Maureen Patricia Field, a 19-year-old woman, tragically lost her life on November 14, 1972, in Contra Costa County, California. She had been waiting for her father to pick her up after finishing her shift at Kmart when Philip Joseph Hughes Jr., later known as 'The East Bay Strangler,' offered her a ride. Her father arrived at the store only to learn that she had left earlier, but he was initially unconcerned.
However, two days later, the family received an anonymous phone call from a man stating, 'I'm calling about your daughter. She's dead and I killed her.' The caller never reached out again.
Several months later, on February 15, 1973, Maureen's badly decomposed body was discovered along Morgan Territory Road. Hughes Jr., a convicted serial killer, was responsible for her murder, along with at least two other confirmed victims between 1972 and 1975. He was eventually apprehended in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment. His ex-wife, Suzanne Perrin, played a role in his crimes and later provided information to authorities that linked him to the murder of another victim, Lisa Ann Beery.
Hughes Jr. was found guilty of Maureen Field's murder on October 14, 1980, and was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences on November 25, 1980. The judge presiding over the case described him as 'a dangerous man to society'. His crimes were part of a broader pattern of violence against young women in California during the 1970s, contributing to the fear and uncertainty surrounding hitchhiking and personal safety at the time.
