by inner city gang members, with specific cities and convenience markets identified.
This legend has been featured prominently in movies and on television. Noted folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand discussed the story with late-night talk show host David Letterman in 1982. The television series Millennium and Homicide both contain an episode in which the tale is featured prominently. The legend was adapted into a small vignette in the 1983 anthology film Nightmares. It also serves as the opening sequence in the 1998 film Urban Legend.
Despite the longevity of the tale, very few incidents have actually occurred. In addition to the New York tale, similar incidents have been reported over the years, but none of them serve as a definitive account. In one of the most recent cases, in 2007, a female college student in Alabama escaped unharmed, without outside assistance, from a man who was hiding in her vehicle. “The Killer in the Backseat” serves as a cautionary tale for women, warning them to be aware of their surroundings, especially when traveling alone.
Daniel Patrick Compora
See also Urban Legends/Urban Belief Tales
Further Reading
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1999. Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends. New York: W. W. Norton.
Craughwell, Thomas J. 1999. Urban Legends: 666 Absolutely True Stories That Happened to a Friend … of a Friend. New York: Barnes and Noble.
UrbanLegendsOnline. http://urbanlegendsonline.com. Accessed September 9, 2015.