Key Takeaways
- The urban legend 'the call is coming from inside the house' features a babysitter and a menacing caller.
- Its scare factor was amplified by landline limitations, now altered by cell phone technology.
- The legend may be inspired by the unsolved 1950 murder of 13-year-old babysitter Janet Chrisman.
- Janet Chrisman's case involved a severed phone line and a suspect never officially linked to the crime.
Deep Dive
- The episode introduces 'the call is coming from inside the house' urban legend, also known as 'The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs.'
- The legend's premise involves a babysitter receiving increasingly sinister phone calls about the children she is watching.
- The calls are eventually traced, revealing the perpetrator is inside the house with the babysitter.
- The legend's scariness was amplified by the impossibility of such a call originating from inside on traditional landlines.
- The advent of cell phones has since altered the dynamic and believability of this type of threat.
- The hosts compare this legend to others like 'The Hook,' 'The Vanishing Hitchhiker,' and the 'Drip Drop Maniac' story.
- The hosts discussed their personal tendencies to be easily startled and past experiences with being scared.
- One host recounted a college prank where roommates, inspired by 'Misery,' scared a roommate named Eddie by hiding.
- Another host shared a childhood memory of their father jumping from a closet, causing a strong physical reaction.
- The discussion shifts to a true story from March 1950, potentially inspiring the legend, involving 13-year-old babysitter Janet Chrisman.
- Janet was hired to babysit a three-year-old in Columbia, Missouri, for the Romack family.
- She was shown a loaded shotgun and instructed not to open the door without turning on the porch light by Mr. Romack.
- Janet called the police reporting a threat, but the line was cut, and she was later found murdered.
- Janet Chrisman's parents returned home to find her sexually assaulted and strangled.
- Suspicion fell on Robert Mueller, a family friend who knew Janet, had made inappropriate advances, and disturbing statements.
- The phone was ripped from the wall during the attack, explaining the severed call, but Mueller was never officially linked to the murder.
- The case remains unsolved; Mueller died in 2006 without the crime being resolved.
- Janet's murder is believed to have inspired films like 'When a Stranger Calls' (1979) and 'Black Christmas.'