Real Horror Behind the Smiles

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[00:00:30] Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt. Die Plattform, die wir vor Shopify verwendet haben, hat regelmäßig Updates gebraucht, die teilweise dazu geführt haben, dass der Shop nicht funktioniert hat. Endlich macht unser Nemo Boards Shop dadurch auch auf den Mobilgeräten eine gute Figur und die Illustrationen auf den Boards kommen jetzt viel, viel klarer rüber, was uns ja auch wichtig ist und was unsere Marke auch ausmacht. Starte dein Test noch heute für einen Euro pro Monat auf Shopify.de.

[00:01:00] Jenny was excited for the weekend. It was her best friend's birthday party and it was gonna be in one of the coolest places. Kids Zania. By the time Jenny got to the party, most of the kids in her class were already there, playing some combination of tag and hide and seek. And so she ran past a table full of soda, pizza and cake in order to find her friend. She was already hiding though, so it was gonna be a tough one.

[00:01:25] The kids Jenny ran into told her to hide. Someone else was it, but it was too late to join that specific game. And so she ran straight to the construction play area. There was this big building, another one that was half done, and then an open area with these giant tunnels. They were really more like tubes, but everyone called them tunnels. They were pretty dark and isolated. No one was trying to hide there. But Jenny couldn't think of a reason. It really did seem like the perfect hiding spot.

[00:01:54] She thought she could hear whoever was it counting, one, two, three, four, five. And so she ran looking for a hiding spot. Six, seven, eight. They sounded kind of far away. Nine, ten. She couldn't hear the counting anymore. She was heading straight to the tunnels. There were three of them in total and then a fence behind them.

[00:02:24] There was only one way into this area, so she went to the farthest one on the left, crouched inside and waited. She was sure no one had followed her, so she felt proud of her hiding spot. But it started to feel like too much time had passed. Maybe this spot was too good. So just as she was about to get out and give herself up, she heard thumping. It was a strange sound.

[00:02:51] As if someone was stomping with one foot and then dragging the other behind them. It made no sense. Why would anyone walk like this? They were playing hide and seek. Why would anyone walk down the tunnels instead of peeking and yelling, I found you. But still the sound was getting closer. And then it stopped. She could only hear her pounding heart. It felt like an eternity had passed. Was someone else hiding near her?

[00:03:19] Why did the thumping stop? She was getting very tired of hiding and waiting, so she got up and out of the tunnel. She walked over to the next one and peeked in. Nothing. She checked the next tunnel and again, nothing. At this point she was starting to feel a little afraid. But despite her fear, she looked inside that tunnel that she'd just got out of. Again, nothing.

[00:03:49] Jenny was confused and scared, so she decided to leave this area. She went back into the tunnel and as she ran through it, she felt a strange pressure in her chest. She thought someone was going to be in the tunnels, but no one was in there. She got out and stared at the door to exit this part of the playground and for a second, she felt relief. She could see the way out. And as Jenny lifted her foot to start walking to the door,

[00:04:19] she felt a hand on her shoulder. She screamed. She turned around expecting it to be one of her friends, but when she looked, she saw someone in a half white, half black outfit with red buttons. Horrified, she turned her head up. And it was a clown. Jenny panicked. She heard it. It was laughing. And she ran. She was running so fast that she bumped to one of her sisters who pushed Jenny back,

[00:04:47] but quickly noticed how scared she was. The rest of her siblings and friends surrounded Jenny and she told them what she had seen. She expected them to laugh, but many of them began saying that they had seen a clown too. They all thought the clown was hired for the party. The kids found an employee and asked them. The employee laughed. There's no clowns here. This isn't a circus.

[00:05:17] Turns out this is a thing. It's known as a clown of Kidzania. In the summer of 2019, Kidzania went viral on social media. It's an indoor amusement park, kind of like Chuck E. Cheese. But their whole thing is more to be like an interactive city for kids. So instead of arcades and table hockey, it's made to simulate the city. There's a play area that looks like a doctor's office. One that's more like a construction zone. Another that it's supposed to be a working office.

[00:05:48] They're all over Mexico. In Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, but also in the US. Dallas, Chicago, and Santa Fe. The reason Kidzania went viral on Twitter is because someone posted a now deleted thread. In it, the user said that she used to go to Kidzania in Monterrey. And while she and a group of friends were playing in the tunnels, a clown scared them. They came out of nowhere. Her and her friends thought it was an employee and they went about their day.

[00:06:17] But when she returned to that Kidzania on a different day and asked them, Hey, where's that clown? The worker told them that they didn't have clowns there. Then the user asked others if they had also been scared by a clown in the tunnels. And to her surprise, she had thousands of replies from all over Mexico in the US. But other people had the same experience.

[00:06:40] And so many users were finding out for the very first time that Kidzania did not employ any clowns. And yet, in all the different locations, kids were being scared by one of them. When I came across this thread, it reminded me of other clown stories. Was this mass hysteria? Were all the Kidzanias actually haunted by a clown? And what is it about them?

[00:07:10] What scares us so much about their... Oh, I guess I get it. In this episode, I'm going to be exploring it a little bit more. The horror behind clowns. My name is Edwin. And here's a horror story. 911, what's your emergency? Help, I think someone's outside my door.

[00:07:38] Okay, what's your address, sir? My son, he heard a banging outside and chains, like chains dragging outside. We can send a unit, but I need your address and your name, please. He said it was a clown. Please help. In the summer of 2016, South Carolina law enforcement was being flooded with phone calls just like this. One police report said that several children told adults that a clown was trying to get them to follow it into the woods.

[00:08:07] They told the grown-ups that the clowns lived deep in the woods, near a house by a pond. The adults all grabbed bats and tried to chase the clown down. Someone even fired their rifle trying to get it. But no clown was ever found. Another woman called 911 because she had seen a large clown waving at her under a streetlight.

[00:08:32] Residents from an apartment complex made a similar call too, reporting someone dressed like a clown that was scaring people. Not long after, a kid from a different apartment building called and said the same thing. There was a clown scaring everybody. It didn't take long for police departments all over South Carolina to get flooded with similar phone calls. The callers didn't want to give their names.

[00:08:58] And then property managers across the state started putting up signs warning children not to walk in the woods at night. And then the clown sightings spread across the United States. We're talking about the wave of creepy clown sightings across the United States. Sightings of creepy clowns. Creepy clowns. Eerie clown sightings. A man with an all black on, clown mask on and like a red wig.

[00:09:25] Reports were coming out of Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And by October of that year, again this is 2016, there were claims from nearly every state in the US, nine provinces in Canada and 18 other countries. In Flamerton, Alabama, two Facebook pages called Flammo Clown and Shuda Clown popped up and started threatening Flamerton High School. The school and the surrounding ones had to go on lockdown.

[00:09:55] The FBI and local police searched the schools and it turned out not to be real clowns, but two minors who made the threats. This was happening everywhere. Schools all over were locked down because of similar threats. In Virginia, two teens were arrested for chasing kids in clown masks. There were threats that the actual purge was going to take place on Halloween in major cities. And it was a frightening time to live through. I'm not sure if you remember it, but I do.

[00:10:24] It was pretty intense. It was hard to tell what was a prank call and a real threat. I bet the news reports were coming from all over. But anyway, by the 31st, several school districts in the US banned all clown costumes. Target even stopped selling clown masks. Theme parks and haunted house attractions pulled back clown-related costumes. And almost every costume shop in New Zealand removed the clown ones.

[00:10:49] And while the purge didn't happen, one family in Florida was attacked by 20 people in clown masks. Luckily, no one was hurt. But by the end of the 2016 clown sightings, at least 12 people in the US were behind bars. And one 16-year-old was stabbed while wearing a clown mask. Trail cameras in the Appalachian Mountains are mostly used by hunters and wildlife specialists. Mostly to track animals.

[00:11:17] But in 2016, these cameras were picking up something else. Clowns. All the pictures were similar. A clown in the middle of a bunch of trees, looking straight at the camera. These pictures were eerie. They were being shared all over social media and then one page identified the clown. They wrote, Sprinkles the clown is back.

[00:11:44] According to legend, in 1973, a caravan of circus performers was making their way across the Appalachian Mountains. It was not a busy part of the circus season and a bad winter storm had set in. As they rounded the many turns coming down the top of the mountain, the icy roads finally got the best of the caravan. Several cars found their way off-road and over the hill. And one of those vehicles, carrying four clowns, was never recovered.

[00:12:14] Weeks went by and two of the four clowns were found walking down from the mountain with only their pants on. They desperately needed medical attention. They had lost fingers and toes to frostbite. And after months of receiving care, the local police were able to question the whereabouts of the other two performers from the wreck. And it was grim. The third guy had died instantly. And the fourth clown, known as Sprinkles,

[00:12:42] used the dead body to feed the rest of them. He kept them tied up like hostages. It wasn't until one of the survivors got his hands free and was able to fight back that they made their escape. They left Sprinkles laying in an ice-cold stream. And they assumed that the water's temperature was enough to kill him. But according to pictures taken recently on a trail cam in eastern Kentucky,

[00:13:08] Sprinkles was very well alive and out to find more victims. More and more pictures came out and they all looked like Sprinkles. The clown has never been caught. In fact, one mom in Kentucky swore Sprinkles almost took her son too. The legend of Sprinkles resurfaced in 2016, which makes sense. But they're not the only ones.

[00:13:34] There were similar reports in 2014, but on a much smaller scale. But as we keep digging into more of this clown phenomena, we find even more. This time in the 90s.

[00:14:01] The legend of Sprinkles on Shopify

[00:14:28] In the fall of 1991, kids all over Chicago were scared to walk to school. According to legend, there was a normal, ordinary clown. He traveled with the circus and loved entertaining children. But one day, tragedy struck his circus and the clown, along with the whole circus. Everyone basically died. Since then, the clown has been roaming Chicago looking for kids. And every kid knew this story. And it may have seemed like just a legend, but it still spread.

[00:14:59] Then one kid from Murphy Elementary School told everyone that a clown dressed up like Homie the Clown chased him on his way to school. Homie the Clown was a character played by Damon Wayans in the comedy show In Living Color. He carried a sock that he hit kids with in the head. It was funny, but in Chicago, children and their parents were terrified. And soon, kids were seeing him all over the city, usually in a brown or white van trying to dig kids away.

[00:15:29] One second grade teacher had to calm her entire class down when a kid yelled, And all the other kids started yelling, She had to call the police because they were all so scared. And the police were actually taking the sightings very seriously. But no clowns were ever arrested. Those who were kids back then still remember all the fear. It almost seems like there's a clown sighting like this every decade or so.

[00:15:57] Before this, there were similar reports of a clown trying to lure children away with candy. Only in Boston and not Chicago. Like the rest of the reports, no clowns were arrested during these sightings either. Now what surprised me the most is that the fear of clowns seems pretty new. Before the 80s, there's not a lot of clown stories like the ones that I've mentioned. Through looking for the root of why clowns are scary, I learned that during the 1960s, clowns were super popular.

[00:16:27] There was one very famous clown called Bozo the Clown. I'm sure you've heard of him. Still, I looked up a picture of him. Maybe it's because of all the newer stories, so I still found him pretty eerie. He's got very red hair that sticks out in each side of his head, but the top of his head is bald, like painted white, except for his mouth. He's got a giant red smile that's painted on and then a very arched, thick black eyebrows that are pointed down. Like two upside down ewes.

[00:16:56] It's a little unnerving to look at him. And maybe it's just that it's me looking at him through modern eyes, because back in the 1960s, kids loved him. There was a 10 year waiting list to get him to come to your party. He was so popular that other actors were allowed to buy a license to be Bozo and perform their own shows. One of these actors became the Ronald McDonald clown that we all know today.

[00:17:22] But things took a turn when one Bozo the Clown turned out to be a very sinister person. Private contractors and volunteers dressed up as clowns soared after Bozo the Clown. They would perform at parties, they did parades at fundraising events, and one well-liked construction business owner was one of these volunteers. John Wayne Gacy. He heard of the Jolly Joker Clown Club and I guess he wanted to give back to the community?

[00:17:52] Or that's what it seemed like. So he joined the clown club and visited sick kids in hospitals. He had even created his own characters. They were Pogo the Clown and Patches the Clown. Pogo was happy and Patches was a more serious character. He did his own makeup and everything. By the time John Wayne Gacy was arrested and tried, he was found guilty of 33 charges of murder and sexual assault.

[00:18:19] At the time, in 1980, he held the record for the most convictions for a single person in the US. Now, John Wayne Gacy never lured children away in a clown costume. He mostly used his construction business to lure teens into working with him, gaining their trust and then killing them. In fact, there was a set of handcuffs that he used during his clown act that he also used to torture and assault his victims.

[00:18:46] When his house was searched, they found over 20 bodies buried under his crawl space. Then, looking for their next big story, media outlets found out this serial killer was a clown in his free time. So when he confessed to his crimes, he told detectives, you know, clowns can get away with murder. They started calling him the Killer Clown. This was up until his execution in 1994. John Wayne Gacy painted portraits of himself dressed as Pogo the Clown.

[00:19:16] It's really no wonder that one of the first recorded mass clown scares happened one year after John Wayne Gacy's trial. In Lawrence Elementary School, children ran to their teachers crying and scared. They said that there were two clowns driving around in a black van offering them candy. Police were contacted and then all nearby schools were warned. Then, kids all over Brookline, Massachusetts were seeing the pair of clowns.

[00:19:42] And for the rest of the year, kids were reporting killer clowns jumping out of the bushes with knives. These kinds of things were happening in Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. And then Stephen King's classic horror novel came out. I'm sure you know it. It. Starring Pennywise the Clown. Who kind of looks a little too similar to Bozo the Clown. I don't know if you can see the similarities. So it's not surprising that it said that John Wayne Gacy was an inspiration for Pennywise.

[00:20:14] There are some things that seem a little too real to me. Like in the book, Pennywise comes out every 27 years to terrorize the residents of Derry and Maine. It comes back in waves, much like mass clown sightings. 1981. 1991. 2016. Strange coincidence. But as time goes on, I don't think clowns are ever going to be funny and love like they were in the 1960s.

[00:20:43] Although mimes might make a comeback. Nine years after John Wayne Gacy was convicted for murdering 33 teens and young men. There was another killer clown case. One that is still unsolved today. On May 26, 1990. At exactly 1045 in the morning. Marlene Warren heard her doorbell. She opened the door and in front of her stood a clown.

[00:21:09] The clown was holding red and white flowers in one hand. And in the other. A gun. The clown raised the gun and fired. Shooting Marlene Warren point blank in the face. Her own son saw the clown run into a white Chrysler and speed away. Unfortunately, she didn't make it. She died two days after this in the hospital. And no one knows who the clown was.

[00:21:37] Her husband was suspected but has never been charged. And the case is still unsolved today. As the years pass, the clown sightings fade into whispers until they don't. Every decade or so, they return. Stepping out from the shadows. Grinning beneath painted faces. Watching from the edges of our towns and forests. Was it just mass hysteria? A trick of the mind? Or is it something older?

[00:22:07] Something darker? Lurking behind the makeup and wide red smiles. Waiting for the perfect moment to emerge once again. Maybe the fear of clowns isn't just in our heads. Maybe. We have a strong reason. To be afraid. I just want to say thanks again for your suggestions.

[00:22:36] Tara and Christine via email and our form or on our website. And Kueya through Instagram for your ideas on really creepy stories that I'm going to be researching. I added them to the list to see what we find. Anyway, if you're following the show, I will be back next week. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone. See you soon.