Mystery Unsolved Inc True Crime

Bob, Haya Stranger's Killer

"We are often warned of the risks of hitchhiking with strangers. But what happened to Haya Stranger when she did this very same thing, and with the police not interested in her disappearance, what would her friends and family do to retrace her path."

"This is the case of Haya Stranger."

"One of Leipzig's residents went by the name of Haya Stranger and she was twenty-eight years old in the year of 2018. Haya was a reliable and honest student, seeking to obtain her master's degree in German studies also known as germanistic. Being a late addition to the family, Haya's siblings were a lot older than she was, and in response, she was very mature for her age. Haya graduated in 2010, and while at school Haya found her voice in politics obtaining her own desire to fight racism. After graduating from school, Haya then moved to Bamberg to study German and during her time here she became a student representative for the university senate. Even appearing in video interviews for the occasion."

"Haya was a very diligent young woman. In 2014 she stood up as a candidate in the city council where she demanded more affordable living conditions, cheaper rents, and much more. Friends often wondered how Haya managed to keep her life together. She had a degree, university senate role, jobs, hobbies, friends, her boyfriend, and other usual engagements to look after. Yet she would consistently manage to do them all. It was in the year of 2015 that Haya graduated from the University of Bamberg and moved over to Leipzig to begin her master's degree. And while there, she would often visit her family back at home and volunteer in various charity projects. One of these projects was called The Kitchen With No Borders where Haya would often visit the Greek island of Lesbos to create meals for those less fortunate, usually from a refugee background. A lot of these refugees were from Morocco and through her various visits she would learn the basics of the Arabic language. On the 14th of June, 2018, Haya made plans to travel back to her parent's home to celebrate her dad's birthday which was the very next day. The family home was in Amberg, roughly a hundred and eighty miles from her student apartment in Leipzig. And so the journey wasn't a simple A to B but it was the middle of summertime in Germany. And the weather was warm and sunny that afternoon. Roughly seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. Haya left her apartment at around 4PM, saying goodbye to her flatmates before taking the S-Bahn train from Leipzig to Schkeuditz West. The journey was only around ten minutes long and afterwards she walked away to the Aral Gas Station taking another ten minutes to get there. There's not much to note about this gas station, it has a WacDonald's, a car wash, a place to buy gas, and apparently its schnitzel and fries aren't too bad either. Another benefit, particularly to Haya was the vast amount of traffic that came through this gas station. And it even had a resting bay for a dozen truck drivers. This was important to Haya as she had intended to complete the remaining one hundred and sixty miles back home through hitchhiking. Understandably hitchhiking is perceived to be quite dangerous. Allowing a total stranger to be in full control of your physical location is a significant step in randomized trust, but even hitchhiking in particular holds a negative stigma. Statistically speaking, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. In fact over ninety-nine percent of all hitchhiking goes by without any problem whatsoever. And when we're talking about the more severe types of crime, that likelihood is significantly smaller than one percent. Haya trusted these figures. In fact she had hitchhiked to this route many times before with her close friend Eva. Haya understood the marginal risks, but she felt the benefits of saving money, meeting new people, and living an adventurous lifestyle far outweighed the likelihood of anything bad happening. The plan was to hitchhike from this gas station to a place named Hersbruck where she could then complete the remaining twenty-three miles by train, before her father could pick her up from the train station."

"And that was the plan at least, but Haya she never showed up."

"Haya told her parents that she believed she would be home around 11PM. But as the hour came and went her, parents immediately knew something was wrong. In fact, their worries had been growing since around 10PM, as Haya had never answered her mother's text message, which had asked her what time she would arrive at the train station. At 10:5 in the morning, the father drove to the train station to see if Haya had made the last train. If she didn't make this one this really was her last chance for the night, and unfortunately, she was nowhere to be seen. Haya's family were obviously worried and in a great amount of fear, they had no idea where she could have gone to and they were aware that she had hitchhiked to make her way home, but luckily they had an early lead, as a safety precaution Haya had shared some of the driver's details to family and friends at an earlier stage. In a telegram message, she wrote 'I am currently hitchhiking with Bob. A Moroccan truck driver from Leipzig to Nuremberg. He even gave me a Moroccan pipe as a present.' Haya had made several attempts to catch a ride from the Aral Gas Station but to begin with she had no luck. Some had refused to take her and some simply couldn't due to the lack of space in their car. This kind of thing takes time and patience, but while observing the situation and realizing she wasn't getting very far, Bob decided to approach Haya and offer her a ride. Bob was a forty-one year old truck driver on shift from Morocco. Working for a company and he and his blue T-460 truck were on the way back home when he encountered Haya. And coincidentally, they were both heading in the same direction. Using a combination of English, German and simple body language the two were able to understand each other enough to make simple conversation. And so with that said Bob understood Haya's requirements. Haya seemed to trust Bob, or at least enough to be able to accept a ride from him. As witnesses confirmed that they saw the two walk towards his truck before catching the southbound on the Autobahn 9. But that is all family and friends knew about Bob and his involvement with Haya. Many questions still remained. Where is Haya? Who is Bob? Is he aware of her disappearance? Or even worse is he directly involved? With all of these questions burning in the back of their skulls, the race to track Bob down began."