This Terrifying Urban Legend Came to Life When Children Began to Vanish One by One

Every town has its boogeyman—the monster under your bed that nips at your toes if they aren’t safely tucked beneath the blanket before you fall asleep. As we get older, the threat of ghouls, goblins, and other malevolent creatures start to fade. But when children began disappearing from one New York borough, an urban legend began to spill into reality.

The Legend of “Cropsey”

In the 1960s and ’70s, the children of Staten Island were haunted by tales of a mysterious entity named Cropsey…

Snatching Children

Cropsey was an escaped mental patient from the now-defunct Willowbrook State School on Staten Island. Legend has it, Cropsey would scour the region for innocent children, and drag them into the crumbling ruins of Seaview Hospital…