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Putting Up a Fight
Her wedding was just six weeks away, and Judith Schmidt, 19, could talk of little else. “We’re going to Crescent City for our honeymoon,” she confided excitedly to co-worker Theodore Lidgett one Friday night last February. The two worked in sales at Orchard Supply Hardware in Redding, California. Lidgett, 59, a grandfather of two, smiled and told Schmidt, “That’s a one-time deal. Take lots of pictures.” In the parking lot, they said good night, and Schmidt unlocked her silver Mercury Tracer and got in. But before she could close the door, a dark form appeared at the driver’s side. It was a hooded man in a black ski mask and gloves.Schmidt’s heartbeat quickened. She wondered if one of her brother’s friends was playing a prank. Then the man, six feet tall and 160 pounds, pulled out a ten-inch serrated survival knife. “Get over,” he ordered. “Give me the keys.”
“Can I get out?” said Schmidt, sprawled across the passenger seat.
“No!” He closed the driver’s door.
A slender five-foot-eight, Schmidt had blonde hair swept up in a knot, with a pen still stuck there from jotting notes at work. As a girl, she’d learned from her mother: Never go with a guy against your will. Always scream. Always put up a fight.
She quickly popped open the passenger door and dropped the keys on the asphalt. That would keep the man from taking the car. Terrified, she was relieved to see that her friend Lidgett was still in the next parking space. “Ted!” she screamed. “Ted!”
Seated behind the wheel of his Ford Tempo, Lidgett saw a glint of light flash inside Schmidt’s car. A masked man was holding a knife blade at Schmidt’s neck. The hardware salesman jumped out of his car.
The attacker glared at him through the open passenger door. “Get the [expletive] away or I’ll cut her [expletive] throat,” he yelled.
“Oh, no you won’t!” Lidgett shouted back.
At the store, he was known for his fund of knowledge about hardware: Fixtures, locks, tools, you name it—if a customer had a fix-it problem, Ted Lidgett could usually solve it. But the problem now was a knife, a girl and a slasher.
He turned and groped in his car for his steel thermos, to use as a cudgel. But it was stuck inside his lunch pail. No time to get it loose.
Whipping around, Lidgett faced the hooded man again. Again, the attacker screamed, “Get away!” then pulled the knife away from the young woman’s throat and held it up to her face. Slashing at her cheek, he made a small cut below her right eye.
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