Vanishing hitchhiker

Highway 365 in Arkansas is an ordinary stretch of American highway that runs near the central part of the state. However, like many other roadways in the country, it boasts its share of strangeness - or perhaps some would say more than it's share!

Highway 365 is home to a number of "Vanishing Hitchhiker" stories. Many witnesses claim over the years to have picked up a young woman, usually wearing a white dress. She mysteriously vanishes from their cars while they are taking her home.

One story that took place near Woodson, Arkansas had a driver giving a lift to a young woman one rainy night and driving her to a house in Redfield. He got out of the car and walked around to her side of the vehicle to open the door...only to find the girl had disappeared. Bewildered, he went up to the house and was told by the man who answered the door that his daughter had been killed on that night four years ago. On each anniversary of her death, she found an unwitting driver to bring her home.Another similar story involved a man who gave a lift to a young girl that he picked up on a bridge one night. She asked to be taken to a house, again in Woodson, and when they arrived, she asked the driver to go knock on the door because the house looked dark. A woman answered the door and he told her that he had brought her daughter home. The horrified woman stated that her daughter had died one year before on that very night. The driver went back to the car and found it empty....except for a coat. The woman from the house stated that the coat had belonged to the dead girl.

Another tale involves a bridge near Batesville and a driver who picked up a girl there on a night in 1973. The girl was bruised and battered, with a cut above her eye, and she told the driver she had been in an accident. He gave her a ride home and when he turned to speak to her, she had vanished from his car. He went to the door of the house and the man who answered claimed to be the girl's father. He said that his daughter had died one month before in an accident at the bridge near Batesville. He said that other people had also brought her home before. The story goes that drivers are still bringing the girl home today

Skeptical? Intrigued? Or simply curious? Want to put your curiosity to rest? Try driving along Highway 365 some dark and stormy night and keep your eyes open for a girl in a white dress who might be looking for a ride...

Just don't be surprised if she doesn't make it all of the way to your destination!

The haunted area of Highway 365 is said to run just south of Little Rock and past the towns of Woodson, Redfield and as far as Pine Bluff.

(C) Copyright 2002 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.