Update: The original Facebook post is no longer available, but you can find screenshots here, courtesy of Thought Catalog.
After closing up her shift at a store in a mall in Flint, Michigan, Ashley Hardacre noticed something odd on her car: A flannel shirt draped over the windshield. Though it seemed harmless at first, Hardacre noticed that not only was there a car near her that was running, the shirt was also wrapped completely around her windshield wiper.
Immediately feeling uneasy, she drove to a safe location and removed the shirt, but posted a photo on Facebook as a warning for others.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"I got to my car and locked the doors behind me immediately as I always do and noticed that there was a blue flannel shirt on my windshield," she wrote in the post. "There were two cars near me and one was running so I immediately felt uneasy and knew I couldn't get out to get it off."
Though Hardacre initially thought that someone had accidentally thrown the shirt over her windshield, she turned her windshield wipers on and realized someone had very purposefully put it on her car.
"I had seen posts lately about people finding things under their windshield wipers in the burton/Flint area as an attempt to get girls out of their cars and distracted," she wrote. "Luckily I knew better than to remove the shirt with cars around me so I drove over to a place where I was safe and quickly rolled down my window and got the shirt off. I don't know why the shirt was on my car but it had to have been intentional the way it was put on there. I really can't think of another reason as to why someone would put it on my car."
Hardacre told KMOV.com that what most concerned her was that someone took the time to unbutton the shirt and wrap it around her windshield wiper.
"I drove around the building to get to a safer place because my mom had told me about human trafficking and how this was something they could actually use to lure you in," she told KMOV.
She also told KMOV that she now asks security guards from the mall to walk her to her car just in case, and is posting her photo to make sure that her peers are also extra careful.
"I'm just hoping I can raise awareness that this can happen and even if there wasn't an intention to do something to me it can still happen to others," she told KMOV.