ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — A woman traveling with a friend stops at a gas station just off the Interstate.

If this sounds like the opening to a horror film, well, you have it half right.

It’s the beginning of a horror show for the “flasher” the lady encountered.

“I was coming home (to Mobile County) and just about to cross the bay on I-10,” said “Angie.” (The victim’s name has been changed at her request.)

She was leaving Loxley to return home.

Angie decided to get some gas before getting on the Bayway, and pulled into a service station just off the Interstate on Highway 59. It was Jan. 13.

“There were two other women pumping gas,” Angie recalled. There was a pickup truck facing the opposite way from Angie’s vehicle, facing 59 at the same set of pumps with a man in the driver’s seat. According to Angie, “His truck was at the first line of pumps and I was at the second line of pumps.”

“I really didn’t think anything of it. I thought perhaps his passenger had gone into the store to pay. He said something, but with the traffic noise, I could not hear him that well. I thought he was asking directions. I came closer to hear him better.”

When Angie came near the truck, the man exposed himself and made an explicit suggestion.

Instead of slinking away, embarrassed, Angie took off for the service station, yelling for someone to call 911. She also paused after getting away from the truck, to find a pen in her purse and jot down the “flasher’s” license plate number.

“I was terrified,” she said.

Loxley police responded to the call, and because Angie was able to give officers the license number of the truck and a description of the driver, Dana Ross Stegall of Robertsdale was apprehended quickly.

The first court date was in late January, but because Stegall did not have a public defender, Angie says the case was continued to Feb. 4.

While testifying to an embarrassing incident can be difficult, Angie credits Loxley police and court personnel with handling the situation sensitively.

But hearing Stegall’s extensive record of such crimes made Angie determined that this would not happen again. According to records from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, Stegall has been arrested on similar offenses since 1991.

According to a Baldwin Times story, “In July 1994, he was sentenced to seven, consecutive, one-year prison terms for indecent exposure.”

“I realized how many time the guy had done this,“ said Angie. “He gets to sit on his hands and eat three meals a day.”

Angie has already spoken to her local legislators and wants to get the law changed so repeated “indecent exposure” charges can become more than a misdemeanor. Currently, those convicted of the “Class A” misdemeanor serve 6 to 12 months in a county jail.

She would like to see people convicted of “indecent exposure” multiple times have to serve a longer jail sentence as a felon and register as a sex offender so local law enforcement will know of these individuals. She is circulating a petition, available at area stores.