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up on the latest episodes without the ads. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of

murder and violence against women. True crime media, like all mass media, is haunted by certain

archetypes. The dedicated detective. The neighbor who always keeps to himself. The flabbergasted

residents of a small town on a custom to locking their doors at night. The smiling family

man with a dark secret. The grieving relative who refuses to give up hope. And then there's

the hitchhiker. The hitchhiker is usually a young woman, at least in the realm of true

crime media. She's in danger. We know that, but she probably doesn't. She's just trying

to get somewhere. Nowadays, outside of certain pockets in the United States, she's a ghost

from the past. Picture a hippy chick thumbing it on the side of the road. Maybe her reliance

on the kindness of strangers seems naive to us now, but it was a different time than

we say. No matter where she is or where she's going, the hitchhiker is a figure standing

in a liminal space. On the concrete between the ditch and the open passenger door of a

waiting car. If she's unlucky enough that her story eventually hits the true crime

circuit, she's a woman who never made it to her destination. Today, we're going to talk

about one of those women, really just a young girl, 17-year-old Simone Stephanie Ridinger.

She left her workplace, the Rainbow Restaurant, at 9 South Main Street, and Natec Massachusetts,

on Friday, September 2, 1977. She was set to spend Labor Day weekend on Martha's vineyard

with her mother. Simone was fiercely independent. She declined multiple ride offers, intending

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