Cropsey (2009)

Joshua Zeman: Self

Quotes 

• Joshua Zeman : Growing up on Staten Island, Barb and I had often heard the legend of Cropsey. For the kids in our neighborhood, Cropsey was an escaped mental patient who lived in the tunnels beneath the old Willowbrook mental institution, who would come out late at night, snatch children off the streets. Although we didn't know each other as children, Barb and I had both shared versions of the Cropsey legend, as it filtered through our separate neighborhoods, and seeped into our collective fears. Sometimes Cropsey had a hook for a hand, other times he wielded a bloody axe, but it didn't matter, Cropsey *was* out there lurking in the shadows, waiting to get us.

• Joshua Zeman : Across the middle of the Island lies a section of ancient forest known as the Greenbelt. Bordering this forest is a boy scout scamp, and an old tuberculosis ward. As kids we used to roam around these grounds trying to scare each other with stories about Cropsey.

• Joshua Zeman : Later as teenagers, we assumed Cropsey was just an urban legend, a cautionary tale used to keep us out of those buildings, and to stop us from doing all those things teenagers like to do. But all that changed the summer little Jennifer disappeared. That was the summer all the kids from Staten Island discovered that the urban legend was real.

• Joshua Zeman : And right here, this is Sea View, the TB wards. Our camp counselors would lead us down this path and they'd come out of the buildings and scare us. You know, this is where we thought that Cropsey lived, in the basements, down in here, and in these other buildings. And you know we used to walk through here and we'd find beds and papers of people who had died here, so it kind of made sense to us.

• Geraldo Rivera - Reporter : [archive footage]  I first heard of this big place with a pretty sounding name because of a call I received from a member of the Willowbrook staff, a Dr. Michael Wilkins. The doctor invited me to see the conditions he was talking about, so unannounced and unexpected by the school administration, we toured Building #6. The doctor had warned me it would be bad, it was horrible. There was one attendant for perhaps 50 severely and profoundly retarded children, lying on the floor naked and smeared with their own feces, they were making a pitiful sound, a kind of mournful wail that's impossible for me to forget. This is what it looked like, this is what it sounded like, but how can I tell you about the way it smelled? It smelled of filth, it smelled of disease and it smelled of death.

  Joshua Zeman : Despite Geraldo's report, it still took more than 10 years before authorities began shutting down Willowbrook. Many patients were transferred to group homes, but others were left to fend for themselves. There are those who believe that some patients out of confusion and habit returned to the 365 acres of Willowbrook, to roam the abandoned buildings, and live in the tunnel system that lay underneath. Out of this, our own version of the Cropsey legend was born.

• Barbara Brancaccio : At what point did you start to think 'hey, maybe Cropsey's real'?

  Joshua Zeman : When kids started disappearing from Staten Island.

• Joshua Zeman : As children we were deluded by our parents' belief that Staten Island was such a safe place to grow up, but in reality every community has a seedy underside. Every suburbia has its secrets. We only discovered our own because of what happened with Jennifer... and then all the other children. After Donna Cutugno and her team found the body of Jennifer Schweiger, the police started connecting the dots. They looked at other missing children from Staten Island, eventually they focused on on 4 different cases spanning 15 years. Tiahese Jackson, a 10 year old girl with learning disabilities who disappeared 4 years before Jennifer. Hank Gafforio, 21, but with the IQ of a 15 year old, disappeared 3 years before Jennifer. 7 year old Holly Ann Hughes, who went missing 6 years before Jennifer. And finally, Alice Pereira, last seen 1972, 15 years before Jennifer. To this day, none of their bodies have ever been found.

• Joshua Zeman : As kids we never thought we'd learn the real story behind Cropsey, instead Rand was sent to prison and the stories just faded away. But now 20 years later we may get the chance to uncover the truth behind an urban legend, because Andre Rand... is back.