125. The Clown-Demic
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Okay, if you're on YouTube, we are in a different set again. We are actually just...

visiting some family right now but we are still getting an episode out i am actually wearing the merch right now that is dropping it should have actually already dropped as you are listening to this it's our new designs we're calling it our knives out collection uh the back has a very intricate design that we worked

a long time on and I'm so so excited about it. So go check it out if you haven't. Again this will be exclusive for two to three weeks and then we probably won't sell it again. So check it out if you like it get it. And there'll be links everywhere. It'll be in description on podcast, description on YouTube, description links, Instagram, everything. Cool yeah I'm so excited about this one. We're really excited about it. We've actually been we kind of talked about it last time a little bit but we've been working more just on

trying to get specific merch out. So we're super excited. And our patrons actually voted on this design. We put up a couple of polls cause we were trying to narrow it down and they picked this one that we ended up with. So I'm super excited. And we're going to be doing more of these polls and voting for merch and other stuff. So if you're interested, you can check out patron as well. And remember it's also ad free and we have bonus content every month too. All right. Are you ready for your 10 seconds? Well, Peyton and I've been in California, uh,

Just for some work stuff and visiting family. A ton of people messaged us and emailed us, which is super awesome, about doing custom Nikes. I do think it would be so cool to do more with my husband. It would be so cool. Wait, but...

Didn't someone like get sued for doing Nikes, custom Nikes? Like all of a sudden you can do custom Nikes? I had no idea. I'm pretty sure you've always been able to. I think he was selling them. Right. Lil Nas or something? Oh, okay. Okay. I get it. So I'm going to go through all those messages, but I think it'd be so cool to do some type of murder with my husband, custom Nikes, just some Nike dunks. So Peyton and I were at a pickleball tournament over the weekend, just watching some friends and family play.

And we got there and everyone was playing. And all of a sudden Peyton and I, we sit down, we look to the left of us and there is a baby just sitting there watching a show on her iPad. They like connected the phone to the stroller and she was in the car seat in the stroller just watching it. No parents. Zero parents. No one's around. And we're just sitting there and she's just chilling. She's just hanging out.

And all of a sudden, we're just like, we realized, wait, like nobody's around. Like her parents are just off somewhere playing pickleball. And she's probably like one and a half. And she's just sitting there playing. And then she started eating the, what would you call it? The...

She started eating the styrofoam out of her car seat. Like her car seat had ripped. So she started picking it and she started eating it. And we were like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? So we kept trying to say, no, no, no. But I didn't want to get too close because she's not my baby. Yeah. And I was just like...

No, don't eat that. Don't eat that. But the baby actually spoke Spanish. Her show she was watching was in Spanish. So then Garrett tried to say, no, don't eat that in Spanish to her. And she understood finally. But she didn't want to listen. And I think once the parents saw us like huddling over her, they eventually ran over and were like, is everything okay? But...

Long story short, I ended up actually watching the baby for the rest of the matches because the pants weren't just playing. It was so funny. So I guess that will be my 10 seconds this week. Nothing new with my car. Still playing pickleball. I'll for sure have something good next week. We're just kind of been...

with some family and stuff. So nothing too crazy has happened, but let's get into the case. Okay, perfect. Our case sources are basicrights.org, wikipedia, adelaidenow.com, abc7chicago.com, theverge.com, time.com, movieweb.com, dailymail.co.uk, penlive.com, and cbsnews. Okay, so to start,

our episode off, we are going to be taking ourselves back to 2016 in the United States of America. Okay. So jumping back, Garrett and I are actually going to meet and start dating this year and

President Obama, the 44th U.S. president, is wrapping up his last term as president, and Hillary Clinton, who is under investigation, and President Donald Trump are in the end of their fight for presidency. Protests and riots are taking over the nation due to the upcoming election. On January 9th, for the first time in history, the National Powerball Lottery Prize surpassed $1 billion, which had actually just happened again. That's crazy. It did just happen again, and we didn't win. No, we didn't win.

On February 7th, Super Bowl 50 will be played and the Denver Broncos will defeat the Carolina Panthers. On February 15th, the 58th Annual Grammy Awards will take place and Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars will win Record of the Year. What a throwback. I know. That was such a popular song. On February 28th, the 88th Academy Awards are going to be hosted by Chris Rock where he won't slap Will Face.

Will face? Where he won't be slapped in the face by Will Smith. That won't happen until 2022. On April 9th, 2016, SpaceX will successfully launch its Falcon 9 rocket.

On April 21st, music legend Prince died at the age of 57. On June 10th, President Obama formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. On June 12th, 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fires at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando, killing 49 people and leaving another 53 wounded. And this attack actually surpassed the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Okay. And the shooting is obviously investigated as a domestic terrorist attack. On July 1st, the U.S. military officially lifts its ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed

the armed forces, which was huge. On July 5th, Gypsy Rose Blanchard will plead guilty to the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, which Garrett doesn't know what that means, but we all do. No idea. On July 30th, 16 people will crash into power lines in a hot air balloon in Austin, Texas, and all of them will die. How did I not hear about that? There was so much going through, so many deaths that I was like, I don't even remember that. But keep in mind, it was a presidential election, so the news was really being taken over by that.

But somewhere along the way, in this mess of a year, starting in the summer of 2016, something begins to happen that polarizes America. Something that despite the literal presidential election, begins taking over news stations everywhere. Something that at first is discussed jokingly over potato chips between families and living rooms,

But soon would shut down schools and call for statewide curfews, spreading panic that we wouldn't see again for years to come. And that...

was the clown sightings and attacks from the summer of 2016. Okay. I actually vaguely remember this. Right. So I actually laid on my dorm room bed scrolling Twitter in August of 2016 when I read a headline, clown sightings spreading throughout America. Okay.

Confused, I clicked the video below the headline. And I watched as someone driving down a deserted road stopped and began filming from their iPhone 7 Plus. A clown, like a literal person in clown makeup, a curly wig, and a polka dot onesie,

was standing in the middle of the road outside of this person's car on this shaky video. The clown was dragging a rake behind them and smiling creepily at the passerby. Instinctively, the filmer and driver of the car decided to just flip a U-turn and drive away, deeming the clown too dangerous to pass, deciding that heading back to Walmart and waiting it out would be safer than attempting to drive past the strange and creepy clown.

And as I'm watching this on Twitter, I'm like, this has to be a joke. So I exited the video and I found the search tab on my Twitter account. Clown sightings. I typed in waiting to see what else would pop up. And as the tab loaded, I scrolled through video after video of scary clown sightings happening right now all over America. One even in the city that we lived in. Why did I think this was during Halloween?

So it goes into Halloween. Okay, maybe that's what it is. Because I could have swore or remember something about it being around the time that Halloween was. That's good memory. Yeah. I just remembered like all of the videos and everyone being scared of the clowns, but I didn't even remember that it went into Halloween. I just remember, I think I remember everyone freaking out going,

oh no, it's going to get way worse during Halloween and so on and so forth. Yeah. So some of the clowns in the videos were holding knives. Some would charge the person filming them while screaming. And as I scrolled, I realized there was video after video. Like this was a craze, a meme. Something was going on around America. People were dressing up like clowns and scaring their cities. And I know it sounds silly now, but like the videos are terrifying and I'm sure we'll put some up on YouTube. Yeah.

I quickly called my mom to ask if she had seen the clown videos. But all in all, as I'm thinking back, were they dangerous? I mean, as we know, the clown videos stopped. The clowns retired their wigs and they found something else to obsess over. But where did this originate? What started the 2016 Clowndemic?

And was anyone ever actually hurt by a clown? So before we get into it, I just want to say I don't remember anyone being hurt by it. But I do feel like I remember like the first sighting. Some people were driving a car and it was like in the woods somewhere. Yes.

But I don't really remember anything after that. So I didn't either. Like I was like, I don't remember anyone getting hurt. But then I was like, how was it polarizing America so much if no one was even getting hurt? How did this take over news stations if no one even actually got hurt? And what made me even think about covering this case today is that I was on scrolling TikTok the other day and there was a sound.

It's basically just like thinking back on a memory. And the girl posted a picture of this scar on her stomach and then posted a picture of a clown and said, the 2016 clown craze wasn't a hoax. Meaning she got cut by one of those clowns. And okay, I think it was satire. Like I dug deeper. I'm pretty sure she was just making a joke. But it literally got me thinking, well, did anyone get stabbed? Like was anyone actually even hurt? So as you know...

I dug. I went in. I was like, I'm researching this. Was anyone actually killed in the summer of 2016 at the hands of a creepy clown? And that's what we are going to be talking about today. Got it.

So, according to Wikipedia, a clown is a person who wears a unique makeup face and flamboyant costume performing comedy in a state of open-mindedness all while using physical comedy, obviously. The most ancient clowns have been found in the 5th dynasty of Egypt around 2400 B.C.

There have been many different types of clowns throughout the years serving different purposes. Jesters, Native American clowns, rodeo clowns, and then the mainstream clown we recognize today, think of a clown from a circus.

The comedy that clowns perform is usually in the role of a fool whose everyday actions and tasks become extraordinary. In the early 20th century, circus character clowns developed and eventually Bozo the Clown appeared in the US in the late 1950s. Bozo the Clown, okay. And the Bozo show premiered and aired nationally on cable television all about this clown who just was ridiculous. And everyone watched him with joy. Like they...

they loved Bozo. Yeah. Shortly after this, McDonald's derived its mascot, Ronald McDonald, from Bozo the Clown. And of course, I'm like... Which is kind of

Which is kind of creepy. Ronald McDonald, our king. As much as we love McDonald's though, that's kind of creepy. Right? That's kind of weird. I'd never, I mean, I've always- Put two and two together. I guess I've never really put two and two together that it's a- Clown. It's a clown. Yeah. That's kind of strange. So after this and following the Bozo template, private contractors begin to offer or perform as a clown for birthday parties wherein we enter suburban parents hiring literal strangers to put on makeup and entertain their kids outside

at birthday parties. And then finally in the 1980s, children who had grown up attending these parties with clowns realized into their adulthood, hey, that was kind of weird. And honestly, that was kind of freaky. So then we have the rise of the evil clown character. Clowns who instead of providing joy were actually meant to scare people.

and this is when the fear of clowns particularly circus clowns has become known by the term coulrophobia so that is the fear of clowns we had previously seen the dc comics um the joker who could be considered an evil clown but it was really penny wise from stephen king's it that did everybody in clowns became a common fear after that movie

And it can't go without mentioning that American serial killer and rapist John Wayne Gacy became known as Killer Clown after being arrested in 1978 and police learned he performed as Pogo the Clown at children's parties during the day.

Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys. But despite many rumors and campfire stories, Gacy never actually killed anyone while being dressed up as his clown. We haven't done that case. No, we have not. I'd

- I'd remember it. - No, you would. But it was just eerie enough that he worked as a clown entertaining for children during the day and then kidnapped them and murdered them at his home at night. So that's kind of where people get the conspiracy theory that he would kill people dressed as a clown. Okay, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work.

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Now I need to say here, I don't think they were meaning to be scary clowns at this point. I think they were thinking, kids love clowns. If I dress up as a clown, they'll get in my van. I feel like we're at the point, I could be wrong, but I feel like we're at the point that

no one likes no one likes clowns right we're like i don't like clowns the joyful clown doesn't exist these random sightings related to potential kidnappings would occur again in arizona new jersey honduras and chicago in 2013 the northampton clown was cited standing silently around the english town dressed like pennywise the clown in 2014

a YouTuber in Italy began dressing up like a clown and scaring people for his YouTube channel, accumulating hundreds of millions of views. Like these videos went viral. I don't think I've ever seen those. I haven't seen them either, but we will attach some of them. Okay. 2014 would also be the year of American Horror Story Freak Show.

and that would air and its opening scene would actually show a young couple on a picnic being approached by a clown who then ties them up and stabs them to death. Holy crap. Oh, not real. Not real. American Horror Story. But that opening scene, the first time I saw it, scarred my brain. I was like, that is the scariest thing I've ever seen.

But all of this was leading up to the 2016 clown crisis that may or may not have ended in actual death. The first of 2016 clown sightings actually started in June in Wisconsin. There's a lot of things online saying it started in the Carolinas, which it did, but there was kind of a precursor that happened in Wisconsin first.

This is a clown named Gags, or how he would soon be known. He was known as the Green Bay Clown. He gained viral attention after multiple sources caught photos of him walking through the streets during the night, doing nothing except yelping.

which is creepy. That's so weird. Multiple people got their phones out and was like, look at this person. Shortly after people began uploading these photos of the Green Bay Clown to the internet, a Facebook page was created for him and claimed the clown's name was Gags. In the days that followed, the creepy clown information made its way national. Fox News and USA Today ran stories on Gags, the suspicious clown, and the nerve-wracking pictures that people were taking of him. Which...

I feel like this is the first mistake. As soon as the news and everyone else starts talking about it, of course more people are going to do it. Which is why I'm saying the 2016 clown craze started with gags. Got it. Because if Fox News is reporting on it, other people are going to look at that and go, wow, all I have to do is dress up like a clown.

and I'll get on TV too. And then everyone starts dressing up as clowns. Right. And now we have a problem. But the main issue here, like when this first is all happening, is people are like, was Gags dangerous? You have to think about this. There's a random person dressing up as a clown, usually wielding a weapon of some sort, walking through a city at night. Is...

Like, is that person dangerous or not? Did people need to be on the defense if they ran into him? When the panic kind of began growing, a Wisconsin filmmaker actually came forward claiming that Gags the Clown was hired and paid by him as a marketing stunt to promote his unreleased short film titled Gags. Oh.

So he just did it as a plot, but the filmmaker feared the stunt had now grown out of control after putting so many people on edge. That's, hey, good. It's a good idea. Right. It really is a good idea. PR wise, yes. But now not a good idea. Considering what it started. Yeah. No, I'm sure this filmmaker never imagined the actual effects his little publicity stunt would hold. After

the Wisconsin photos of Gags the Clown being extremely creepy went viral, it seemed to kind of spread like wildfire. Of course, in addition to Gags Clown movie, it by Stephen King had announced its arrival, their remake coming in 2017. So clowns were already kind of becoming popular again and then Gags the Clown happened.

And as well as the Purge movies were a thing, kind of encouraging this wild behavior of just going out into your city streets and causing havoc. It's weird that I don't like true crime, but I kind of weirdly like the Purge movies. You do. But I think it's because I like the action part. Right. Like...

There's always a hero, someone that saves someone. I don't like it for the creepiness of it. See, and I actually hate the Purge movies because they're too, it's too real. Like these clowns, the clown craze, everyone was kind of worried. Like, are these clowns also going to get together and start purging? Yeah. So the sightings took a scary turn on August 30th when police in Greenville, South Carolina, which is, this is where normally people say this started, uh,

warned residents after receiving multiple reports of a person dressed as a clown attempting to lure children into the woods. Dude, what in the world? And multiple moms came forward saying, hey, there's a guy dressed as a clown trying to kidnap our kids. Why are people like this? Like, what are you doing? Right. So according to deputies, multiple families had reported men dressed as clowns approaching their children and trying to get them into the woods by using money. Because of this... That might have gotten me into the woods. Yeah.

At 12? Not going to lie. Right. So because of this, deputies began patrolling wooded areas as a precaution. So already we're seeing law enforcement intervening with this clown thing. At this point, clown videos were kind of popping up every day. Even multiple people standing there together at night dressed like clowns.

And it's so crazy. People began talking about the clown videos. Did you see there's people dressing up like clowns and scaring people? Like, go look, go Google it. There's videos all over. And if you don't remember this, don't worry. I started this story with the history of 2016 because you were probably focusing on more important headlines than the clowns. So if you don't remember it, don't worry. But if you do remember it, you definitely remember it because it was so weird.

In some of the videos, the clowns, like I said, wielded weapons. They had knives, bats, hammers. Videos of clowns approaching cars at night, waltzing about in people's yards or standing next to their windows. Clowns walking around in the streets at night with balloons. Things were getting weird and it was amplifying fast. Like the videos were very eerie. All I know is if I saw a clown while I was driving...

I don't think I would stop to film it. I would just drive. I'd be like, Oh, he had that too. But I'd be like, I'm not, I'm not doing this. And I think I wouldn't even entertain it. Right. And that's, what's dangerous here is because you're like, well, it's just a clown. Um,

But if you're driving in the middle of the night alone and this random person in a clown costume carrying a bat, you're going to freak out. In most of the videos, the clowns would actually walk around and then suddenly charge people, chasing them until they gave up, some even climbing on top of people's cars as they drove. And let's be real, although up to this point, no one had actually been physically harmed,

Being chased by a clown in the middle of the night with a knife is freaking scary. - That's so nuts. So I was just gonna say, I'm surprised someone hasn't been shot. - Right. - Like I'm surprised they weren't like, I'm gonna shoot this clown. - You're threatening my life. - Yeah. - So this whole scenario is actually scary enough at a haunted house where you know the clown isn't going to kill you. Imagine not knowing the clown's intentions.

It's a real life horror movie. Like you're in a real life horror movie. And although this was terrifying, the videos were so scary. No one thought the clowns would eventually start targeting children.

On September 14th, three children in Georgia were walking to their bus stop around 6 a.m. when two clowns began chasing them. So when you say children, do you mean like five to eight, like 12, like 16? I'm pretty sure I read and it was like 10 to 13 around that age. But still. Oh yeah, still little kids. 10 to 13 year old. Neighbors actually noticed and eventually the clowns ran away. But you have two grown adults now chasing children. Which is crazy because I don't think...

that originally these clowns were trying to target children. Right. But now like it's evolved to the people who are weird and crazy now are targeting children dressed as clowns. Right. And it's, you've crossed, I mean, you already had crossed the line, but now you've really crossed the line. So just a week later in Pennsylvania, a 12-year-old girl was playing at a park when suddenly a little boy ran out of the woods nearby screaming and crying. Yeah.

He told the girl that he saw clowns in the woods, huddled on the ground, eating something. The girl didn't believe the little boy until a pack of clowns began walking out of the wood line. She told police that as soon as the clown saw the children, they began charging them, chasing them through the park.

That's so weird. Do you think that the clowns were going to do anything to them or are they just trying to terrify little kids? No, I think they were just probably a group of teenagers partaking in a trend. Yeah.

That they are now taking too far. According to kidspot.com, just hours after local police warned the public about the clown fad, on October 8th, around 9.30 p.m., two 12-year-old girls in a different place were buying ice cream with one of their fathers when they were attacked by a clown. The clown ambushed them and tried to steal one of the girls' phones. The father began kicking the clown and he eventually ran away. The girls later posted to social media telling people that...

That is insane. Yeah.

At the end of September, two different fast food restaurants in Arizona were robbed by suspects wearing clown masks. So I feel like it's just become an excuse though now to get away with things. Everyone's just dressing up as clowns, doing a bunch of different things they shouldn't be doing. You just read my next sentence. The issue was that now common criminals decided to hide behind a clown mask because...

because there were so many clowns around, they wouldn't really stand out. So it was the perfect disguise. A couple days later in Tennessee, a clown walked into a bank armed with explosives.

And everyone can't help but think, was this an organized group of people from all over the nation? Or were there a bunch of people out there that caught on and decided this was cool? But how the heck were clowns just dominating states? I do wonder if there was anything like on the dark web or on Reddit or 4chan. Right, was this organized? Like, yeah, was there like a big group of clowns talking, just planning things? Could you imagine just a little clown discord group chat? Yeah.

I got Arizona, guys. Uh-huh.

So the World Clown Association president, Randy Christensen, at this point, took a stance against the current trend of people dressing up as clowns to frighten people. Circuses and other clown-related businesses were affected, professional clowns actually fearing for their lives as people had become so scared and defensive against them. In October 2016, McDonald's decided that Ronald McDonald would keep a lower profile as a result of all the incidences. Wow, okay.

But clown hysteria had taken over news outlets everywhere at this point. A man in Kentucky was arrested for dressing up as a clown and hiding in the woods, which then led to multiple states declaring, you know, although it's not illegal to wear a clown costume, if you're scaring someone, it's prohibited and more arrests would follow. I thought you were going to say a clown state of emergency. Right. Literally, though. According to Time.com, seven people faced felony charges of making threats basically connected to clowns

clown-related activity in Alabama. Two parents were even arrested for leaving their four-year-old child home alone so they could participate in the new trend and terrorize a neighborhood while dressed as clowns. It literally sounds like The Purge. Look, look,

People are getting arrested everywhere. It actually does sound like the purge. That is pretty crazy. Yeah. It wasn't just happening in America either. It started here, but eventually the craze had turned global as countries all over the world began covering local cases of clown sightings and arresting people. Canada, Australia, the UK, Russia, and even Fiji were

Russia? Yeah. And despite the threat of legal action and clowning becoming prohibited, it was early October and costume stores around the country were stocking up on clown costumes, getting ready for Halloween, making this fad and this trend accessible to anyone. It was so easy to go buy a clown costume and clown makeup. Yeah.

No wonder clown wigs were being sold at an inflated rate during the 2016 Halloween season. That's funny.

Schools began sending warning letters home to parents informing them about the craze, which we've seen this with other trends that are actually dangerous for kids' lives. Schools will say, hey, in case you haven't heard, there's this trend going on. Please talk to your kid about it. And multiple schools actually went on lockdown after threats that the clowns were coming to the school. And so multiple schools literally went on lockdown. A Connecticut school district banned clown costumes and clothing with clowns on it, claiming they were symbols of terror.

Arizona schools tried their best to calm parents down after a threat on social media using a clown image. And 1,500 students at Mary Dell High School actually skipped school on the day of concern. So how long did this go on for? Like how long was this clown craze? Right. So it's going to go all the way to Halloween, of course, because it's October. When did it start again? August. August. Okay. So it wasn't...

It wasn't like a super long time, but I mean, it was a good amount of time. Right. A couple months. Right. So on October 6th, a mom in California fought off a clown trying to kidnap her one-year-old baby out of her arms. Oh my gosh. That same day, a 13-year-old girl in a different state was charged in a murder for hire plot after she asked a person posing as a clown on social media to kill her teacher. Okay.

She thought they could easily get away with it because of all the sketchy clown activity going on. The clown, though, turned her in and she was charged with one count of threatening to kill by electronic message. That's so ironic, this clown that probably shouldn't be dressing up as a clown. Participating in this. And then turns her in. Right. Eventually, a clown sighting had been reported to police in all 50 states in America. Wow.

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According to TheVerge.com, during a White House briefing, keep in mind the election, like people are currently voting for who they want to be president. And during a White House briefing, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he wasn't sure if the president had been notified, but he assured everyone that local law enforcement authorities were taking the clowns quite seriously. That's funny. I'm sure the president knew about that.

it. The White House had been informed. I'm sure everyone knew about it. Around this time, Target decided to pull clown masks from their shelves just a few weeks before Halloween. And then a county in Mississippi banned clowns altogether until after Halloween. They said, you will be arrested if you are seen dressed as a clown until after Halloween. That's smart, though. I don't blame them. Threats online about a clown

clown purge on Halloween began to circulate. And this is probably what you remember. Yes. Everyone started getting scared. According to the rules, all the clowns that we had been spotting up to this point, we're going to come out on Halloween night and actually cause havoc, which I mean, with the purge being so popular, it coming out, it seemed so real, but

Like I was reading sources about there were full on counties that trick or treating wasn't a thing. Gosh, I can't remember like if I was scared or like what.

like what i did i can't really can't remember i remember watching the videos and just asking people like have you seen these clown videos no like they're literal clowns walking around with weapons all right so i'm curious to see does anyone get hurt right i mean more hurt than they already have than they already have so it was around this time that high school and college-aged kids did what they do best they took a trend and they ran way too far with it so

Students at Pennsylvania State University and Michigan State University were involved in mobs that searched for clowns on campus after reporting sightings. They were called clown hunters. So 1,500 students at Penn State get together.

And they're like, everyone, we're going searching for the clowns this night. All of them show up with weapons and they go storming through campus to try to track down these clowns. This is not going to turn out good. It's awful. Yeah. And once clown hunting hit the internet, like once people were like, oh, wow, there's groups of people getting together to hunt these clowns. Vigilantes began hunting, demanding to keep their city safe from the evil clowns.

So who would have known that it wasn't actually just the citizens in danger here? Once clown hunting became a thing, anyone who dressed up, whether as a prank or not, became at risk. And this is what you were talking about at the beginning. You're surprised none of the clowns have been shot yet. Because even if you have no intention of hurting someone, you've heard these stories of, well, someone tried to kidnap a baby and someone tried to steal a phone and someone threw sticks. You are like, I'm in fear of my life right now.

So on October 16th, according to ABC seven, Chicago, a person dressed as a clown was scared off after the man he was approaching pulled out a gun and fired a warning shot into the air. I watched a video while researching of a clown pulling up to a car in Chicago and all the men in the car whip guns out and tell the clown he messed with the wrong car. The clown literally stumbled over his striped pants as he ran off. Like he went running for his life. I mean, I,

Yeah, I mean, I don't blame them at the same time. I'm not saying kill them, but also how are you supposed to know if they're dangerous or not? Yeah. Like what are you supposed to do? Dumb actions have dumb consequences, right? Yes, exactly. So professional clowns though were scared for their lives as they became innocent targets. I mean, if you're literally a clown that gets hired for birthday parties...

You're now scared to walk around. It was at this point actually that a clown lives matter Facebook page was created. No way. Yes. Clown lives matter. Because all these professional clowns were like, Oh, we're so scared for our lives. Okay. But the creep,

clown craze, what Garrett's been saying this whole time, was teetering on the edge of a catastrophe and was about to tip over. Right in the middle of this, 16-year-old Christian Torres, a high school sophomore, was walking through a Pennsylvania neighborhood with his friends.

he was partaking in the clown craze. Christian had a clown mask pushed up on top of his head. It was not covering his face. It was just resting on his head. But because of the recent clown sightings sweeping the U.S., a controversy started in the neighborhood between Christian and others who

which eventually broke out into a full-blown fight. There wasn't details online, but I'm assuming it was like, get out of here. You shouldn't be here. Police were called after 29-year-old Avery Valentine Bear stabbed Christian to death during the fight and then ran off. According to some sources, two other teens were stabbed as well, but the injuries weren't life-threatening. So three teenagers were stabbed.

during while being clowns in this neighborhood. Were they like, do you know if they were scaring people or rushing people or what they were doing? No, they were walking around. And that's why I did clarify that his clown mask was pulled up on his head. He didn't even have it covering his face. And then a fight broke out and he got stabbed. How many times?

Did you say? I didn't say how many times. It was enough that it took his life. Okay. I will say there were not a lot of sources on this. Like I had to dig pretty deep and still there weren't a lot of details. In fact, CBS said,

in their article about it. It said, we're not sure if this happened, this happened, or this happened. The only sure thing that we know is that 16-year-old Christian Torres was stabbed to death. So everything's been kind of, you know. Avery was eventually caught and charged with first-degree murder and other charges. And with that, the crime

I'm surprised...

this wasn't the thing that stopped it because I didn't hear about this. So I had no idea someone even died. So I assume it didn't stop it. It did not. It did not. You can actually get on any social media platform right now and read testimonies from people who experienced an attack by a clown. On that Satire Girls video that I talked about, there was comment after comment. Oh my gosh, this was real though because I was chased by a clown in this city or just comment. And I'm sure some of them were fake.

But we all saw the videos. We know it was happening. People were chased by clowns with chainsaws, cornered into a park by clowns holding knives, just absolutely terrorizing. But if I'm being honest, I had a hard time finding any murders that were done by an evil random clown that summer. Because keep in mind, it wasn't actually a clown who killed someone in that last story. Halloween came and went and no clown purge happened.

And although I'm sure clown costumes were worn at a higher percent than other years, they didn't take over the world that night. There was no clown purge. Clowns did not come into the streets and begin killing trick-or-treaters. And slowly after that, the craze died off. The clown news stories stopped and were taken over by coverage of the election. So despite the fact that no evil clown actually followed through on their promise in 2016, the

That doesn't mean no one has ever been killed by an evil clown. According to PalmBeachPost.com, on May 26th, Garrett's birthday, 1990, Marlene Warren was at home when someone rang her front doorbell. She got up, closely followed by her son, and answered the door. Standing there, in front of her, on her front porch, was a clown. Confused, Marlene said,

Hello. And smiled as the clown had balloons and flowers and gestured them towards her. Like here, take these. Someone had sent her flowers. A little weird that they came from a clown, but maybe this was a new business she had never heard of. Maybe there was now a clown delivering flower business.

Oh no. Oh no.

Although she was rushed to the hospital, Marlene died of her injuries. She had been killed by a clown. But her family came forward with information that helped police find a suspect. According to her family, Marlene claimed if she ever died, her husband Michael had something to do with it.

Michael was having an affair with a woman named Sheila Keene who worked with him at his used car lot. Wow. Were they in the process of getting a divorce? No, no. But Marlene knew about the affair. Marlene felt like Michael wanted to be with Sheila and would do anything to get her out of the way. Police cleared Michael of the actual shooting, but immediately fell suspect upon Sheila, especially considering that after Marlene was murdered, Sheila and Michael were married.

Like she dies and they get married. - That's so nuts. - But there was no evidence to actually tie them to the crime until 2017 when advanced DNA technology connected Sheila to a piece of hair found in the getaway car.

And so, although she was arrested in 2017, her trial was pushed back until it was like May of 2022 and now was just again delayed. So I guess they tuned. No, we don't even know if she gets charged or not because it's been delayed this far, even though this happened back in 1990. Is there any more information on he just walked up with a clown? There's no information because the trial hasn't started. So the police have not released any evidence. So I guess we will do an update on that

once we figure out what's going on. So I guess we can draw two conclusions about the 2016 clown craze. The first is, clowns are still freaking scary to this day. The makeup, the balloons, I don't know how something that was supposed to bring joy can now bring so much fear.

And I don't really see them getting any less scary anytime soon. And if you're a professional clown, we are sorry. Please send us pictures. We will share them with everyone. But you have to admit, it is a little freaky. It is a little crazy. The second is, even though people take joy in scaring others, based on the outcome in 2016, it's a very low chance that the next clown you see is trying to kill you.

But again, there's always a chance. So steer clear. And that is our coverage on the 2016 clown craze. Yeah, that was interesting. It was kind of like our parrot case where the parrot solves the murder. And then we figured out that wasn't the first time that had happened. That was super interesting. Also, it's sad that two people died. Right. I'm really curious to see...

How the trial and everything and the outcome plays out from that one, because I'm sure that's going to be a very probably in-depth case. It seems like. I mean, I would think or because it keeps getting delayed, there's a chance that there's not enough evidence. Like they're struggling to find evidence. Which would suck because it sounds like her husband hired a clown or somebody. Or it was. Or it was him. No, I think they think that it was Sheila dressed as a clown.

That they think it was the mistress. That makes sense. Dressed as a clown, walked on the doorstep and shot Marlene.

That would be insane. That's what they're charging her with. They're charging her with the murder. That would be so messed up. So I'm curious to see how that plays out. And then Christian Torres, what's his name? 16-year-old. Yeah. Do you know the outcome of that? Yeah, he was charged with first-degree murder. And here's the thing. If someone's attacking you, that's one thing. But Christian and his friends weren't going through the neighborhood attacking anybody. Yeah.

And they weren't in the process of scaring anyone when they were stabbed. There was a fight that broke out in the neighborhood. Did you ever see one? No, I did not. I never saw one. Did you? I'm surprised because we were in a college town. Maybe it's a big hoax. Maybe. I actually read an article. It's like, this is a hoax. But where did all the videos come from? No, it was for sure real because there were so many on like Facebook, Twitter. Everywhere. They were all over the place. Yeah, they were everywhere.

But, you know, when I saw that TikTok, I was like, there's absolutely no way I'm not going down this rabbit hole. And then because I found it so fascinating, I figured our listeners would too. Because I was like, did anyone actually even die? Like we hear about this, but what happened? If anyone has any more information on maybe deaths that we missed or something, let us know. Or stories. Because that's the other thing. I searched everywhere.

and wide. And also I DM'd a couple people to try to say, hey, can you talk to me? Like we were attacked by a clown. Was anyone actually killed? What happened? And I could not find victims anywhere. So yeah, if you have a story from that, please let us know and comment below. I think it's crazy times we're living through. Like it's pretty weird that clowns took over the world for a minute.

Okay, you guys. So a reminder about our merch drop that is out now. Go check it out. We will have links everywhere so you can find it. And I guess we'll see you guys next week with another episode and a Patreon bonus episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.