It's rare to see hitchhikers around California today, although up in the northern parts near San Jose in Sacramento, I've actually seen a lone backpacker with their thumb up on the side of the road, asking for a ride.

But if we step back to the 1960s and 70s in the United States, the culture was leaning more

toward an idea among people, to be more cooperative and spontaneous.

Plus it was an easy way to get around.

For teenagers or college students without a car, the choice between connecting with a stranger

or taking a boring bus ride was an easy one to make.

Although, of course, nothing was 100% safe, even back then.

The concerns were the same as they are now.

Safety.

Especially for young women.

The newspapers were no stranger to these types of reports.

They would go into graphic detail of how assaulted dead bodies of victims had been found along the side of the road. But for a time, between 1972 and 1973, a series of events took place in the North Bay Area of California that even reporters struggled to keep up with.

The mysterious deaths of young women in Sonoma County in Santa Rosa.

All of them. Hitchhikers.

My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story.

The night was just like any other at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, a place where locals would go ice skating, hang out with friends, and meet other people.

We search for it now, you'll still find it by its more popular name, Snoopy's Home Ice, because it was owned by Charles Schultz,

the creator of Peanuts, the comic strip. It was a popular place for young teenagers and one

of the few for them to hang out in. Such was a case for Marine Louise Sterling, 12 years old,

and Yvonne Lisa Weber, 13. It was February 4th, 1972, and they had been dropped off by one of their mothers at around 7 or 8 in the evening.

Marine and Yvonne left the ice skating rink, though.

They went from the ice arena toward Gerniville Road, just outside, and got in a car.

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