Trust me, women/girls have red flags that goes up with any male approacher - particularly any smooth talker. Getting into a VAN with a complete male stranger, just himself, would probably not happen unless they were impaired or rendered disabled somehow. I don’t feel this would transpire in broad daylight in a cognizant state.
someone made them feel it was okay. Trust me, I had this creep on a flight sitting next to me that I couldn’t get to shut up. So I rented headphones. Then he wanted to use my cell phone and said I was married (ie, **** Off!). Then he got the message finally!
All 5 women could not all have fallen for a random smooth-talker. Something/someone convinced them he was safe…and your ordinary woman would not willingly cooperate unless he was their pastor/priest…and even then, they’d have 2nd thoughts.
NO! Something/one would have to have been complicit.
That’s my hunch!
Thats fine and Im not discounting your hunch, however Im speaking from experience, it was also a bygone era where hitchhiking was also more prevalent and accepted, this occurred in an area where serial offenses were extremely rare, not that that matters as we saw in the 70's-2000's in places like California and Texas, they were still committing their crimes.
Your statement however that
"All 5 women could not all have fallen for a random smooth-talker. Something/someone convinced them he was safe…and your ordinary woman would not willingly cooperate unless he was their pastor/priest…and even then, they’d have 2nd thoughts.", could not be further from the truth
Many victims have met their demise at the hands of people they felt they trusted even if only briefly
Ted Bundy made a career out of sweet talking young women some say as many as 50 but the known number was at least 30 minus the 2 he randomly bludgeoned to death in their beds in Florida, and the majority of those were while composites of him, a description of his vehicle and his first name were being circulated
People knew Todd Kolhepp was odd, even scary, he still was able to lower their inhibitions enough to get them to show up at properties he owned, for business propositions.
Randy Kraft managed to use this very tactic to lure into his car, then kill as many as 70 people, the difference is his victims were male and many of them were US Marines!
So it absolutely can and does happen
And usually the victim type is directly related to the offenders ability to so.