Maurice Shema

David Wood, the police, the victims, their parents, everybody knows everybody, as if somehow they all went to high school together.

Even this Whataburger is relevant in a way.

Ramona tells us she got involved in this case because of her best friend, Cheryl Vasquez.

When they were still teenagers, Cheryl married Ramona's brother, which made them best friends and sisters-in-law.

But... Cheryl was 19 when she disappeared, the same summer as all the desert killer victims.

When bodies started turning up in the desert, Ramona was worried that Cheryl was going to be one of them.

She felt the cops weren't looking hard enough for her friend.

So she enlisted her mom, and they decided to figure out what happened to Cheryl themselves.

They knew Cheryl was last seen at this one Circle K convenience store.

And so they came up with, frankly, a totally bonkers plan.

By way of explanation, Ramona says that her mom was, quote, German.

The lawyers don't ask her to explain more.

But as strange as the plan was, there was some logic to it.

Ramona and Cheryl were about the same age, and according to Ramona, looked so alike that they got mistaken for sisters.

Ramona's mom thought she could use her daughter's looks to lure out the desert killer.

Ramona says that she and her mom did this Circle K routine over a few days with no luck.

Then, one afternoon, she was sitting on a wall outside the store in her shorts when she saw a truck approach.

Word around town was that the desert killer drove a beige or a brown truck.

This was how Ramona first met David Wood.

At this point, the cops were starting to zero in on him for the disappearances, including Cheryl's, and he knew it.