on the roof or his feet are scraping against the roof. In other versions, the man does return to the car only to see his date brutally murdered with a hook embedded in her. Other tales have the woman leaving the car when her date doesn't come back, only to see his mutilated body (either on the car's roof, nailed on a tree, or just a few short steps away). As she starts to panic, she runs into the maniac and is also killed. In another variation of the story, the woman is discovered by police. While being escorted to safety, she is warned not to look behind her. When she does so, she sees the grisly aftermath of the man's murder. A similar legend recounts that a young couple are heading back from a great date when their car breaks down (either from running out of fuel or a malfunction). The man then decides to head off on foot to find someone to help with the problem while the woman stays behind in the car. She then falls asleep while waiting and wakes up to see a hideous person looking at her through the window. Luckily, the car is locked, so the person can't get inside. But to the woman's horror, the person raises both of his arms to reveal that they are holding her date's severed head in one hand and the car keys in the other. The fate of the woman is never revealed. Origin The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historian Jan Harold Brunvand, the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States. According to Brunvand in The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, the story had become widespread amongst American teenagers by 1959, and continued to expand into the 1960s. Snopes writer David Mikkelson has speculated that the legend might have roots in real-life lovers' lane murders, such as the 1946 Texarkana Moonlight Murders. The first known publication of the story occurred on November 8, 1960, when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted in Dear Abby, a popular advice column: Dear Abby: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me: A fellow and his date