( Silent )
( Mellow music )
Joshua zeman: Every town has its legends.
Every neighborhood has its boogeymen...
A killer with a hook for a hand...
A drifter who snatches children...
The witch who lives in the woods.
Ours growing up in staten island was cropsey,
about an escaped mental patient who lived in these buildings
who would snatch children off the street.
This urban legend turned real
when five neighborhood children went missing.
It was these disappearances that led us to examine
the real crimes behind the cropsey urban legend.
News reporter: A grisly discovery
of an arm and a leg sticking out from a shallow grave.
Joshua: And what we discovered was a connection
to an institution with a shocking history.
This is what it looked like,
but how can I tell you about the way it smelled.
It smelled of filth, it smelled of disease,
and it smelled of death.
Joshua: Understanding the real story behind cropsey
inspired us to investigate other urban legends
and the true crimes that may have influenced them,
and what we uncovered
was a truth more horrific than any fiction.
This is where we thought that cropsey lived,
in these buildings here.
It's very easy for an urban legend
to come out of something like this.
Yeah, and we didn't think anything of it
until kids started going missing on staten island,
and then we were like, cropsey is real.
But do you think every urban legend
has truth behind it?
Yes, I think you have to have some form of like truth
to gonna go off of.
There's a lot of other urban legends
in a lot of other communities
that have some form of truth behind them.
Uh-hm.
And what's interesting is all these communities
have all these places.
Rachel mills: Well, every kid is lured to
or fascinated by the old house at the end of the block.
These are the stories that fuel your nightmares,
and these are the places that fuel your nightmares.
Joshua: So why are you here tonight?
You hear stories.
We just want to see what it's about, I guess.
Joshua: What do you guys expect to find out here?
People who died here are supposed to be the ghosts.
Joshua: You believe that there are devil worshipers
in the woods here? - Oh yeah, I do, I do.
Somebody said they were doing freaky experiments
and crap like that.
Joshua: Why do we believe these urban legends?
Maybe we need to believe
because the reality is too much for some of us to bear.
An old legend that actually happened this time...
- Many more cases of contaminated treats...
Female voice: I know she suffered, a lot.
Voice on tape: He pulled a knife
and tied me up with electrical tape.
Oh, God.
Joshua: And so instead, we created our own monsters.
News reporter 1: The 36-year-old building contractor
who reportedly dressed like a clown...
News reporter 2: At least three young boys
buried under his house.
Joshua: And maybe that's because
the truth is more terrifying than we could ever imagine.
- I got seven down and ( Indistinct ).
Seven down!
I've got a child victim... I need rescue.
Joshua: For Rachel and me, this is an attempt
to uncover the source of our nightmares
as we pull back the curtains on what it is we all fear...
because urban legends, as scary as they may be,
are really just warnings for something much more dangerous...
the reality that may have started it all.
The hook is one of the oldest
and also one of the scariest urban legends.
A teenage couple are making out in their car
while parked at a lover's Lane.
As the two are about to go all the way,
the radio interrupts them.
( Background on radio ) ...Are killed by an LA gunman...
Joshua: A crazed maniac with a hook for a hand
has escaped from the local insane asylum.
The frightened girl demands to go home
as the frustrated boy guns the engine.
Later, as the boyfriend goes to open his date's door,
he sees dangling from the door handle,
the maniac's bloody hook, ripped from the socket.
The hook urban legend
probably came to be in the mid-1950s.
One of the interesting appearances of the hook
was in November 1960
when it actually appeared in the dear Abby column,
and it's something that a lot of people would have read.
Joshua: But dear Abby wasn't warning teenagers
about escaped madmen with hooks for hands.
Urban legends are more mysterious than that
and never quite so literal.
Despite its name, the hook is a cautionary tale
warning teenagers everywhere about the dangers of sex.
Stephen winick: The hook urban legend captured something
in the era that people were interested in.
It captured a certain amount of danger being involved
in teenage sexual behavior and in teenage car culture.
Joshua: For the teenagers in texarkana, Texas,
this wasn't just some cautionary tale.
In the early spring of 1946,
a masked man known as the phantom
attacked four couples,
most of whom were parked on lover's lanes.
The attacks, which killed five,
were said to coincide with the full moon,
hence the nickname the moonlight murders.
And although there were numerous suspects,
the phantom was never caught,
allowing his enduring legacy to haunt this town
for more than six decades.
So this is South robeson and this old highway 67.
The murder site is somewhere around here,
but that's what we've got to kind of figure out.
Joshua: It was a rainy Sunday morning on march 24
when a passing motorist noticed Richard Griffin's oldsmobile
parked on a lover's Lane off highway 67.
Inside he found Griffin, age 29,
and Polly Ann Moore, 17, lying in the backseat.
Both had been shot in the back of the head.
Joshua: Hey, guys, how are you doing?
Rachel: What we're doing is
we're investigating the phantom killer.
They had a lot of speculations on who did it,
but it was never...
no one was ever brought to justice.
Did you hear stories growing up?
All I ever heard was don't go to spring lake park.
Really? Uh-hm.
Why? It's kind of creepy out there,
so we were always afraid to go there.
Joshua: But did you still go?
No.
Joshua: We're having a little trouble
finding out where the area is because everything's changed.
Well, I can take you out there to the road
and point to almost the spot.
Right about there.
Uh-huh.
Joshua: On that side?
On that side.
Joshua: Like the couple in the urban legend,
Griffin and Moore had been attacked
while parked on lover's Lane,
highlighting the warning behind this campfire tale,
but what the residents in texarkana didn't know...
because it wasn't reported in the papers...
were the horrific details behind this real-life crime.
They had found evidence of blood and a blanket...
Uh-hm.
And they believe that she was raped
out in front of the car
and then put back in the car.
James Presley: The first double murder
didn't cause a lot of excitement.
All kinds of crimes were going on in texarkana,
but they didn't recognize until sometime later
that this is a different kind of crime.
The term "serial killer" wasn't in vogue then...
And no one recognized this as a serial killing.
The main suspect was youell swinney
who was an ex-convict.
Joshua: Youell swinney and his newlywed bride,
a former prostitute named Peggy,
had been arrested for stealing cars.
Under questioning, the wife confessed
that her husband was the phantom,
but refused to sign a statement.
Although the case quickly fell apart,
the judge still sent swinney away for life
as a habitual car thief.
No evidence directly correlating...
James: No physical evidence.
They had his wife's statement,
but they could not use that without her permission.
There had been a lot of other suspects, hundreds.
People had theories
and all kinds of rumors had been bouncing around,
but it's normal in any event, especially when there's mystery
as there was always mystery in this one.
Texarkana is nothing like other towns.
It seems to be wallowing in the notoriety.
Documentary team in town
to shoot a part of texarkana history.
This week, some texarkana residents
will have the chance to appear onscreen
in a documentary film of the phantom killer.
So what should we make of all this?
The conclusion is simple...
texarkana will never escape its past.
We should give up trying.
Joshua: It was a half moon on February 22
when Jimmy Hollis, age 24,
and Mary Jeanne larey, 19,
were attacked on a secluded lover's Lane.
Both survived after a car scared the assailant away.
Around midnight,
Mary Jeanne larey and Jimmy Hollis
were making out in the front seat of their car.
All of a sudden, a guy appears with a gun,
wearing a mask over his head, white,
two holes cut out for eyes and mouth.
He tells her to run.
He chases her down and then starts to attack her,
basically sexually assaults her with the barrel of his gun.
She said she'd much rather have been killed like the others
than to have been left the way she was.
Joshua: While the attacks on lover's lanes in texarkana
didn't specifically involve a hook,
the phantom's sickening crimes
created an equally horrifying metaphor.
Stephen: One of the victims was actually sexually assaulted
with the barrel of a gun,
and so we have the idea of a foreign metal object
being used in this way which seems to be
psychologically behind the idea of the hook.
In the hook story, we have the hook
about to penetrate the car when the boy drives away
and the hook is then ripped from the hand of the murderer.
So we have the idea of penetration
with a foreign metal object as already part of that story,
and that in fact happened in the texarkana cases.
Joshua: But the sexual assault was only part
of the phantom's trademark signature.
These two people are the only ones
who ever saw the phantom.
Both... wearing masks.
Joshua: Right, they both said the guy was wearing a mask.
So this is the whole thing,
where the whole white mask thing came from.
The phantom's disguise was another chilling detail
as it also helped to popularize
the most widely known retelling of the murders
in the 1976 cult classic, "the town that dreaded sundown."
The movie was thought to be one of the first slasher films,
having predated Halloween by two years,
and its take on the phantom
would influence generations of cinematic boogeymen.
The director, Charles b. Pierce,
blurred the lines between fact and fiction
by telling the film in full documentary style.
Charles b. Pierce: It was Sunday, march 3, 1946...
the beginning of a reign of terror
for the people of texarkana, a terror so indelibly imprinted
that today, people still speak of it fearfully...
only the names have been changed.
Casey Roberts: Now I think everybody in texarkana
knows about the story of the phantom killer,
but there's a lot of intermingling
of facts and legend between the movie
and the actual phantom killer case.
Joshua: This is Casey Roberts,
media manager at Texas a&m, texarkana.
He's done extensive research on the crimes
and brought us to one of the locations where
"the town that dreaded sundown" was filmed.
A lot the... kind of landmarks
from both the original case of the phantom killer
and the movie the town that dreaded sundown
have gone away over the years,
and this particular house here
was used in one of the big scenes.
Joshua: It was Friday, may 3,
when Virgil and Katie starks were attacked in their farmhouse
just outside of town.
Virgil was shot and killed in his armchair...
( Gunshot )
( Scream )
While Katie, shot in the face,
ran out of the house.
Everybody seems convinced that youell swinney is the guy,
but you're saying...
Youell swinney would have been easy to pin it on,
and they needed to pin it on somebody.
The one person that...
I haven't been satisfied he was cleared...
was a young man that committed suicide
and left a note saying that he was the phantom killer.
It's just part of the legend... the son of a prominent family,
and it had the connections to, you know,
cover up his dirty deed.
Joshua: Hoping to dig up more information,
we went searching through the microfiche
of the texarkana gazette.
Promising lead proves dud.
So this is the mention of that, youell swinney.
The officer had been trying to validate
the story of a woman.
The woman's statement followed so closely
to the known facts of the case
that they are almost positive that she was telling the truth,
and at one point, they were almost to the point
of announcing a break in the case.
Subsequently, however, the woman said
that neither she nor her husband
had anything to do with the slayings.
It's interesting.
So they don't call him the phantom at all in this,
but we just saw, literally,
the advertisement in the newspaper
for the movie that is showing, the phantom speaks.
This is the movie that they theoretically
pulled the name from,
and right here at the newspaper,
one of the guys said,
'well, why don't we call him something...'
we need to call him something, let's call him the phantom.
We had just witnessed an important step
in the creation of any urban legend...
the naming of the boogeyman.
Bill Ellis: One of the roles that urban legends play...
and this is an ancient function...
is that they will put a name on something
that gives people fears or anxieties.
That gives the person some feeling of control.
So give the murderer a name... he's the phantom murderer.
Joshua: The mask, the movie, the phantom.
These were the crucial elements that would help create
texarkana's very own urban legend...
a legend that would only continue to grow
with screenings of "the town that dreaded sundown"
held every year in texarkana's spring lake park.
All of this area was part of spring lake park...
At the time and this is where...
a couple of the places where the murders happened.
That was where lover's Lane was.
You basically set up the screening
that you have of the town that dreaded sundown
at spring lake park.
Yes, we do it every October, and because of the history,
we like the idea of having this out at spring lake park
since that's where some of the murders take place at.
We started getting some phone calls saying
that they didn't think it was right,
that there were still families in town...
That, you know, that were affected by this.
The police concern was
that it was going to cause somebody else
to have the idea to start doing it again.
A film crew was in town last month...
And there's a new movie being made?
What we've heard is that it was actually a remake
of 'the town that dreaded sundowns .'
it's you know, just probably a more modern version of it.
I've heard that the storyline of the movie
is about a copycat that comes out
from the screenings that happened at spring lake.
Are you serious?
That's the first I've heard about that.
Well, you know, imitation of life, I guess.
Joshua: While it may seem shocking to some,
the screenings at spring lake park
were especially appropriate because it was here on April 14
where the phantom turned larger than life.
Four hundred yards
from the entrance to spring lake park...
where the sign is...
they found Paul Martin's car empty.
In yet another attack,
not only had the phantom murdered two teenagers
in the center of town,
but their deaths would incite a panic
that would grip texarkana and never let go.
Betty Jo booker, age 15,
was a saxophonist for a high school band
called the rhythmaires
that played weekend shows at the local vfw.
At 1:30 A.M. that Saturday night,
she left with a childhood friend named Paul Martin, age 16,
who was supposed to drop her off at a slumber party.
Rachel: Paul's body was found lying on its left side.
Blood was found further down
on the other side of the road by a fence.
Right over here, Paul Martin's body was found.
He had been shot twice,
and then he crawled across the street, over to here,
and then whoever did it shot him again twice.
They said he put up a struggle.
He had a bullet through his hand...
Right.
Raised his hand,
probably begged not to be killed, and then...
They found him at 6:30 in the morning.
Betty Jo booker was nowhere around.
Joshua: Although supposedly
only the names had been changed
in the town that dreaded sundown,
one of the most egregious fictionalizations
had Betty Jo booker playing the trombone
instead of the saxophone,
the reason being to show a more terrifying demise.
The scene was so memorable,
some people in town actually think that's how she died.
( Grunts and groans )
The actual site
of where Betty Jo booker's body was found,
along the edge of a forgotten road,
had eluded many.
Lost in time when a section of the park
was turned into housing,
this was one mystery we were determined to solve.
Rachel: She was found two Miles away
from Martin's body.
Joshua: The road's closed.
Here's where we think this road continues on.
See that line between those two trees?
Totally.
That's the road that's been overgrown.
( Whispers ) Keep that flashlight down.
Just turn it down.
Look at that.
This looked exactly like the older road.
It is the old road basically
that we just went through somebody's backyard to get to.
( Shrieks )
Rachel: What is it?
Joshua: It's a big spider web...
It's halfway between the two ends.
This is Betty Jo booker, 15 years old.
Rachel: Shot twice, once to the left rib
and once in the face, to the left cheek.
Joshua: Well, she's fully clothed...
Rachel: Fully clothed, yeah.
Joshua: Her overcoat has been buttoned up,
and her hand was put in her pocket.
Rachel: Strange.
See that picture for a second?
Joshua: Doesn't it look like it?
It must.
Joshua: Like if you're looking at it like that,
add 60 years.
Joshua: It could be.
I feel bad, though.
You know, we're never going to really know who killed her.
Joshua: What happened to Paul Martin and Betty Jo booker
out on these roads over 60 years ago
was horrific enough.
Their deaths didn't need to be rewritten
for more blood or Gore.
Coming out here, you realize that real life is just as scary
as any horror film... and sometimes even more.
This is Marc bledsoe, a former probation officer
who was obsessed with the case
and conducted his own investigation.
I developed a passion, I guess in the '90s.
I saw the film, of course, when I was a seventh grader,
and I was pretty scared
because of the way the film ends.
It shows the boots
and said he could still be walking the town.
I wanted to know what the truth was.
Joshua: Bledsoe was one of the only people
to interview youell swinney in recent years.
Swinney, who was out of jail
and living in a Texas nursing home,
had suffered a stroke the year before,
making his speech difficult to decipher.
Fifty... sixty years?
But she said you and her were together
at spring lake park.
Hear that?
They drove out there together at spring lake. What did he say?
Rachel: No, I wasn't.
Mark: Who do you think was the main...
I don't know.
You wish they'd catch him.
Rachel: Hm, interesting.
Hi. I just wanted to check one thing.
They told me you all were videotaping?
Have you all signed the thing?
Rachel: Ugh!
( Background talk )
I feel like there was more there.
( Groans )
( Background talk )
Joshua: Despite being so close,
we still didn't have an answer as to who
the phantom really was... and we probably never will.
TV narrator: What happened to the phantom killer
no one really knows.
Some believe he was convicted of another crime,
and today he is still serving his term in a Kansas prison.
Joshua: It's these lack of answers
that allows a legend to endure
for the teenagers in texarkana.
So, what do you think the next chapter is
in that legend?
Probably more ghost stories,
maybe more kids trying to scare other kids.
Do you think it will ever end?
I think eventually it will fade out,
but I wouldn't be able to say for how long.
I mean, legends last for a long time.
Joshua: So this is the tree where,
because of the movies, some people think
Betty Jo booker was actually killed with the trombone.
I think why this is so kind of important
is because so many people believed the fiction,
and the fiction became reality,
and in this town...
I really think what's interesting is...
they can't separate the two.
Well, I think it's more romantic, though,
to believe in the myth
than to have the facts in front of you.
Joshua: You have the whole town coming out
and watching a fictionalized version of that,
and that's just like little kids
telling a fictionalized version of what really happened.
That's what an urban legend is.
Where does the truth end and the fiction begin?
At this point, no one quite knows.
Narrator: Texarkana today still looks pretty much the same,
and if you should ask people here on the streets
what they believe happened to the phantom killer,
most would say that he is still living here
and is walking free.
So right now, we're driving into Houston.
We're going to investigate the urban legend
of the candy man.
Joshua: The name candy man
has a lot of urban legend references.
Obviously, one of the most well-known is the film Candyman
based on the clive barker short story
about an urban legend expert investigating the boogeyman
who haunts the cabrini-green housing projects in Chicago.
Voice: With my hook for a hand,
I'll split you from your groin to your gullet.
( Screams and grunts )
Joshua: Here the Candyman uses a hook,
just like the well-known hook urban legend
where it was probably appropriated from,
but the film's villain wasn't the first candy man.
The original was, in fact,
a very real monster behind one of the most horrific crimes
anyone could ever imagine.
Rachel: We've all heard the same story about Halloween.
Little Johnny had been warned never to go trick-or-treating
at any house he didn't know, but he didn't listen.
Instead, he convinces his friends
to go get candy from this one weird house.
Later that night,
as they're all digging through their loot,
there's this scream.
All the kids are rushed to the hospital,
but it's too late.
Johnny's dead from eating candy laced with poison,
and all the other kids had their mouths ripped open
from swallowing razor blades and glass.
They never did catch the person who did it.
Turns out, Halloween really comes from
the ancient custom of druids collecting kids for sacrifices,
and apparently these murders were committed by those
who still carry on that evil tradition.
Joshua: So does our modern-day custom of trick-or-treating
really stem from evil druids and child sacrifices?
It's highly unlikely, but there's no denying
that something very sinister is out there
instilling panic and inciting fear every Halloween.
Female narrator: There's one magical,
haunted evening each year when all the scary creatures
come out to prowl through every neighborhood.
Most people enjoy having trick-or-treaters
come to their doors,
but there are a few people who will do things to hurt kids.
Joshua: The first documented case of tainted candy
happened on long island in 1964
when a housewife named Helen pfeil,
upset with older kids for trick-or-treating,
handed out dog biscuits, steel wool,
and poison ant buttons.
Although pfeil testified that it was just a joke,
she was still found guilty of endangering children.
This fear really took root in the 1970s
when outlets like newsweek were reporting
that several children had died from poison or tainted candy.
Some schools stopped celebrating Halloween.
They stopped using the word "Halloween",
and they start talking about having a fall festival.
New Jersey passed a law of specifying penalties for people
who were caught contaminating Halloween treats.
In the 1980s, hospitals began offering X-ray treats.
Announcer: All nextcare urgent care locations
are offering free candy x-rays through tomorrow.
We haven't had any instances
where we found any tampered candy,
but you read it in the news
and you see all of these crazy pictures online,
and so, you know, if I were a parent,
I would be a little bit concerned as well.
Joel: We don't worry about ghosts and goblins anymore,
but we fear this maniac,
this anonymous person who is so crazy
that he presumably poisons little children at random.
( Background talking )
I think about how much fun Halloween is.
I also worry a little bit about the things
that can spoil the fun of Halloween.
Those kinds of things scare me, too, but in a different way.
Joshua: The one case of tainted candy
that seemed to bring this nightmare to life
happened on a rainy Halloween night in Pasadena, Texas.
The perpetrator of this evil crime
is known to some as the man who killed Halloween
and to others as simply the candy man.
On October 31, 1974,
after trick-or-treating with their friends, the bateses,
Ronald o'Bryan let his son Timothy, age 8,
and his sister Elizabeth, 5,
each pick out a piece of candy before bed.
Timothy, still wearing his planet of the apes costume,
chose a giant pixy styx,
one of five that his father had gotten
from a neighborhood house that night.
Ronald had divvyed up the other styx to his daughter,
one of the bates' kids,
and a local boy named Whitney Parker.
The sugar inside had clumped together,
so Ronald rolled the styx in his hands
before pouring the powder down his son's throat.
Minutes later, Timothy was violently vomiting,
and after being rushed to the hospital,
he was pronounced dead.
The cause... cyanide poisoning.
I was off duty at the time on Halloween night
when I received a call from one of my detectives.
I drove to southmore hospital,
and what I saw was very, very disturbing...
not only because there was a child there that was dead
that had cyanide foam coming out of his mouth,
but it was a small, blond-headed young boy,
and I looked at this child...
and I had at the time a small, blond-headed,
eight-year-old son lying in a bed in my home...
and it absolutely just almost destroyed you
to see something like that.
Joshua: Had you ever heard of the idea of
candy tampering before that?
Ed: I had heard about it...
I had never seen it personally,
but you know, you're always concerned on Halloween,
and the next night we had a grieving father,
a grieving mother, and a grieving little sister.
I put my arm around Mr. o'Bryan's shoulder
and I promised him, "I promise you we will catch
this individual that did this to your son."
Joshua: Timothy's death was a terrible blow,
not just for the family, but for many in Pasadena.
As crowds of o'Bryan's fellow churchgoers
flooded the cemetery,
Timothy's father quickly reduced the mourners to tears
as he sang a hymn for the boy who was now in heaven.
I introduced myself to Mr. o'Bryan
and said I'm a reporter for the Houston chronicle.
Is Mrs. o'Bryan available to talk?
He said, you know, she's really, as we all are,
just torn up about this, but if you want to talk,
come on in, and I'll try to talk to you.
And he said, you know, I held my son in my arms
while he died, and I cried.
I thought that they had been victimized
by a random crazy man, lunatic.
The original suspects were people in Pasadena
who were living inhabitants of the homes
where they did the trick-or-treat.
Rachel: 4108, 4106,
-102.
Joshua: Right here.
4102.
So right here is the bates' house
from where o'Bryan and the bateses
both went trick-or-treating.
Joshua: After the funeral,
the police took o'Bryan around the bates' neighborhood,
but he couldn't remember the house
where he had gotten the pixy styk.
Finally, he ID'd a neighbor named Courtney Melvin.
Ten, right here where this blue car is.
This is Courtney Melvin's place,
so basically Courtney was out on his lawn.
O'Bryan was driving by, fingered this guy
as being the person where he got the pixy styx.
The only problem being
Courtney Melvin had an airtight alibi.
As the killer continued to elude police,
the nature of his crime
only seemed to confirm everyone's worst fears...
a fear that still resonates today.
Do you know about the crime that happened?
Oh, yes, you're talking about the candy man.
Joshua: Yeah.
Uh-hm. It was the first time
that I heard of people doing that...
And then I heard of them putting more cyanide
and razor blades.
I've heard fish hooks.
The way society is getting right now, I mean,
you don't ever know what's going to happen.
I'm like, nope, no candy until I look, you know, through it.
Rachel: What are you looking for?
You know, an open wrapper,
just seeing if anything has a hole in it.
You don't trust nobody.
- Joshua: Yeah. - Can't.
I actually heard about some guy doing it
in this neighborhood one time, but...
What's that story.
I think he actually lived over there by the ditch.
And they do all sacrifice crap over there during Halloween.
Do you think there are satanists around?
There probably is.
I mean, knowing this neighborhood...
there are sickos around here.
On t.V: Tonight is Halloween
and children will be out to trick-or-treat.
We hope that the treats will be many
and the tricks ingenious.
But sometimes people give children
bad things on Halloween.
In shreveport, Louisiana,
an old legend that actually happened this time.
Halloween is on Sunday,
and there is a spreading fear that this year,
the real Halloween scare
will be many more cases of contaminated treats.
Joel: The term that gets used is "Halloween sadist".
People assume that the Halloween sadist
was some crazy person who, for some reason...
presumably you know, some psychological problem...
gets pleasure or satisfaction from hurting little kids.
Joshua: Many people believe
the Halloween sadist was behind Timothy's death,
but the real culprit was more horrific
than anyone had ever imagined.
It's down here, I think, on the left.
All right, so gray, how do you want to do this?
I'll just, I'll hang back here.
Joshua: Okay. So we're going to go up.
I'm not totally into this.
I can understand.
I can understand why you'd want to do this...
Joshua: Yeah.
It just makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
Knocking on someone's house
and telling them what tragedy happened here.
Joshua: Well, you wouldn't want to know?
Oh, hey, how are you?
Hi, how are you?
Hey, sorry to bother you. We wanted to talk to you.
We're doing a documentary and wanted to talk to you
about the family that lived here before.
Do you know him?
Do you know Ronald Clark o'Bryan?
Woman: Uh-uh.
No, you have no idea about him?
Nah, don't worry about it.
Thanks very much.
You want to know? Do you really want to know?
So the guy who lived in here
was a guy named Ronald Clark o'Bryan.
He gave his son a poison pixy styk.
Yeah. He killed...
That's right.
News reader on t.V: On Halloween night,
eight-year-old Timothy o'Bryan of Pasadena, Texas,
died after eating a piece of trick-or-treat candy
that contained cyanide.
Today Pasadena police arrested the boy's father,
30-year-old Ronald o'Bryan, on murder charges.
Police refused to discuss the case
other than to say the district attorney believes
he has sufficient evidence to file charges.
Joshua: After receiving a call from an insurance agent,
police discovered o'Bryan had taken out a large policy
on his kids but not himself nor his wife.
Even more damning,
he had talked to numerous people about death by cyanide
and had even tried to buy the chemical
from local companies.
All evidence pointed to Timothy's father
as the killer which, as horrific as it sounds,
makes some sense,
and that's because the Halloween sadist is a myth,
and the notion of candy tampering
is really an urban legend.
The idea that this is a big social problem is a myth.
I can't tell you nobody has ever contaminated
a piece of candy,
but I can't find any evidence that anybody has ever been hurt,
seriously hurt or killed, from a contaminated treat
picked up in the course of trick-or-treating.
Joshua: If there's no such thing
as the Halloween sadist,
who is, in fact, doing that?
( Chuckles ) Probably the kids.
If you think about it,
this is a terrific kind of prank.
It's easy enough to come by a pin,
easy enough to stick it in the candy bar,
and then run in and say, look mom,
there's a pin in my candy bar...
and you become the object of the concerned attention
of your parents and possibly even the press
and the police.
Joshua: While the fear of tainted candy may be hysteria,
Timothy's death was real...
but was it really conceivable
that a father could kill his own child...
and if so, what kind of monster was Ronald Clark o'Bryan?
Look at that lying son of a bitch.
I thought just like Mr. o'Bryan wanted us to think...
that there was some maniac out there
randomly giving these poison pixy styx to little kids.
That's exactly what he wanted us to think,
and that's what we thought.
It's hard to accept that a human being
was willing to do that,
and it's still difficult for all of us.
The people in this case were forever affected by what he did
and by that, I mean the bates kids...
he was going to kill his friends own two kids...
and little Whitney Parker,
and he would have killed his daughter
if the ambulance and police hadn't gotten there so fast.
No good prosecutor wants to go to trial at all on anything
unless they believe in their own heart
that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,
and seeking the death penalty is just an extra dimension
of care and consideration that should be given.
You wanted to keep the case.
I sure did. Why?
I wanted to hopefully have a hand
in seeing that justice was done
and that he would die for what he did.
Joshua: It took a jury only 45 minutes
to find o'Bryan guilty
and another 75 to sentence him to death.
In a fitting irony,
he was scheduled to die on October 31, 1976, Halloween.
Voice of o'Bryan: I have stated from the very beginning
that I had absolutely nothing at all to do with this.
I maintain that now,
and I'll willing to take a polygraph now,
just like I was from the very first time
that they arrested me.
Because I have no guilt,
I'm not worried about what happens to my physical body.
When I die, I know where I'm going.
Mike: You're going straight to hell, buddy.
Interviewer: All these appeals have been turned down
appeal after appeal, and everybody is saying
you will be executed this Saturday.
This could be your last news conference.
What are your final thoughts?
Voice of o'Bryan: As long as I have
verifiable options open to me,
I will pursue them.
Interviewer: Are you ever going to change
your proclamation of innocence or...
Voice of o'Bryan: No, why should I? It's the truth.
When you consider victims,
the victim of this crime actually turns out to be me.
Joshua: O'Bryan had been sent
to Texas's infamous huntsville prison
which to this day,
houses the most active death chamber in the us,
but this was 1982,
and after a lengthy debate in the supreme court
and numerous stays of execution,
o'Bryan was to be one of the very first inmates
to be executed with the reinstituted death penalty.
Yet, despite his crime,
o'Bryan still managed to find his supporters.
There were people
who were in favor of saving Ronald Clark o'Bryan
in spite of the overwhelming evidence
and the horror of the crime.
Their position was
we are categorically opposed to the death penalty.
There also were counter-protestors
who were in favor of the death penalty.
They included a lot of students
from the university located here
including many who complained
about what had happened to Halloween.
This is Ronald Clark o'Bryan.
Mr. o'Bryan is 39 years old.
It looks like you are going to be executed.
Would you agree with that?
It's a possibility.
I've been aware of that possibility
since the sentence was handed down.
It doesn't make it right.
It's fair to say
that nobody gets any joy out of executing anybody,
but it is also clear that most Americans
want to get on with this.
They are upset that you're alive.
I-I can see that point, sure, but here again,
I don't think that revenge is right.
I don't think society is entitled to revenge.
You are accused of ruining Halloween for everybody.
Well, that's a matter of opinion.
( Chuckles )
Joshua: March 31, 1984,
the day of o'Bryan's execution had finally arrived.
He was to be executed just after midnight.
As the hour approached, the frenzy outside
reached a fever pitch.
News reporter: Demonstrators were outside the prison
waiting for the announcement they wanted to hear.
Parents of other murdered children joined the vigil.
You know, how could anyone do something to their own child?
News reporter: Dying together.
What all of us would give
to have the chance to have ours back.
Joshua: Do you think Halloween will ever be the same again?
Oh, I don't think Halloween has changed a great deal,
except maybe gotten a little safer.
Joshua: At exactly 12:40 A.M.
O'Bryan was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs,
twice the normal amount,
to account for his 250-pound weight.
After o'Bryan's eyes fluttered,
his chest heaved, and it was over.
News reader on t.V: Ronald o'Bryan,
the man fellow inmates called the candy man,
was killed by lethal injection this morning
at a huntsville, Texas, prison.
On t.V: Ronald o'Bryan went to his deathbed
never admitting that he killed his own son.
( Background conversation )
Susan: But in a final statement,
the condemned man did ask to be forgiven.
Also to anyone I have offended in any way
during my 39 years.
I pray and ask your forgiveness,
just as I forgive anyone who offended me in any way.
Susan: Ronald o'Bryan is dead.
His ex-wife sees the execution as the end of a nightmare,
and a chance for a brand new beginning.
Joshua: For many the idea that we were killing the man
who killed Halloween seemed justified.
O'Bryan had to die so we could have our fun back.
People were celebrating it, there's no question about it,
but it was kind of a catharsis, really,
and people welcomed the event.
He really had not just desecrated the family tie,
but he had actually in some fundamental way
desecrated the idea of Halloween
by taking a scary story and literally making it true.
What he did is
he used the urban legend as a smokescreen.
He used it as an alibi.
I couldn't have done it
because this is the sort of thing
that an anonymous creepy killer would do,
and we all know that because of urban legends.
Joshua: In the ultimate irony,
o'Bryan's decision to enact the tainted candy myth
turned fiction into reality,
allowing the candy man to continue haunting Halloween
for generations to come.
Look, it's right there.
Interviewer: Mr. o'Bryan, your case
has probably created terror in the hearts of parents.
In fact, I'm told that the inmates
occasionally refer to you as the candy man, is that so?
Joshua: A babysitter is watching TV
after putting the kids to bed
when she gets a call from a mysterious stranger.
( Phone rings )
Hello.
Have you checked the children?
What?
Joshua: Thinking it's a prank, she hangs up.
A few minutes later,
the same mysterious man calls again.
Hello?
Have you checked the children?
Joshua: Only now the question ends
with a devilish laugh.
The babysitter reports the call.
Hello, could you get me the police.
I've been getting weird phone calls.
Joshua: After a few minutes, a hurried voice calls back.
( Phone rings )
Leave me alone!
Sgt. Sachar: Jill, this is sergeant sachar.
Listen to me. We've traced the call.
The caller is in the house.
The calls are coming from the house.
It's coming from inside the house.
Joshua: Just at that moment, the babysitter looks over
as a man is coming down the stairs.
( Scream )
Well, that really happened to a girl in my hometown.
( Chuckles ) Oh, yes. I'm sure it did.
I'm sure most of you grew up
thinking that this happened to girls in all your hometowns,
but it didn't.
Joshua: Yes, the babysitter and the man upstairs
is a popular urban legend,
but is there any truth behind it?
One would think so considering all these examples,
but when dealing with urban legends,
the truth is never quite what it seems.
Rachel: When I think babysitter,
I think about me babysitting as a teenager
and how fearful I was.
You know, being in a strange house,
hearing strange sounds, not being familiar,
but what was interesting
is that I started researching babysitters,
thinking that I wouldn't have a hard time
finding a case of a babysitter
by following some kind of death or kidnapping,
the children upstairs being killed or whatever.
It's very difficult to find any true crimes
to connect this urban legend line.
Stephen winick: One thing that's interesting
about babysitting is that it doesn't increase your danger
of being attacked at all.
It would be a completely random event
for a babysitter to be attacked during a house burglary,
but it induces anxiety because suddenly
they're responsible for these other people's kids,
and it has nothing to do with your potential
for becoming a crime victim...
but it may be getting it expressed in stories
in which the babysitter becomes the crime victim.
Joshua: You would think with the amount of babysitters
getting killed in popular culture now,
like, we would have just like gotten a case immediately.
Oh, it took me to going back to the '50s
to actually find one.
We found this case of janett christman
here in Columbia, Missouri, which is why we're here.
My name is Carol Haley holt,
and I was a very good friend of janett christman
from first grade through the time of her death.
It was march 18, 1950.
Janett was babysitting for the romack family
out kind of in the west edge of Columbia...
it really wasn't in the city limits.
It was kind of an eerie night.
I also was babysitting, and I just felt uneasy,
and that was unusual for me
because I did quite a bit of babysitting...
but I just felt that something was going on about 12 o'clock,
and I even got up to check the door
and make sure it was locked,
went in to check the little boy...
he was fine.
And then the next morning, the phone rang.
My mother went in to answer
and told me that janett had been killed
while she was babysitting.
Joshua: I had heard that
there had been a phone call to the police.
Well, Mrs. romack tried to call
to check on janett with the thunder,
and she was afraid the little boy might wake up...
and she tried to call and received a busy signal.
( Busy tone on phone )
Joshua: What the romack family didn't know
is that janett had called the police
while she was being attacked,
but the only thing they heard were desperate screams.
Unable to trace the call,
the police were helpless to stop her murder.
Janett had skin under her fingernails.
She had many abrasions on her body,
but the final thing was
that she was strangled with an ironing cord.
I know she suffered a lot before she finally succumbed.
Joshua: Janett christman's death
shocked the small town of Columbia, Missouri,
but despite being one of the most publicized crimes
in the past 60 years,
her murder has never been solved.
So right now, we're looking for ed romack's house
where janett christman was murdered
while she was babysitting.
1015 should be somewhere along here.
Rachel: So then it must be that one.
That house right there? Right there, right there.
Joshua: Quick question for you,
is this where ed romack used to live?
Is that this house?
Woman: Maybe.
Joshua: But you don't know anything about it.
Joshua: Uh-hm.
About two years ago, this car pulled up
and they were out there talking and pointing here at this house,
and they said we're trying to figure out
which house where a girl was babysitting a little baby,
and she got murdered and raped.
Joshua: Uh-hm.
And I said, no, it's not this house,
it's that one.
Joshua: Uh-hm.
It was a man talking to me. He said, "I was the baby."
Joshua: No!
Rachel: Wow!
And a different woman that lived across west boulevard,
and she had been raped and murdered
sometime within close to that time.
Joshua: Jenkins is it? Yes.
Joshua: Jenkins, right.
We went to... I went to the trial. Yeah.
Joshua: Marylou Jenkins was the other reason
we were in Columbia.
On February 6, 1946, marylou, age 20,
was home alone while her mother was out
caring for an elderly neighbor.
The next morning she came home to find marylou dead.
Much like janett christman's murder four years later,
marylou had been raped and strangled
with an electrical cord.
A mentally-challenged man named Floyd Cochran
who had been arrested for killing his wife
was charged with the murder and quickly executed.
Do you think Floyd was innocent?
Mary Beth brown: I think he was likely innocent
of killing marylou Jenkins, yes.
He did kill his wife in likely a domestic dispute,
but just from reading the trial transcripts,
it just didn't seem like he had the wherewithal
to kill and rape a young woman.
Joshua: Mary Beth brown is a researcher
who helped shed new light on these old cold cases.
She believes the eerie similarities
between the Jenkins murder and the christman murder
four years later only proves Cochran's innocence.
They were both young woman, they were home by themselves,
they were both found with electrical cords
wrapped around their neck,
but cords that weren't attached or torn from the appliance...
they were actually cut.
The whole location thing is the one that really gets me.
Joshua: Like how close was it?
Mary Beth brown: Within two blocks.
Joshua: Do you think that the same person
who killed marylou Jenkins also killed janett christman?
That's my personal opinion, but yeah.
Joshua: And who do you think did it?
I've been told several people,
but more than any other name was Robert Mueller.
Joshua: Robert Mueller
was a high school friend of ed romack's,
and it was the romack's house
where janett was babysitting that night.
The romacks told police that Mueller
had often commented on janett being a virgin
and had eluded to knowing intimate details of the crime.
Although Mueller had been taken in for questioning
and passed a polygraph, the police still felt
there was enough evidence to arrest him.
However, a grand jury refused to indict,
and Mueller was never tried for janett's murder.
Rachel: I am working on a documentary,
and I'm interested in a cold case
that I've been researching.
I wanted to see if there was any information
that you could give me.
Okay, is that...
did you just like do something on your system
and you see there's nothing there?
Joshua: Despite numerous efforts
to reach out to police,
they were less than responsive.
Christman's case was too old to warrant attention.
However, we were able to track down some old case files.
This deputy testified that romack told him
Mueller had known janett
and admired her well-developed form.
( Aghast ) Oh my God!
There's her leg.
There's the phone.
That's the cord around her neck, right there.
It's one of those irons back then with the thick cords.
That's the window that was broken
that supposedly whoever did this went in and out of,
but the venetian blinds...
if someone were going through there...
they'd be totally ripped up.
The piano, look.
That's the window... oh, look.
Joshua: That's the broken glass
and that's why they're saying nothing is disturbed
because look at the area around it.
So, inside job.
Uh-hm.
Mueller's wife, according to the deputy,
had called the girl to baby sit at the Mueller home that night
and found she had already been asked by Mrs. romack.
Joshua: So, Mueller tried to get her
to baby sit that night.
Must have been.
And she was already babysitting the romacks...
which was how he would know she would be alone.
I agree that it sounds like he did it,
but maybe, maybe he didn't.
There's no solid proof, no hard evidence.
Joshua: Joan sorrels is another researcher studying the cases.
She believes other crimes
happening in Columbia at the time
might be connected to these murders.
There were rapes
that had occurred within that period
between the Jenkins murder and the christman murder.
Tell me about those.
Yeah. Well, there was a rape
that was within two blocks of the christman murder.
The girl was raped by a man that wore a mask...
Really?
And when you read the stories...
the reports of the christman murder...
when they're talking about Robert Mueller,
it turns out that he was interested in the theater
and that he made masks.
There was a black man named Jake Bradford that they charged,
and he had already been in jail,
and he was charged on the rapes.
You assume he was innocent.
Of that.
They took the wrong man, they really did.
Would you say that Columbia has like a history of this?
Well, you remember that I was graduating
from high school in '51.
You would go to the mu football games
and you would stand up for Dixie.
What does that mean?
The song dixies...
Uh-hm, okay.
That's a confederate song.
Uh-hm.
Columbia was really primarily a confederate town.
Basically this is the story of a young girl...
Joshua: We came here to investigate
an urban legend,
but what we found was truly shocking...
the unsolved murders of two young girls,
a series of brutal rapes, and the possibility
that men were being falsely accused and even executed.
In all honesty, the truth was more unflinchingly real
than we could ever have imagined.
So right now, we are headed to hinkson creek.
Rachel: This is where a lot of people went to park
back in the '50s, and '40s, '50s, '60s and still do now.
Yeah.
We just wanted to see about all the other rapes
that were happening other than the two houses.
This is the creek where they're saying
there were a ton of rapes happening around here.
That.
This is where the college students go in,
and there's like a car right out over there
and they just flashed their lights
because they didn't want us to walk in on them.
What's down here?
Uh, where they dragged the girl.
Rachel: Dragged? Dragged from the car.
There was a couple making out.
Some guy came out of nowhere
and then at gunpoint pulled one of the girls off
into the woods... and it was right near Halloween...
and basically this guy put a mask over his head
and then he put a mask over the girl's face,
and then he raped her.
I think the more scary thing was being a woman,
being a girl between 1940 and 1950, in this area,
knowing the amount of things going on.
I wouldn't have wanted to be a babysitter back then.
I wouldn't have wanted to be by myself
in one of those houses.
Most teenagers in the us go through a period
when they baby sit at least once or twice,
and it feels very terrifying to the person who is doing it,
( eerie music )
But it's not actually dangerous almost at all.
I mean, there's no reason to imagine
that any killer would even know
that a babysitter was on duty in the house,
and it makes the most sense if you think about the fact
that maybe he knew she was going to be there babysitting
and maybe he did this specifically
to torment the babysitter,
and that is exactly what happened,
they think, in the Columbia case.
Joshua: Was somebody tormenting the babysitters in Columbia...
and was the same person responsible for the sex crimes
that had terrorized this town...
and finally was this same person Robert Mueller?
Hoping for some additional insight,
we turned to a profiler in Kansas City,
a former German national named Peter brendt
who was willing to review our case.
So in your opinion, the same killer for both girls.
Yes. This is too specific
if you add all of the details together.
Do you think that marylou Jenkins knew him?
Well, there was no sign of forced entry on the door,
so at least from the sight, she must have known him,
and he was non threatening to her.
Right. Now let's talk about christman.
Peter: Oh, well, this is a lot more specifics.
If you see there comes an offender,
he breaks a window.
The victim runs to the kitchen where the phone is,
and he walks in through the front door.
Now, why would he do that?
He would do that only if he knew one detail...
ed romack had shown her how to use the shortcut.
Joshua: Peter had brought up an interesting clue...
one that many had overlooked.
Romack testified that he had shown janett
a loaded shotgun by the front door.
By breaking the window,
Mueller would distract her away from the gun
so he could safely get inside the house.
He knew how long he would need around the house,
through the front door into the kitchen.
So he knew every feet of the route.
Do you think it was Mueller?
Peter: He fits the bill,
but a lot of other males of the town
would fit that bill, too.
And the problem is he passed his lie detector.
Now, if you have even 20% to 40% cycle passes it makes...
a lie detector,
especially an old model from the '50s,
um, well, it's worthless.
Now the other interesting thing
is that the rapes and murders stopped when he left town.
Well, that looks not good on the other side.
What was it, half a million young males went to Korea?
So he wasn't the only one who left the area.
I mean he would so nicely fit the bill,
but that's the risky part with profiles, yeah?
A profile states not who the killer is
but what the killer is.
Rachel: I think it's interesting
that he thinks whoever this is,
he knew her... he knew both.
Joshua: Although we'll never be able to prove
who committed all these crimes,
the evidence strongly suggests
that janett christman knew her killer.
There really is not a strong tradition in America
of strangers coming in and killing babysitters.
Babysitters killing small children, yes,
but the stranger on babysitter story
just doesn't connect up with a widespread real social fear.
( Thumping )
Stephen: What the babysitter and the man upstairs
seems to be about is this warning
about this kind of responsibility.
If you're taking this responsibility,
you have to take it seriously.
So, you have this voice that calls her up on the phone
and almost like a conscience,
asks have you checked the children,
and she hasn't checked the children,
and that's one of the reasons why she doesn't know
that they've been murdered.
Bill Ellis: I think it makes more sense
to look at it in a simple way
and say the babysitter is dealing with her own anxieties
of being potentially the cause of the children's death...
and the killer upstairs is the killer upstairs for her.
Joshua: The tragic case of janett christman
only goes to prove bill Ellis's point
that our portrayal of the man upstairs is incorrect...
and that's because the truth is more terrifying
than we can ever imagine.
Janett christman knew her killer,
and if it's true that her killer was Mueller
as so many in Columbia have suggested,
then the man tormenting her that fateful night
wasn't any stranger.
( Phone rings )
So now we go from Columbia, Missouri,
to Chicago in the 1980s...
from the small town to the big city.
For some, it is a loss of innocence,
and nothing speaks to that loss more than clowns.
( Circus music )
We used to think of clowns as fairly happy characters.
Yes, sometimes they were sad or hapless,
but ultimately they were harmless caricatures.
Of course, clown faces were exaggerated and garish,
but that's because of the far distances
between the audience and the ring.
It wasn't the clown's fault, or was it?
Before modern times, the clown...
or more appropriately the Jester...
was considered a mischievous trickster
whose special role allowed them to mock nobility.
Jesters served to entertain, but it wasn't all smiles.
These clowns had a mean streak, and they played it to the hilt.
But what was it about the clowns of today
that turned them into something evil?
( Rooster cawing )
Breakfast.
I'm hungry.
Joshua: Some believe it was when we brought clowns
out of the big top and into our homes
via birthday parties and TV,
that things really began to change.
We see you here as bozo. Who are you really?
Joshua: Had that suspicious gleam in the eye
been there all along?
Did we finally just put two and two together to realize
that clowns were creepy or even worse...
dangerous?
Announcer: The news at 5.
News reader: Chicago police warned parents
about a man dressed as a clown who is approaching children.
Police say a clown tried to lure boys
into his pickup truck last Tuesday evening.
Police have issued two community alerts
regarding the clown sighting near some southside schools
as well as some westside schools.
Joshua: No one can say for sure
where in Chicago it happened first or even when,
but they were out there, snatching kids off the streets.
They trolled playgrounds and schoolyards.
Sometimes they used balloons or candy
to lure the gullible ones.
But ask anyone who has seen them,
and they'll all tell you the same thing...
it was the white van they saw first
and then that face behind the wheel
painted white with a maniacal smile.
We call them the killer clowns,
and they only wanted one thing...
to kidnap kids just like us.
On t.V: Police are saying that the suspect
wears clown make-up, a wig,
and sometimes he carried balloons.
The latest pair of incidents
occurred near playgrounds at 83rd and mackinaw...
They were running out of the playground area.
To prey on children at this time, you know,
right around the time that they want to go out
and do trick-or-treating is unfortunate.
We should emphasize that nothing has happened...
no child has been hurt...
but certainly these incidents that have been near children
is making it very uneasy.
( Sirens wailing )
Joshua: In 2008, this was one of the reported sightings...
South mackinaw...
one of the theoretical clown abductions
where apparently he was hiding in the playground
with some balloons...
Or he was in a van or he was in a truck.
I mean, no adult said they saw this.
Something was going on with these children
to feel the need to alert adults.
You doing a documentary?
Yeah, we are.
Joshua: Do you believe that really happened?
Yeah, oh sure.
Joshua: Why do you believe that happened?
Well, people told me, you know,
that they actually seen that.
Was it just one incident or was it...
No, it was like a couple weeks or you know,
a month or something like that it was going on.
Rachel: Did they ever catch the guy?
I'm not sure.
I think they did because it stopped.
Definitely it was a true incident.
Joshua: Uh-hm. Rachel: Uh-hm.
So, he believes...
He believes it. It was-it was real.
I think there could possibly have been a clown here.
It's hard to discern.
A white van and the guy had a mask...
Uh-hm. ...Of a clown.
One of our friends' daughters...
yeah, and she was holding on
like for dear life to the fence.
Joshua: Really? Yeah.
Joshua: Do you believe it really happened?
I believe so.
We have tons and tons of pedophiles
in this community. I always log on to it.
Joshua: Really? Oh yes.
Dressing as a clown?
Yeah.
That's a little extreme, don't you think?
No.
Joshua: But you never saw the clown.
No, but we saw people that acted like that person...
trying to lure... tell the kids.
I saw him right in the store and I warned the store owner.
I'd like for people to hear the truth
( indistinct ) Not a lie.
( Background sirens )
Now I don't know what to think.
Joshua: Walking away, it was hard not to believe
that there must be some truth to this.
Could all these people really be wrong?
Maybe our fear of clowns isn't just in our heads.
Joe durwin: Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns.
It is so widespread now that, you know,
everybody knows that people are afraid of clowns.
Everybody knows that something is up with clowns,
and the last couple of decades have just been confirmation
of everything they ever feared.
Joe durwin: But what's even more disturbing
is that these phantom clowns didn't just appear in 2008.
There was a similar sighting 17 years previously,
in the fall of 1991.
From the number of alleged sightings
coming from practically all over Chicago,
police are theorizing
there may be more than one phony clown
out roaming the streets.
Rachel: This is a comment.
"I've seen the same van with the clown driving
when we was on the westside playing,
and I can recall the van stopping in the alley
and the clown trying to lure me to the van.
That scared me worser
than living in cabrini-green projects."
Joe durwin: The mention of cabrini-green was telling.
It had been one of Chicago's most notorious slums
where kids faced rampant poverty and violence on a daily basis.
But how does a kid process
these overwhelming societal issues
that are just too big to fix?
Have you ever like heard of any talk
about any scary place on your block,
a place nobody went to?
Every block is a scary block... ( Giggles )
So much shooting and killing out here.
You guys think clowns are scary?
Clowns? Yeah.
No.
Killer clowns.
We've got a real shot here, Bernadette.
An entire community starts attributing
the daily horrors of their lives to a mythical figure.
Joshua: Sometimes we create monsters.
Sometimes we just need to put a face on our fear.
Aren't you going to say hello?
This is where there was
another series of clown sightings back in '91.
They called this clown sighting the homey the clown sighting.
Rachel: Back in the early '90s,
there was a popular show on, in living colors.
Huge character on there, homey the clown.
Now let's show them how homey gets back at
Mr. establishment.
( Laughter )
Sure.
( Laughter )
I mean, this is only one of many, many places
all over Chicago.
There was a real citywide scare.
The Chicago police were being called.
There were reports in the news.
Joshua: Isaiah Thompson was a local reporter
who grew up in Chicago and wrote about the clowns
that seemed to be lurking on every corner.
Somehow-you know,
I don't know that anyone knows how, you know,
this whole city, especially like this whole
public school network of thousands and thousands of kids
all believe the same thing,
so it seems like this larger force of nature
that sort of visited itself upon the kids of Chicago.
Joshua: What the kids in 1991 didn't know
was that Chicago had an even earlier clown scare.
There was another clown scare phenomenon previously in 1981.
It's been said that that one started in Boston.
Uh-hm. You think '81, you think '80s,
you think Steven king, you think poltergeist.
No, that started in '82, poltergeist, '86 for it.
This was all before any of that.
Joshua: It's easy to see how poltergeist
could have helped spread a clown scare.
And of course, Steven king's it...
Ah-ha, I'll drive you crazy and I'll kill you all.
I'm every nightmare you ever had.
I am your worst dream come true!
Joshua: But the fact that the 1981 scare
preceded these cinematic killer clowns was telling.
This wasn't just kids watching some movie,
not when this fear was everywhere.
Joe durwin: Clowns appear in California in 1967;
in Newark 1980;
Boston; Providence;
Omaha; Phoenix, Arizona in 1985;
Chicago; Galveston,
Texas, 1992;
Washington; Maryland;
Scotland, 1991;
throughout a large portion of Latin America
from Mexico to South America in the mid-90s.
The question of how it's being spread
is a very interesting one because you have an age group
which doesn't have an enormous amount of contacts
and especially in a pre-Internet time.
Elementary schools communicating with students
in other elementary schools on the other side of town
is very unlikely.
How it's transmitted is really one of the most intriguing,
perhaps unsolved mysteries about it.
Joshua: All over the world,
kids were seeing killer clowns,
but it could have been any monster...
zombies, vampires, witches, why clowns?
Maybe our fear points to an even larger issue.
Maybe it was the clown's loss of innocence
that made them that much more scary
because it spoke to our own loss.
For those born into a generation of stranger danger,
where missing kids appeared on every milk carton,
clowns represented a world
that had turned almost evil overnight,
and that's because it's here in Chicago
where the notion of killer clowns
became a reality.
News reporter: Police found the decomposed remains
of three bodies.
They suspect there are several more bodies buried here.
Joshua: And the most evil of them all was pogo,
the alter ego of one of the most prolific serial killers
in all of history, John Wayne gacy.
Gacy was a sadistic serial killer
who brutally slayed 33 young men
between 1972 and 1978 in the Chicago suburbs.
Though many have portrayed gacy as an actual killer clown,
the truth behind his demented persona
is not so simple.
How many bodies did you find here?
Bob egan: Twenty-nine, twenty-seven under the house...
Uh-hm.
In the crawlspace, one under the driveway...
And one under an extension that he put on the garage.
Joshua: This is Bob egans,
a former prosecutor on the gacy case,
and cook county detective Jason moran.
Bob egan: When we first saw the pogo the clown pictures,
we went, oh my God,
is this guy acting as a clown to get victims...
that's what we thought, but it wasn't that at all.
He was doing that because he was the center of attention,
and everything he did
was to make himself the center of attention.
I still don't like clowns.
( Chuckles ) And I'm an adult with a gun and a badge.
And it might be from being a child
during that time because if you look at pogo the clown,
he was a very creepy clown.
If you look at the pictures, the make-up around his eyes
when he was portraying pogo, was triangular,
and the make-up around his mouth came up to points.
Clown experts said clowns do not have
any sharp points on their faces.
Why?
Because it scares kids and it connotes evil.
And so do you think gacy did this on purpose
to connote evil?
It was subconscious? No, I don't think at all.
I think it was purely coincidental.
He wasn't...
I don't think he was thinking of that for one second.
I'm telling you, that's exactly what we believed at the time.
Pogo the clown issue was the subject
of a lot of conversation during the trial prep.
Joshua: Although gacy never did kill anyone dressed as a clown,
he did tell police clowns could get away with murder,
leading many to believe his signature clown look
was in fact a true reflection of his inner evil self.
Ken melvoin-berg is a noted historian
who understands the dark side of a clown.
It doesn't matter the type of mask that you're putting on...
whether it's a clown face...
it's to hide who you are a little bit
and to be somebody a little bit different.
It's oftentimes the opposite of what we portray ourselves
in our day-to-day lives.
So somebody who is a truly evil person like gacy
puts it on to sort of offset that.
Bill Ellis: What happens when people costume
is that they're playing with these internal personalities...
they're repressing the normal ego...
and they are allowing some internal personality
to become dominant.
And so you put on the clown make-up
and you are no longer yourself.
You then become someone that is unpredictable,
possibly dangerous, possibly violent.
Game on, my friend.
( Chuckles )
( Horn blows ) Ha-ha-ha-ha.
( Chuckles )
Ken melvoin-berg: Clowns have always been
a huge thing for us here in Chicago
unlike any other American city
where we have clowns and clown stories
and clown mythology and clown history
that no other city in the us has.
It started off a long time ago in the 1890s
when the columbian exposition brought clowns around
just to entertain folks.
Going forward in time a little bit,
up into the 1950s, like Bob bell
who was the original bozo the clown.
The bozo set is still at wgn in the building,
and it's allegedly haunted.
In the late '70s is when you had John Wayne gacy.
Shortly after is when
a clown panic happened.
So for people like me who are a little bit sadistic,
to me it's made it that much more interesting
because people are that much more scared
of clowns these days.
The thing is that all of the people
that were children in the 1980s and 1990s
are adults now,
and are telling these terrifying tales of clowns
to their children.
Speaking of the connection to clowns in Chicago,
the one site that you guys have got to see
if you haven't been there before is showmen's rest
which is a monument to the circus and clowns
in a cemetery.
Joshua: Buried in Chicago
were the clowns and other circus performers
who died in one of the worst train wrecks
in American history.
On June 22, 1918,
after its conductor fell asleep,
a train plowed into the idle sleeper cars
of the hagenbeck-Wallace circus.
Those who weren't killed in the initial impact
burned to death after the wooden cars caught on fire.
In all, 86 performers were killed.
With so many burned beyond recognition,
they were buried in a mass grave
in a section of the Chicago cemetery
called showmen's rest.
One of those who survived was Joe coyle,
a famously jovial clown
whose act became perpetually sad and morose
as he took to dressing in rags.
Coyle would play a sad clown for the rest of his life.
Rachel: Joe coyle spoke bitterly
as he lay on a stretcher
and told how his wife and two babies
had joined him only recently and how all three
had been crushed to death at his very side.
"The kiddies had been so glad to see their daddy," he said,
"I wish I could have died with them."
Joshua: Here, look. See that?
Rachel: Baldy.
Joshua: Baldy, 1918, June 22.
Rachel: They said they only could name him baldy
because that was the only name they knew him by
was his stage name.
Joshua: 4 horse driver, 1918.
Rachel: Unknown male, unknown male.
Joshua: Unknown male, unknown male, unknown male.
All these graves are unknown.
Rachel: All these graves are unknown.
Joshua: Maybe it all started in Chicago
with the deaths of these clowns.
Maybe all it takes is a little tragedy
to unlock the even darker places in our mind.
One thing is for certain...
there's no going back to the innocent clown.
The scales have been tipped and the evidence proves it.
Clowns can do scary things.
They can even become killers.
( Sirens wailing )
Voice on radio: ...314, shooting at century theaters.
14300, east Alameda Avenue.
They're saying somebody is shooting in the auditorium.
We got seven down and ( Indistinct ).
Seven down.
I've got a child victim... I need rescue.
( Simultaneous talking )
News reporter: Breaking news coming out of aurora, Colorado.
A scene of a shooting this morning.
A movie theater where "the dark knight rises"
was being shown.
Joshua: On July 20, 2012,
James Holmes commits one of the worse mass shootings
in recent history.
But if the massacre itself weren't horrific enough,
James's costuming was an ominous testament
to the allure of a very specific clown.
Clown in movie: Introduce a little anarchy,
upset the established order.
Then everything becomes chaos.
I'm an agent of chaos.
Joshua: Holmes's embodiment of the joker,
a villain who has come to represent
the ultimate destruction of our civilized world
is no coincidence.
( Explosions )
In our never-ending attempts to sanitize society,
we sometimes reap what we sow.
Joe durwin: In a sense, you can really look at it s as
a possible backlash.
He felt this compulsion to water the clown down
into this cartoonish, harmless being,
and maybe underlying traits of the archetype
just came back with a vengeance.
Joshua: Holmes's joker-fueled rampage not only signified
that the clown's transformation from innocent to evil
was finally complete, but it also revealed
what was truly lurking inside of us all.
We think of ourselves as one, and in fact we're really
kind of a parliament of personalities.
The killer clown is one of our personalities,
it's part of us.
And so therefore, we have to be very careful
not to let the killer clown out except, in a safe way...
except in a playful way.
( Evil laugh )
See, madness as you know,
is like gravity.
All it takes is a little push.
( Evil laugh )
Joshua: The babysitter killer,
the hook man, the Halloween sadist,
the killer clown...
what can we learn from these urban legends
and from the true crimes that may have inspired them?
Maybe these monsters, despite our overwhelming desire
to believe otherwise, just aren't real.
By presenting false boogeymen,
our urban legends are helping us
to make sense of crimes too wicked to comprehend.
Bill Ellis: An urban legend, even though it can be scary,
it's not nearly as scary as the actual murderers
that live in the world with us.
Joshua: But peel back the layers of any campfire tale,
and you'll understand the inherent truth
that despite our need to believe in an evil,
in a darker force, it just isn't true.
In the end, the only real boogeyman
is the one that lurks inside of us all,
waiting for just the right moment to emerge.
So what's the lesson behind this cautionary tale?
The warning here is simple...
be afraid, not of the story,
but of the storyteller.
( Music playing )