Ghosts of Ohio
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Lore & Legends

The Oxford Rapist

This is a strange little story that The Ghosts of Ohio quickly dismissed as an urban legend. However, we were unaware that this tale is rather well-known in Oxford. With that in mind, we decided to add it to our web site so that others may read about what we were able to find out.

Regardless, late one night a strange car pulled up in front of a house and began blinking its headlights and honking its horn. Inside the house, a young woman was home all alone. Understandably, she became frightened and called her boyfriend, who jumped on his motorcycle and sped towards the house. Sadly, the boyfriend was going so fast that he was not able to negotiate a sharp turn and crashed. He was killed instantly.

The story says that if you go to the young woman’s house and honk your horn and blink your headlights three times each, that a phantom motorcyclist will coming speeding towards you before veering off the road and vanishing.

Anyone who is familiar with Ohio ghost stories or The Ghosts of Ohio web site will recognize the similarities in this story and that of the Elmore Ghost Rider (sorry for the shameless plug). Aside from that, here is what we were able to turn up regarding this case:

  • We were unable to find any evidence that there was ever a serial rapist in Oxford, Ohio. It should be noted that are work was further hindered by versions submitted by our readers which disputed the real modus operandi of the killer. To put it bluntly, the only urban legend character that readers did NOT associate with this case was the infamous "Hook Killer".
  • It became evident to us early on that this was a story that had been around for a while. We based this on the ages of the individuals who submitted versions of this story. When all of the versions were categorized based on age, we found that over time, the location of the girlfriend’s house changed. At present time, The Ghosts of Ohio have five different areas of Oxford where the house is supposed to be located. We stress the word "areas" since in every version we received, we were told that the house "no longer exists".
  • We have yet to find a version of the story were ANY of the characters are named or are even described in more detail than "the girlfriend, the boyfriend and the killer". Also, none of the stories ever tell what became of the girlfriend or if the rapist/murderer was ever apprehended. It became obvious to us that the whole "girlfriend in distress" theme was simply used to set up the story. Once the boyfriend died, no other information was necessary.

But as with all of the stories that The Ghosts of Ohio has placed in its "Hard to Believe" files, we encourage readers with any information to come forward. However, we would like to offer these words of caution:

It has been said that everyone who becomes involved with this story will one day be visited by the ghost of Richard Gere’s hamster, who comes bearing gifts of spider egg-infested Bubble Yum.

To read the story which may have been the inspiration for the Oxford Rapist tale, please visit our Elmore Ghost Rider page.



© The Ghosts of Ohio