Vanessa Veselka, an author of an essay in GQ magazine (2012), Highway of Lost Girls claims that it was easy to overlook runaway victims who hitched rides throughout the country and that she almost fell prey to a serial killer during her time on the road. Veselka supports her claim by describing her experiences through anecdote, repetition, and by citing experts. Her purpose in this essay is to challenge her audience to take a look around them and not disregard these young people just because they look troubled. Veselka uses an intense tone for her audience of young professional men in order to keep them from missing the point. Veselka began her essay by using the rhetorical strategy of anecdote to convince her audience that she had in fact had a run-in with Robert Ben Rhoades, a man who would later be convicted as a serial killer. She used this technique to appeal to her reader’s pathos. She wants the audience to understand the intensity of her encounter and the fear she felt as she saw his expression change. She came to realize he was going to kill her when he mentioned the Laughing Dead Society. When he says “We laugh at death” and pulls a knife out the audience can imagine the shock she was feeling. By starting her essay this manner, the readers can relate what she felt to the feeling of terror the other teenage victims also felt. Another key strategy Vanessa Veselka used is repetition. The word “run” or “running” was used seven times throughout Highway of The Lost Girls. At first she uses it to explain that she was given the option to “run” and that she took it and got away. Throughout the essay the reader will learn that Rhoades was a manipulative man who felt he had his potential victims under control enough that at times he was overly arrogant to believe a victim wouldn’t run. With one young lady in particular, Shana Holts, Rhoades had left her in his semi unshackled and instructed her “sit there and be a good girl.” Rhoades had not been aware of all the experience Holts had on the road giving her the upper hand. Holts’ survival instincts were stronger than his mind games allowing her to run away. Further in the essay Veselka introduces