001Clown sightings are happening across the country and it's no laughing matter. There are concerns that the trend will grow as Halloween approaches. Here's Jamie Lucas. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [screaming] >> We went from a time where clowns were used as entertainment for children and adults. them doing silly tricks and making balloon animals when suddenly used to scare children, to harm people, and to cause a nationwide scare, making children petrified at the sight of one. The most of this craze started with a man named John Wayne Gayy, an infamous serial killer who was active from 1972 until [snorts] 1978, killing around 33 young men and boys. Just after an urban legend in 1981, Boston and Brooklyn had reports of clowns trying to lure children inside of vans offering candy. Every
002report came from children. And even then, police were never able to find any evidence or suspects. And this is what started the creepy clown phenomenon. Brookline started notifying the town schools and searching nearby areas. [music] School superintendent Robert I. Sperber notified all 10 nearby elementary schools to warn the children [music] to stay away from strangers, especially those in clown costumes. And same came to those in Boston schools. One clown was reported to be spotted near the Franklin Park horseshoe playinggrounds. But this man was only seen wearing a clown costume from the waist up and was nude from the waist down. Reports started to pop up everywhere from Randolph to Kansas City and started to become a nationwide phenomenon. 20 plus calls were documented. Yet not a single one was ever seen firsthand by a police
003[music] officer. This now brings us to the 2016 clown craze. The first sighting was reported in August of 2016 and gained popularity over the span of a few months. People started to fall into hysteria. The first clown sighting was actually a marketing technique to promote their movie gags, but others took it out of context. Others started to dress up as clowns due to misinformation. Just needed a little thrill in their lives. The clown epidemic ended up spreading to other states where a clown equipped with a machete tried to lure a woman into the woods. Clowns ended up hiding in sewers, chasing children, and started making terrorist threats and they started being arrested. A 16-year-old boy ended up tragically passing away from a stable stab wound. This was located in Pennsylvania. By October, the clown craze
004ended up spreading to other countries, though thankfully the clown sightings were still appearing. They slowly died down just to disappear. News stations stopped talking about them, and this crazy phenomenon just disappeared as if nothing happened. Have you ever seen a killer clown? >> [laughter]