Even though this story takes place back in the early eighties - 1981 to be exact - it’s still the reason I avoid not only taxis, but ride-sharing apps like Uber or Lyft to this day. I’m a 68 year-old male but this story happened when I had recently turned 30. I had eagerly enlisted in the Vietnam War just out of High School, but before anybody really knew about what was actually going on over there. As far as I knew, it was all black-and-white, good vs evil.

Oh, how wrong I was.

But those can be saved for another day. When I came home with both a wounded leg and shoulder, I immediately began working to make a career as a doctor. As a doctor of what I had no idea, I just knew I was having horrible nightmares and flashbacks to all the violence and depravity (what we now know as PTSD) and was determined to prevent death than be the cause of it. I worked hard and soon was accepted for residency at a local hospital.

Unfortunately student loans forced me to get a cheaper place to live, and I was spared homelessness by an old army buddy who knew a friend who was also in need of a new apartment. That’s how I met Charlotte. Charlotte was a few years younger than me and well, a bit eccentric. When we first met she came off as sort of stand-offish and even a little bit arrogant, like she was the smartest person in the room. To be fair, this woman was incredibly smart, scarily so too. But we both agreed to manage our bad habits in check, and being that I’d be gone most of the day at the hospital anyway, we decided to give it a shot.

For the first few weeks of living together, Charlotte proved to be even more eccentric than I initially thought. When I was home either after work or on a rare day off, she was usually out of the house, sometimes for days on end. I never did anything about it because A) I assumed she was either dating someone and staying over at their place or staying with friends most nights and B) she always came back after a few days and C) I never felt it was any of my business.

Charlotte would also have strange guests come over a few times a week. I initially thought they were her friends but I soon noticed it was a completely different person each time. They would go into her room, sometimes up to an hour, and the “guest” would leave. Sometimes they looked happy, sometimes they looked upset or even angry. The only person to make a repeat visit was a middle-aged woman who came over at least twice a week. Now, I was raised as a gentleman and instilled the lesson to treat all women with respect, but this woman looked straight-up like a rat. I don’t mean to be mean, but she honestly did.

Now you’re probably thinking what I was thinking; I’m roomies with a prostitute, and Rat-Face is Charlotte’s pimp. Keep in mind, this is New York City in 1981, crime rates were through the roof and only getting worse over time. The minute I clicked the prostitute idea, a lot of scary outcomes came into my head, none of them good.

What if a “client” should get violent in our apartment? What if she doesn’t make enough money and her pimp comes to collect with “backup”? What if I happen to be home? What if I don’t happen to be home?

These were the thoughts racing through my mind as I entered a taxi one night heading to work.

For the first five minutes, the ride was like any normal taxi ride. Where ya going? Oh, I know that place. So, where ya from, what do you do- type of small talk. But after a while his questions began getting more...specific. Keep in mind, this was nearly 40 years ago so I don’t recall the exact conversation. But I remember he randomly asked if I had ever been to the projects, to which I said no. He then asked me if I had ever been near Times Square, and I said not recently. Then he asked if I’d ever been to Utah, which was weird because I had never mentioned Utah, nor mention anything about traveling.

I told him I hadn’t, but that I was sure it was a beautiful state with lovely people. The driver then began telling me that indeed, Utah could be a beautiful state if it weren’t for one thing: Mormons. Oh, boy.

Now, I’m an atheist but I’ll admit I didn’t really know anything about Mormonism. This guy knew more than I did, but from the way his speech spiraled down to tirade and then pure and unapologetic hate speech, I realized he didn’t know much more. Another thing I realized was he was clearly on something. His eyes became glassy and darted around quickly. His driving began to swerve and I was honestly really getting scared he might hit another car and possibly kill us. Then he gripped the wheel, and his breathing became erratic. In-between wheezes of air he said:

“I’ll kill ‘em! Every last, Goddamned one of them! Just like I killed the other two….”

My heart froze. Oh fuck, did this nutjob dopehead just admit to killing two people? I was completely paralyzed with fear. He was driving faster and faster by the minute, it would only be a matter of time before we hit someone or something. I was surely convinced death would come for me at any given second. I couldn’t breathe. I was terrified that I was gonna be victim number three to this psychopath.

Only when the flashing red white and blue lights appeared could I actually exhale.

The driver’s name was Jefferson Hope, and his claim of double murder was true. His first victim was Evan Drebber, whom he had driven to the projects and killed with poison. Drebber, drunker than hell, was easy to subdue. The second, Joseph Stangerson, had been stabbed in an apartment near Times Square. Apparently, Hope had tried to poison him too, but Stangerson fought back, leading to Hope picking up a knife. All three had known each other back in Utah, where Drebber and Stangerson were members of the Mormon church. The two kidnapped Hope’s wife due to their belief they felt she would be more suitable to Drebber than Hope. The two beat and tortured the poor woman for weeks until she died, then fled the state. The police tried to get involved, but because the two came from rather powerful families within the church, very little was done on the investigation

Devastated, betrayed by the system and out for revenge, Hope tracked the pair down to New York and got work as a Taxi Driver. Realizing he basically found work as an invisible man, Hope used his job to stalk Drebber and Stangerson. He even showed up when they needed a taxi, almost as if by a miracle. The final push came from a doctor’s diagnosis, where Hope was diagnosed with a heart aneurysm that could literally kill him at any second. When he murdered Stangerson, Hope then tried overdosing on heroin he bought the day before and my ride with him was supposed to be his “blaze of glory.” His one mistake was checking in with home base that he was in my neighborhood. That was how the police were able to catch him.

But the most surprising thing of all? I learned all of this from Charlotte, who was in the police car behind us. Turns out, Charlotte was a consultant for the NYPD and the reason she wasn’t at home most nights was because she was working nose to the grindstone on trying to help the cops catch him. The rat-faced woman turned out to be the lead investigator and the numerous people were, indeed, clients. Clients looking to hire either a consultant or a private detective.

Shortly after this, I bought my own car, despite the ridicule of my friends who said I was stupid for owning a car in NYC. But I’d rather get my car stolen, than my life.

I have many many more stories, some of them scary, some of them funny, some of them pretty damn weird. But I’ll always remember this one, the one where I got saved from a broken, sad crazy taxi driver by roommate, Charlotte Holmes.