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Jeepers Creepers - The True Story That Inspired The Movie · History Dark

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Say that we know that song from the movie Jeepers
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Creepers and honest to goodness it's probably one of the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: most terrifying songs you can ever hear and what makes
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: it even more terrifying is that Jeepers Creepers at least
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie is actually based on a
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: real crime that happened in Michigan today we're gonna be
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: tracking down the crime scenes that inspired the horror film.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Jeepers Creepers.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you. If you've seen the movie Jeepers Creepers, everything
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you're about to see and hear is going to sound
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and look strangely familiar, like eerily familiar. Now, I should
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: point out that at no time did the creator of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the movie ever state that he pulled inspiration from this crime.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: But as we talk about it, you're going to go,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: wait a second. He might as well have lifted the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: events straight from real life and put them on screen.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We think the best way to tell this story is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: actually from inside the car, driving down the road to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: where the crime happened in real life. Now, in order
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to do this, we have a couple cameras. We have
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: this one right here, and then.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: We have this camera.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: You can see Jessica sitting right next to me. Now,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: this is important because in the movie Jeepers Creepers, brother
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and sister Trish and Derry are driving down a road
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: very similar to the one that we're driving down right now.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It's like farm country. And they encounter this truck that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: practically runs them off the road. And the license plate,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: it becomes like the joke of the movie, says, be
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: eating you or beating you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And it kind of makes them a little unnerved.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Even more so, a little further down the road, they
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: come to this abandoned building. And they see the truck.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And they see this figure trying to dispose... of something
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: like a sheet covered in blood behind the building and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it freaks them out that's the start of the movie
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Jeepers Creepers the movie in.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Real life however.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It wasn't brother and sister it was a married couple
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Ray and Marie Thornton they were driving down a road
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: known as Snow Prairie Road they're actually heading south and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: just like in the movie.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: A truck comes up behind them.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: It's like this brown, dirty, decrepit-looking van, and it almost
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: runs them off the road. We were driving south on
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Snow Prairie Road, and all of a sudden, a van
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: just on us and passed.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Geezy, geez.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Must be in a hurry.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And they see the license plate, and the wife, Marie,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: she takes notice of the license plate, and it says
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: GZ and something else, and she goes, geez. Geez, that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: car was moving fast or something like that. They're a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: little unnerved, but the car speeds off. And eventually, they
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: come across the van again. This time, they come across
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: this creepy, creepy looking building.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: That one right there.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And in the back, they see somebody with a white
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: sheet that looks to be drenched in blood. And as
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they slow down and pass the school, they're still looking back.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: They notice that the van is parked right there.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: There's the van that passed us.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: It's right there.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Yes, I'm sure it was.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: There's the van that passed us.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: They make it about two miles down the road when
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they notice that the van is back. Now it's right
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: on their tail, riding their bumper, and they can see
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: it clear as day in the rearview mirror, but they
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: don't get a good look at who's driving. Instead, they
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: note that he's wearing like a white cap, like a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: white hat. At this point, they realize that whatever's happening
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: is really no good, so they try to write down
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the license plate to turn it into the authorities. And
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: then they turn down a road just like this. It's
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: like a dirt road. Now it's important to note that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: while this is all going on, they never left their car.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: But they make it down this road and they turn
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: around because they want to go and get a better
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: look at the license plate. Even more so, go see
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: what this unknown figure was trying to stuff down a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: hole behind the old abandoned building. So they decided to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: turn around and drive up there to get a closer look.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And when they do this, The story gets even darker.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: He was behind his van with the passenger front door open.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: And I saw that the passenger door was covered with blood.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: There's blood all over that door.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: What door?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The passenger door. That guy has done something.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Now, I don't know about you, but if I would
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: have come across something like this, and Jessica agrees with me,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: we probably would have hightailed it out of here.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Went straight to the police. Not them.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Even after they notice that the passenger side door is
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: open and on the interior, like inside the car and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: on the door, they can see blood.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: What do they do?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: They head back to the abandoned building, back to the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: schoolhouse to see what this person, what this guy was
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: trying to get rid of. And that brings us back
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to the schoolhouse. I'm honestly surprised that this building is
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: still standing. The movie and the real life crime are
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: so eerily similar, so hauntingly similar, it makes your head spin.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, up until this point, I purposely have not
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: said the name of the killer and the victim because
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted you guys to go, wait a second, this
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: reminds me so much of the movie. Is he talking
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: about the movie or is he talking about the real crime? Now,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I know in the movie, a big part of it
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: ends at a school when Derry is taken through the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: window by the creeper, by the creature. That didn't happen
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in real life. In fact, none of the crime actually
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: took place inside the school behind these walls. It was
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: all behind the building. We're going to show that in
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: just a moment. It's just crazy to think that it's so,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: so close. What the Thorntons didn't realize is that they
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: were witnessing the aftermath of a murder that happened earlier
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that day, where a man by the name of Dennis
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: DePue murdered his ex-wife Marilyn and was trying to dispose
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: or dump of evidence, like a sheet covered in blood,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: behind this abandoned school. Something else we want to point out,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: everything that we're talking about, all that we know about
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: this case is because of unsolved mystery. So these events
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: happened April 15th, 1990, and then it aired on Unsolved
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Mysteries and that's how the killer was caught. I don't
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: know if you know this, but for some reason Unsolved
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Mysteries really likes to film their dramatizations where the actual
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: crimes have happened. We know this because this is not
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the first video we've ever done based on an Unsolved
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Mysteries case.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: There was one in Florida.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Now the Thorntons did not know that the van that
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: they saw parked over here belonged to Dennis Depew. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: that's probably more than likely where Marilyn was killed. But
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: this is not where the sheet was. So right where
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Jessica is, that's where, there used to be like this
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: old oil tank there. And then right where you see
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: all the, like that walkway in the grass, that's where
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the van was parked. But all the way on the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: other side of the building, towards the back, is where
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: we are headed. This is pretty wild. A couple of
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: years ago, if you remember correctly, Baby Ghoul, we did
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the filming locations to the movie Jeepers Creepers.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: We've done other.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Inspiration stories for horror movies like Scream and The Hills
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Have Eyes. Never in a million years did I ever
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: think that we'd be doing the inspiration for Jeepers Creepers. Well,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the opening scenes. So right back here, back whenever they
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: made the episode for Unsolved Mysteries, there was a fence here.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And then towards the very back is where Dennis DePue
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was seen trying to dispose of the bloody sheet. If
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you look off in the distance, you can see that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: white farmhouse. It runs right along Snow Prairie Road. Right
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: now we're looking north. So, the Thorntons were driving south,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: which would have been from left to right. And then
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: passing this field, looking over this way towards where I'm standing,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they would have saw somebody trying to get rid of
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: something white, covered in red. If I back up, you
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: can see the schoolhouse.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Wild, right? And you know what?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, this happened, what, 1990? And it really is
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: just kind of like out in the middle of nowhere.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It's peaceful. So right back here.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys can hear it, but
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the wind coming across the grass.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It's actually quite nice. So you can kind of see.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Like there's that concrete pylon or whatever you want to
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: call it. It looks like at one point there was
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a fence. You can see some of the iron rivets.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So somewhere back in here. is where he was trying
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to stuff the sheep.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: That wind is crazy. You know, it was always strange
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: to me that it seemed he had some foreknowledge of
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: an animal hole here. But I think maybe he was
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: just driving around frantically trying to dispose of evidence and
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: came across the abandoned school and thought, this could be
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: where I do it.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Like you saw some wooded area behind something abandoned, like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you were saying?
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: We are in the middle of nowhere.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just nothing around. I'm going to pan the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: camera around.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: For a little bit. I mean, we're at an intersection.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: There are cars. But nobody's stopping. It's just kind of like.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: They're there and then they're gone.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Especially back when it would have happened, I imagine that
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: there was probably less traffic. Just neighbors, farms. No longer
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: much of a community because school's closed, so no more children.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: Or at least, they've grown up.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, I highly recommend that you watch the Unsolved
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Mysteries episode.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: It is on YouTube.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and put the link in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the description of this video. It talks a little bit
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: more about the crime. Basically, Dennis LaPue, he got away.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: He assumed a different identity, moved to Texas, was in
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: a different relationship, left behind his kids and everybody. And
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: like I said, it aired on Unsolved Mysteries, good old
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Robert Stack. And he saw it and he decided to leave.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And by then, his then girlfriend's family called the police,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: like basically turned him in. And he just kind of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: like hit the road and he died in a shootout. Well,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I rephrase that. He did not die in a shootout.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: He shot himself. But I do believe the police were
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: shooting at him. I think he died in Mississippi or
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: something like that. He's buried here, not too far from
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: where we are right now. And Marilyn, she's a little
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: further away. We're going to visit both of their graves
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: in just a moment. It's just something haunting about being here.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It should be noted that there is no trespassing inside
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: this building. There are signs and a lot of the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: windows have been boarded up. There's some graffiti like this
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: one here that says, enter hell. We're not going in.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And I remember reading that the owner of this place
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: obviously does not like people coming in, getting inside the building.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It is for sale. So if you want to buy
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this place, And you can, and you can turn it
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: into a home if you want. If you want to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: live where in the backyard a very famous, unintentionally famous
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: crime happened. It definitely has been people breaking into this place.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: We didn't do this. We're not going in like I said.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The crime didn't happen here. We can put the camera inside.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I can imagine whoever buys this place, again, it is
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: for sale. You have a lot of work to do,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: but talk about a dark history, right?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Now, don't get me wrong.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I absolutely love doing filming location videos, but I think
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: what I love the most is doing the videos that
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: inspired some of the movies that have terrified us. Now,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I know I already said a few, but... Now that
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: we've done this one, the inspiration for Jeepers Creepers, we
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: did the inspiration for The Exorcist, Jaws, The Hills Have Eyes.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I know there's more out there. We have like over
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: a thousand videos. But it's just one of those things
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that you never think that you're ever going to get
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the chance to do. And then when you have the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: movie that just kind of terrifies you. And then you're
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: where it really happened.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: This is the whole new level.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Don't forget, we did also Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scream.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Danny Rowling, who's buried at a prison cemetery in Florida,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: who inspired Scream. And Ed Gein, who inspired the Texas
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Chainsaw Massacre.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: I'm watching spiders.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: We now find ourselves at a place known as Eagle Cemetery,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: which is basically a small cemetery in the middle of nowhere.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: But this is where you'll find the final resting place
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of Denis Depew. I guess you can even go as
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: far as saying the final resting place, the grave of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the creeper himself. Now, I wasn't really expecting this. but
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Dennis Depew is actually buried with his family.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It's like a family plot over here.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: That's his right there about the center of your screen. Depew,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Dennis age 1943 to 1991. And like I said, there's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: family here. Marilyn, she's not here, his ex-wife. She's somewhere
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: completely different, and understandably so. I know the movie Jeepers
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Creepers is a horror film. It's a work of fiction. But,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: knowing that at least part of it, the opening scenes,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: what's really memorable about the movie is based off of
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: an actual crime, an actual person who murdered his ex-wife. Technically,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: that makes this the final resting place of the Creeper himself,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the monster. The real life monster. It's just wild to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: think about. Now this is a nice surprise. We drove
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: all the way up here to visit the final resting
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: place of Marilyn, knowing full well that she was in
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: an unmarked grave, that there was no tombstone. And in
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: an effort to try to make our trip here a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: lot easier, to try to pinpoint exactly where she is,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: we talked to the main office on the phone And
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: they were kind enough to send me a map and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the exact plot of where to look. With the warning
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that this place is pretty massive and it's kind of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: like a labyrinth once you get up here. Especially with
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: an unmarked grave. So we got here just as they
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: were closing. The last person in the cemetery was leaving.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And she was kind enough to walk us up here
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to visit Marilyn. And we get up here. And it
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: turns out that Marilyn's grave, her final resting place, isn't
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: unmarked at all. It's just, it's been buried to time.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: We were led to the far back side of the cemetery.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I'm talking the furthest point you can go, like in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the very, very back. We get out of the car
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and we walk over to the tree line and we
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: start trying to move the grass and leaves with our
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: feet to find the marker that says, hey, you are
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: in the right section. And as you can tell, That
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: too was sunken in and covered with leaves and twigs
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and what have you not.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: But 262A is what we were looking for.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: All three of us were over here against this tree
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: line trying to figure out where exactly the plot that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Marilyn would have been.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And our guide, she.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Actually notices that there's this flat spot underneath all of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the dead leaves. And she moves it away. And wouldn't
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you know, right there, Marilyn Lee McClenahan. Now that is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Marilyn's maiden name. She does not have Dennis' last name.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: January 24, 1942 to April 15, 1990. This beautiful, loving mother.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: When we first walked over here, it was completely covered.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: You could not see it in any way, shape or form.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And truth be told, before we turned on the camera,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: we did clean it off quite a bit and we're
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: going to finish doing that. But what's really amazing and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: beyond beautiful, our guide said that she's going to put
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in a work order to have the tombstone actually raised
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: out of the ground so it should not be buried anymore.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Please believe me when I tell you, all three of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: us had goosebumps when we realized that this was buried,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: not only underneath the grass and dead leaves and twigs
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and trees and weeds, but this tree has fallen over.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So it's nice that it's going to be raised. It's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: going to get cleaned up. And with that being said,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on another grim adventure, this
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: time telling the story of Marilyn and Dennis, the inspiration
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: for a horror movie that we all know all too well,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a movie called Jeepers Creepers. Until next time, happy Halloween.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Wherever I go, hard luck is steady state. Good luck
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: never stays a day. Bad luck's always coming my way.