Creepy Clown arrested for massacre of 18 people? Fact Check

An online rumour claims that 18 people were massacred at a haunted house attraction by a “creepy clown” in Salem, Massechusetts.

The rumour links back to an article that claims that a 58 year old man was arrested for the murder of 18 people in the “Fright Night Horror Massacre” haunted house. The same story has popped up on a number of websites, including Now8News.com and ActionNews3.com.

That article reads in part –

Salem, MA – Creepy Clown Arrested After Haunted House Massacre: A 58-year-old man was arrested yesterday evening after fright junkies got way more than they bargained for at a haunted house attraction in Salem, Massachusetts. The ‘Fright Night Horror Massacre’ haunted house was it in its third year of production when last evenings haunted house goers stumbled across a horrific scene.
Eyewitnesses say they were halfway through the macabre haunted house when they came across a scene of a crazy looking man dressed as a clown with a chainsaw. At first, it was just another scene of the haunted house, but as they look closer they saw one of the bodies move and then scream for his life. The young boy, approximately 19 years of age, was already partially dismembered by the man dressed in a gruesome clown costume.
According to reports, once the group of freight goers realized this was not part of the haunted house, they decided to take action. Trevor Mills had no second thoughts about taking action immediately. “I pulled out my gun and drew on that sick ass creepy clown,” said Mills. “I got about a foot away from him and shot him once in the leg, and again in the shoulder. Just enough to make him stop until police arrived.”

However, the rumours are false and derive from a number of known fake news websites. The website Now8News.com is known for its circulation of horror related fake news stories during the run up to Halloween. In 2015 they penned an incredibly popular article about a man found eating a teenager in a similarly named attraction in Texas.

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The year previously – in 2014 – another similar article claimed a man walked into a haunted house in Los Angeles with a chainsaw and killed 7 people.

This article appears to be their 2016 addition to this string of Halloween horror hoaxes, which has been given a new lease of life in 2017 after being republished by another fake news website – actionnews3.com. There are no mainstream reports of such an incident taking place, which there invariably would be if such a high profile massacre ever had taken place.

All the sites that have re-published this story, including ActionNews3.com, are known fake news websites that – despite their names – are not reputable media outlets.