My brush with a serial killer

I was somewhere between four and six, however old children usually are in kindergarten.
I had recently returned to my mother after being in foster care on a farm. I mention that only because the experience of farm living probably saved my life this day.

I was walking home from school, when a man pulled up not two blocks from my front door and called me over.

I walked over to him, thinking he was lost.

I took note of the car on my way over. The colour, the rust spots around the wheel wells, his broken side view mirror, his wire framed glasses, the tape holding them in place, his long, lanky, red hair.

He simply said, "Get in." I looked over his shoulder, into his car and saw a tarp covering the back seat. It looked like it was covering objects you might find on a farm, and a smell to match.

I looked into his eyes. I saw something stir in them. I began to scream. I began to scream even before my terror made sense to me. Somehow I was convinced he wanted to devour me. I ran, he burned rubber as he peeled out as fast as he could. I ran the short distance home, screaming at the top of my lungs the whole way.

The police came, interviewed me. I told them about the "farm dirt" smell I remembered, (child speak for manure), I described his features (I can still see his face to this day), his mannerisms, his car.

Privately the police told my mother they had been tracking this man for some time. He was a serial killer of children, young girls. I was extremely young in comparison to his other victims who were typically between nine and thirteen. However, the description I gave them, was the only description they had because I was the only one to ever get as close to him to see his face, and live.

When I turned twelve, my mother tossed a magazine my way. She told me what page to turn to. It was all about this man. They said he'd been captured. He got greedy and took two girls at once. While he butchered the first girl, the second one slipped away. She managed to lead the police back to him, and he was caught. He was a local pig farmer, the survivor recalled how he taunted her, describing how he was going to slaughter her and her friend like "pigs".

I remember wishing I had had a chance to see him in the flesh, to make sure IT WAS the man who tried to grab me.

26 years, 3,000 miles later I would turn on the news and see a face, aged but familiar another pig farmer, with the same dead eyes and greasy red hair is it possible? Is there a connection? A family resemblance? A family tradition?

I've been in hell since the Picton case broke. I am so tired of going to the police and being ignored, or judged, I have no faith in the police anymore at all.