Boston ? In the summer of 1999, AAA got a call about a young woman whose car had broken down in a parking lot on Cape Cod. The auto club told the woman’s stepfather it would send help.

Melissa Gosule never made it home that night.

Her body was found in a shallow grave eight days later. She had been raped and stabbed to death.

Gosule’s family sued AAA for unspecified damages, claiming that if the auto club had done its job that night, she would be alive today. Jury selection began Monday in state court in Plymouth, south of Boston, in the negligence and wrongful-death case.

Every year, the American Automobile Assn., with a dues-paying membership of more than 46 million in the United States and Canada, gets about 30 million calls from motorists who need help with dead batteries, flat tires and other roadside problems.

In their lawsuit, Gosule’s parents, Leslie Gosule and Sandra Glaser, and her stepfather, Peter Glaser, claim AAA left Gosule stranded and forced to turn to a stranger for help. That stranger, Michael Gentile, killed her.

“AAA is not who they say they are,” Leslie Gosule said recently in a statement. “Had AAA done what they tell the world they do and what they said they were going to do — provide reliable and reasonable emergency roadside assistance that night — Melissa would still be with us.”

Gosule’s parents note that AAA, in its marketing materials, touts the peace of mind it provides to motorists in trouble. “One call to AAA and your worries are over,” reads one brochure. AAA also refers to itself as “family” and warns against depending on strangers: “In today’s world, relying on strangers has become a scary (and sometimes dangerous) thing to do.”