Killer Legends Page #9

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.

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...

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?

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 think they did

because it stopped.

Definitely

it was a true incident.

Joshua:
Uh-hm.

Rachel:
Uh-hm.

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?

We have tons and tons

of pedophiles

in this community.

I always log on to it.

Joshua:
Really?

Oh yes.

Dressing as a clown?

That's a little extreme,

don't you think?

No, but we saw people

that acted like that person...

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.

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.

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.

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

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,

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