Have You Ever Been In The Small Town Of Rough And Ready?

by Pam
(Oklahoma)

I am not sure if this will help you in any way at all. However, just let me go ahead and tell you what I seen when I went to the crazy little town of Rough And Ready, which I had no idea even existed until I was about 15-16 years old.

I am from Southern California and all of my family is from Northern California, (Marysville, Yuba City, Sacramento, etc). Me and a few of my family members including my mother and father who are now deceased, ended up around in the vicinity of Rough And Ready, as well as the little town of Rough And Ready. I thought it was a strange name of a town and one that I will never forget either. I was correct!!!

Practically the ONLY thing that you could find in this small town was a little hole in the wall bar with about 5 or 6 flirtatious men who looked very scary and acted like they would have had every intention to do ANYTHING to me had I have been left there alone. They were definitely locals of the area and that bar looked to be their local hangout as there did not look like there was much else to do in that town and there is not any other towns really that close to it either. It is pretty secluded, to say the least.

I doubt very seriously if there are many woman up in that area because the only two that I had seen the entire time that I was there were me, my mother and the bartender who would not have taken any crap from those guys who were locals. They may have even all been related for all that I know of. I am unsure. The place just looked so spooky and like it was just bad news to me. DEFINITELY NOT a place that I would want to get lost around, and have to fend for myself.

I am not a very shy woman either, however, I am a safe person and am not naive in the least. I can sniff out trouble a lot of times and am also a pretty good judge of character too, no matter how a person looks. I would not have had an issue asking for information/help if I needed it. However, I would not in a million years have asked one of those men in that bar that afternoon. Here is the scary and hopeless part of a lot of these problems when people get lost, injured, needs help, etc...

People become desperate as they are clueless about their whereabouts and cannot find any other town close by. Therefore, that would put themselves at the mercy of someone like those guys in that bar that I seen. I can totally see something like that happening too.

There looked to be about 5 or 6 of them, they all looked to be from the immediate area, and all looked to be pretty tight/close. Even though they were nice enough at that time, they scared the crap out of me without even having to say anything at all. They looked, smiled and gawked constantly like they had not seen a female in a very very long time. I just knew something was NOT right about the group of them and my parents also said the same exact thing after we had finally left too.

I am no prude as I am from the Los Angeles area and now live in a state with hillbillies, cowboys, mountain people...etc. I have seen it all for the most part (so I would like to think). I am telling you that place definitely did not feel safe at all. Nothing about that little town or it's surrounding areas did. The town population looked to simply consist of the people in that bar although I know that there are more people who live there than that. We just did not see anyone else in the long 45 minutes to an hour that we were there.

Something tells me that this poor girl was not from that area at all but probably got lost or dropped off there by someone who had already possibly hurt her. It is also very easy to get lost up in those mountains/hills too which is what had happened to us and what had led us to the bar since we could not find any other places anywhere close to the area which we ended up in. However, this was the first time that we had stopped in Rough And Ready although not the only time that we had been close to it due to the sign that leads to it off of the main hwy there.

I think for a person to know that it would be a good place to drop a body off at would have to be a local, or at the very least, familiar with the area because most people do not even know about Rough And Ready or have a reason to go there. The town also has a little saying of their own that I thought was a little awkward, but I guess it can be fun for some people? Their little town saying/motto is as follows: Rough And Ready: Where The Men Are Rough, And The Woman Are Ready. With all that being said, when I was there, it was the early to mid 80's which is at least 10 years after this terrible tragedy had happened.

What I had seen was just a bunch of perverted dirty looking men from the hills who would have done something crazy if nobody had been there with me. I am in no way shape or form saying that these men are the men who did this to that poor woman. However, I bet that the person who did it is from the area and the girl isn't. That is so hard too. The fact that nobody has any idea where this woman is even from is just awful. It pretty much gives you nothing to go by. I do not understand how these things can happen to our own kids, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc... Then to have nobody step in and claim the person as a family member or even a friend.

This is terribly SAD! I wish that there was more information that I could give you. I really do. Bless this young woman's Beautiful Soul. God Help this woman and bless her wonderful soul! May she rest in peace. Please, heavenly father, catch the person(s) who did this to this woman, and to all of the other men and woman who have gone through these violently unsolved crimes in our society.

Please give everyone out there who have also lost loved ones this same exact way some closure. Rest In Peace Beautiful Woman... Amen!