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If you grew up with the earlier years of YouTube,
then you may remember a small fad called creepypastas.
They were online horror stories spread across the internet
and, at the time, were incredibly popular on YouTube.
Nowadays, they've mostly fallen out of favor
and have faded to internet history.
That is, except for Jeff the Killer,
the story of a 13 year old murderer with a severely disfigured face.
The character has been revived into relevancy, not due to his story,
but the image accompanying the story.
For the past several years, people have been trying
to find where exactly this image came from.
The search has been long and arduous,
and I'm far from the first to have talked about it.
Let's start with the basics.
The Creepypasta Wiki states that the story originated in 2011.
We all know how it goes.
Jeff and his family moved to a new town
where he and his brother get terrorized by local bullies.
During one of these attacks, Jeff gets acid on his face
and then gets lit on fire, causing him to go insane
and giving birth to his iconic look.
He carves a smile in his mouth, kills
his family and goes on a murder spree.
The character of Jeff has gone on to become the face of the creepypasta
community.
Various spin-offs, sequels, and fan-made projects
have been made due to the story's popularity.
However, this isn't even the original story.
According to its author, a Newgrounds user named, Sessuer,
he first posted about Jeff the Killer back in 2008.
He writes; "The story of Ol' Jeffy.
He enjoys horror such as ghost stories or slasher films.
Have you ever met him in person?
This man is what other people call bizarre.
He's like a Bloody Mary game, except you must perform it in the closet.
Turn off the lights and sit down cross-legged.
Repeat the saying three times while turning your head back
and forth; "He's in here with me."
After the saying, close your eyes
and call the name Jeff.
He'll appear by putting his face right up to you
and proceed to yell and try to chant harm at you.
To make him stop is to stand there and compliment him.
Not doing so will result in a nightmarish field trip.
You do the rest from there worms."
I'm not even sure what that last sentence means.
Nevertheless, it can be safely assume that Sesseur
has the original photo, right?
Well, what did it look like?
When the internet began investigating
this mystery, plenty of early leads were considered.
But the one that really stood out involved
a supposed woman named Katy Robinson.
The story goes that back in early 2008,
Robinson posted this photo of herself on
4chan's /b/, or Random Board.
4chan users proceeded to ridicule her by heavily
editing the photo into, presumably, the iconic Jeff the killer image.
Sometime later, a post was made onto 4chan
by someone claiming to be Robinson's sister.
The user writes: "Attention 4chan.
Yesterday, I found my sister in her room, crying her eyes out.
I asked her why she was feeling down, and she said it was because she is fat.
I became
furious, demanding she tell me who was making fun of her.
She said that she posted her picture on a website called '4chan (dot) org'.
She continued to say that the website made fun of her
and posted 'shops' of her picture.
I am appalled.
Take a good look at this picture because this beautiful woman,
my sister, committed suicide later
last night."
For a while, this was commonly believed
to be the origin of the Jeff The Killer image.
However, there was never any proof of her death or her existence.
When Googling Katy Robinson, most search results
were just about the Jeff the killer image mystery.
Despite this, the urban legend persisted.
To muddy the timeline further, Sesseur
was interviewed by fellow YouTuber ScareTheater in late 2015.
During this
interview, ScareTheater asked, "The picture you used in your original Jeff
the killer video has become the iconic picture for Jeff.
Where did you get the picture?" Sessuer responded, "The picture
was made using a white latex mask and some big plastic eyes
with a rubber substance that simulated blinking.
There was also a black ring around the eyes
that were on covering the exposed red eyelid.
After it was made, two or three pictures
were taken and posted, and the rest is history."
ScareTheater asks, "There
has been some controversy over the picture.
Apparently, the picture is a photoshopped version of a girl named Katy
Robinson, who was bullied and eventually killed herself.
Do you know what this?
If so, do you have anything to say about this?"
Sessuer responds,
"I know all too well about this little inconvenience of a rumor,
and I can assure everyone when I say that the rumor is completely bogus.
I have no idea who came up with the rumor.
It's most likely a troll seeing as the person who got the information
on the Katy Robinson rumor was a 4chan regular.
And they're not exactly someone to take serious at all."
While it's never directly stated, it is implied
that Sesseur took the photo himself using a white latex
mask.
Furthermore, in
late 2019, YouTuber Gage uploaded an interview
with Heather White, the true Identity of Katy Robinson.
White said her photo was stolen from her MySpace account
and uploaded to 4chan as a sick prank.
The Katy Robinson suicide story was entirely fabricated.
Moreover, her
photo can be traced back to a parody website called True Christian
back in 2004, where a "pastor"
says some really nasty stuff.
All in all, this lead has been thoroughly disproven,
and it's good to hear that she's alive and well.
So mystery solved.
Sesseur made the Jeff The Killer image himself and posted it back in 2008.
In an interview with UK horror scene,
he says, "The pictures taken were long gone
and the mask was put in the closet after use, so it's definitely long gone.
If I had that mask with me, there's no telling
how valuable it would be."
This is where things start to get weird.
Sometime later, a strange YouTube video
translated as "NNN Special Broadcast" was found.
This video was uploaded in August of 2007, and,
at around the four minute mark, the Jeff The Killer image briefly appears.
At the time, this was the earliest known instance of the image
appearing online, pre-dating Sessuer's story.
Now, the "NNN Special Broadcast"
is actually an urban legend in Japan.
The story goes that late one night, a Japanese
citizen turned on the TV only to find nothing but static.
Suddenly colored bars appeared on screen.
Followed by an image of some kind of factory
and a scrolling list of names.
This went on for several minutes
before ending with text, saying something along the lines of,
"this is towards the future" or "these are tomorrow's victims."
The broadcast would suddenly end
and static resumed.
Our video accurately follows the myth
and even throws in some spooky imagery and music for show.
But it's merely a fan-made recreation, obviously inspired by the legend.
In the end, there's even texting so and that all the names were fictional.
Regardless of the video's backstory,
it reignited the search for the original Jeff The Killer image.
Furthermore, this was the first instance of the image
potentially being of Japanese origin.
Two years prior, in November of 2005,
the image can be seen again on a strange website
called pya.cc,
posted by a user named Mr.
Omega Bolt.
This was found by a 4chan anon in 2018.
What's peculiar about this specific image
is that by looking at its EXIF data, some interesting details can be found.
First, this image was made using Photoshop 6.0,
which was released all the way back in 2000.
So perhaps, Jeff The Killer is a few years older?
Or whoever created the image simply used an older version
of Photoshop.
Second, it seems as if Jeff
The Killer went by a different name at one point; "prettyface".
Some wonder if this
name derives from the famous Japanese urban legend, the "Slit-mouth
woman"; the story of a woman whose mouth is slashed from ear to ear.
She'll ask her victims if she's pretty and, depending on their response,
she'll either kill them or let them free.
So maybe Jeff has something to do with this legend,
but this is pure speculation.
Back to the website, searchers began to comb
through it in search of any other leads and found this.
This is a second, earlier version of the image
posted by a user named Mr.
Mulholland in September of 2005.
It goes by the name "white powder (2)."
Compared to the first version,
the eyes are completely different, the mouth isn't as distorted,
and there are slightly fewer shadows on the face.
Funny enough,
a 5chan thread for the occult and paranormal has a broken link
to an image called "prettyface." And by using the Wayback Machine,
this link did in fact lead to this version of Jeff the Killer.
Now, there are rumors floating around the internet of a third
Jeff The Killer image that might predate the first two.
But what that image looks like is up to debate.
According to a 4chan anon, it is set to depict Jeff, "sitting
next to a dirty bathtub holding something that looked like a chunk of flesh.
He also had grotesquely long fingers."
When asked, Sessuer added that the,
"third picture has been long gone out of my possession.
I think the third picture was only posted once on some website back in 2005-ish?
2006?
Not too sure.
I would love to see that pic surface someday.
I also recall there
being black sharp fingernails on the hands to.
The injury did take place on both hands,
but it was only superficial damage, burned skin, red skin.
So the hands are a little patchy looking due to the acid
splashes on parts of the hands."
To this day, no such image was ever found
and is largely considered a hoax by the search team.
Then there's this.
Known as Green-Eyed Jeff, within the community, some have wondered
if it predates the 'white powder (2)' version from the pya.cc website.
After some debate, it's generally considered to be a hoax
due to the blurriness of some of the details,
especially around Green-Eyed Jeff's jawline.
It looks like whoever made this image deliberately blacked out parts of his
lower face and clothing.
If the 'white powder
(2)' image was made after Green-Eyed Jeff, then whoever made it
must have been pretty good at sharpening the image and adding detail,
I guess.
As interest in the mystery garnered attention,
a subreddit and a Discord server dedicated to the search were formed.
Through their efforts, the team uncovered some peculiar findings.
First, the Jeff, the killer image can be spotted again
on various Japanese websites in August of 2005.
This is currently the earliest known date.
Furthermore, several online testimonies were gathered from people
claiming to know about or have even seen the original image.
Admittedly, Google Translate isn't the best,
but let's try to take a look at some of them.
On a Japanese livedoor blog, a user writes,
"I remember seeing the image before processing on 2chan
from 2004 to 2005, but it was buried in the net."
On a thread about
Internet urban legends, Jeff the killer was, of course, brought up.
A user writes, "the original image of the last one
is a a photo of an Asian woman with rough hair,
loose teeth and fat threads that I had seen long ago
when the internet began to spread to the general public.
Even if I search for the original image, I couldn't find it at all.
I wonder if anyone knows it."
But most striking of all are the comments made by Mr Mulholland,
the same user who posted the 'white powder (2)' image on pya.cc.
The search team managed to track him down on Twitter
to inquire about the image and according to him,
"to put it simply, in May 2005,
a cropped image of a video of a middle aged Asian woman appeared in Japan.
At that point, her face was white.
I edited a little in Photoshop to post to pya.
I remember the woman in the video coming up to the camera.
I remember watching the video only once,
but unfortunately, I don't have it now.
It also doesn't seem to exist on the internet.
By the way, this image was posted on various bulletin boards as a surprise
image.
This image was going around as a Japanese meme
back then.
So to recap,
there is a video of an older Asian woman with a distinctive
white face who, at some point, gets close to the camera.
A screenshot from that video was taken and edited
into an early version of Jeff the Killer.
This image was spread across the early Japanese internet
as a surprise image before making its way to our internet.
And that's pretty much where the search currently is.
Unfortunately, I don't have any answers to showcase here.
Sorry.
The team is mainly trying to find where this mysterious video,
or at least the still of the Asian woman, is.
If anyone watching recalls such a video or has any helpful information,
let the team know or post the comments, I'm sure they would appreciate it.
The Jeff The Killer search, much like cameraheads, has been one of my favorites
because of just how odd it is and continues to be.
And it really challenges that notion we've all heard,
that once something is online, it's on there forever.
Clearly not if you've been a viewer of this channel for a while,
and I grew up with creepypastas, so that's neat.
Anyways, this is clearly an ongoing mystery.
So any updates will probably be posted
in the comments or on my Twitter @blameitonjorge.
For now, it seems,
Jeff, the killer's origins will remain a mystery.