Killer Legends

( 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.

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,

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

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.

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?

People who died here

are supposed to be the ghosts.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Why? It's kind of creepy out there,

so we were always afraid

to go there.

Joshua:

But did you still go?

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.

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