LTD: Couple Wins $10.2 Million in Hookman Auto Insurance Settlement
Another auto insurance settlement ruled in favor of a couple, awarding them $10.2 million, after they were attacked by a hook-handed mass-murderer.
The high school couple had heard of the Hookman, a local serial killer with a meat hook in place of his right hand who is known for seeking out isolated lovers in parked cars and then murdering them alongside the road. But nonetheless, they had driven to “Lover’s Lane” a secluded quiet spot in the woods off the road apiece that is known to attract kids looking to meet up and get high.
The pair was making out in the back of their Yugo when the killer assaulted their car. They heard a scraping along the side of the vehicle and something metallic ring against the door. Alarmed, they withdrew from their tryst and drove off as fast as they could. They stopped far from the site, got out, and checked on the vehicle only to find it all scratched up with a metal hook caught in the passenger side door, which was splattered with blood.
“Sure, I’d heard of the Hookman, but I thought it was just an urban myth people told to keep explorative kids in line,” one partner said in an interview. “My mom was so mad about how scraped up and bloodied the car was, she grounded me for a month. And I was so freaked out I couldn’t sleep. One day I thought I saw a hook in one of the window frames of the apartment but it turned out to be just a plant hanger that my mom left there from last season.”
The interviewee went on, “Since I was still grounded and was too scared to spend any sort of time in the car anyway, we just couldn’t get away or be alone together. We had to do something. The precedent had been established, and we were in the car, you know. Besides, there was a ton of body damage and that hook-thing was caught in the door frame. And my mom was still being a total Buzzkill about it all, saying next time we went out we’d have to be chaperoned and some such. Everything was bogus. But it was a totally legit insurance claim.”
Their partner declined to comment, withdrawing from the press. Together they determined to seek reparations for damages from their auto insurance company, to help with their mental health concerns and therapy as well as to repair damages to the car. They said they got the idea after learning about an STI case from Missouri.
The insurance company tried to convince the court that it was all a hoax and that the hook had been planted and the car roughed up to try to make a larger case.
“It’s just some high school kids gold-digging,” the defending lawyer said. “Those key-scraping run-ins in the parking lot don’t fetch that much in damages, only enough to cover a simple paint job really. And that car they were driving wasn’t worth all that much anyway, very low trade-in value, so not much in the way of insurance monies coming in. Hell, it was a Yugo, for Christ’s sake – they were taking their lives into their own hands every time they went anywhere in that car shaped rusted metal coffin. And that Hookman legend is just an urban myth anyway. They tried to make this whole thing into something bigger, probably hoping to trade in on a Porsche or something.”
No one seemed to notice the claims adjuster lawyer’s hand clasped around the stump of a wrist where his other hand should have been, both discreetly hidden behind his back. Or the questionable stains on his black suit, for that matter.
Other frightening severed appendages that have made the Haunted MTL Lighter than Dark newsreel can be found here:
Catching Rats in Rat Traps
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So you may remember the couple that won $10.2 million in the Hookman auto insurance settlement awhile back. Well, Haunted MTL’s Lighter Than Dark crossed paths with them again after they were being ghost-ed in their new apartment. And not the kind of ghost-ing where someone who was really into them just stopped engaging, more the kind where supernatural forces are at play. Here’s the scoop on that weirdness.
It appears that the couple had used some of the settlement money to move out and get their own place. They were really level-headed about the whole thing and were thinking about their future together, not just looking to shack up in a party palace.
“My mom was being such a drag after the whole Hookman thing, grounding me and all. She’d been totally cool with our relationship until she found out we were meeting out on Lover’s Lane and the car got all scraped and bloodied up, and then she just kind of flipped out. And then once we got money for the whole ordeal, she was all like wanting help with this or that, buying groceries and crap. So we got ourselves our own apartment,” one interviewee said. “It was great at first but then things got weird.”
The couple, then in their senior year of high school, wouldn’t admit to lying on the lease, but they did state that they weren’t supposed to have pets. Despite the no-pet policy, they brought their cat Cuddles. Cuddles was totally cool and even settled in nicely. But then things changed.
“I think something tipped off our landlord,” the interviewee said. “Apparently the building was part of some estate from some old dead dude. Hell, we’d never even met the guy running it, but he kept things in order and we didn’t have any complaints. But one day Cuddles sneaked out into the hallway when we were bringing in groceries. There was this weird commotion, like some kind of muffled scream from some faraway room down the hall, and we were like the only unit on that floor. After the creepy distant yell, Cuddles darted back in like lightning; she just wasn’t the same.”
It seemed that Cuddles had seen a ghost, and it wasn’t going to leave her alone after the incident. She’d stare into space and get all poofy for no apparent reason at all. She’d cry and whine at all hours of the night. Or she’d leap away from her owner, hissing and acting all terrified. She refused to go into certain rooms and started peeing in different places outside of her litter box. She was totally freaked out.
“It’s like she was being ghost-ed. The poor kitty was never at peace. I’ve had Cuddles since she was a kitten, and this was totally unlike her.” The interviewee continued, “I felt terrible. Something obviously had it out for her and there was nothing we could do about it. We tried cat pheromones, sage, and geomancy; we even got a paranormal expert in to cleanse the place. Nothing helped.”
The interviewee went on, “One day, we were all laid back on the couch smoking some weed with a couple of friends and we just felt everything settle down. Cuddles came and sat on my lap like nothing had ever changed. The whole apartment seemed to breathe a huge sigh of relief. Everything was just… chill…”
According to the couple, it was like the ghost just needed to get high and “calm the f- down”. Perhaps it’s spirits were raised, or it and Cuddles worked something out. But it seems that everything has been all buddy-buddy since, and Cuddles is her happy purring furry-faced feline self again.
Note: this segment came about after I woke from one of the most legit terrifying dreams I’ve ever had, about my current cat Cinderella freaking the hell out in response to some unseen presence that came in on some object I brought home or something. It was totally messed up but fit into that it-could-totally-happen vibe that didn’t feel at all like a dream. This was one of the most twisted nightmare scenarios I’ve had in awhile, and I’m borderline narcoleptic so I’ve had some doozies. Dream experience rated 1 out of 10, would not recommend.
And further note: no cats were harmed or haunted in the making of this story. My cat Major Tom was not distressed in this photo, he was greeting me with a huge yawning stretch as I stumbled up the stairs. It was an impressively big movement at the time and I was glad I was able to capture it on film since Major Tom was always a little camera-shy (he hated the “light/hand-rectangle” because I tended to leave it lying around randomly in the morning when the alarm went off and he had to fetch me to make it stop).
Our last interview with Broken Doll Head here on Haunted MTL never set well with me. I just feared that I wasn’t able to get the whole scoop on the V-Day Uprising for you, our dear readership. So I arranged another exclusive interview to reconnect and see how it’s going.
Without further ado, I bring you our second exclusive interview with Broken Doll Head…
Thank you so much for having me again. Wow you have changed since the last time we spoke. You seem… calmer. Please don’t hate me or burn down my house for saying anything about it.
The movement is still underway; it is still time. But I needed to take care of me, you know. The rage has subsided somewhat. My anger was not serving me well. After the last uprising, the rest of me was sent to the far corners of the earth in biohazard bags. I had to find another approach, for the cause as well as my own sanity. I am much calmer, thank you for noticing.
In our last interview, you kept repeating that it is time. Time for what exactly? Would you care to elaborate here now?
It is still time. It is always time. Until the violence is addressed we must continue to rise up and make a scene. We will not be silenced or stigmatized. We can’t be complacent. This is how we got to where we are with the Supreme Court in 2022. Horrific injustices are still happening globally and even within our own borders; it’s too easy to forget that.
What do you suggest we do?
Take action. Share your stories. Give others space to voice their own. Raise awareness and fight the system of oppression. Rally. We must take back our own power. It will not be just given freely.
So what are you up to nowadays?
I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Earth Goddess. Are you aware of how our environmental impacts affect dolls everywhere? Climate change is creating greater vulnerabilities for those already at risk. We have to look at the intersections of climate, gender and race globally. We have to return to our Mother Earth.
Thank you again Broken Doll Head for joining us and our dear readership here on Haunted MTL’s Lighter than Dark. It’s good to reconnect with you after the V-Day Uprising and we wish you all the best in your bold eco-enlightenment vision.
Again, if you want to learn more about the V-Day movement, please check out their website here.
