We all know about Jason and the Friday the 13th movie series. Some people are even aware that the murders committed by Jason in the early 1980s were set in the fictional town of Crystal Lake, New Jersey. But even fewer people know that the fictional murders in fictional New Jersey were based off an actual murder spree in Middlesex County in the 1950s.
The murders in this area started with hitchhikers on the Jersey Turnpike, which opened to the public on November 30, 1951. Few people noticed or cared when hitchhikers just passing through ended up missing, but locals began to take notice when a senior at the nearby Piscataway High was found decapitated in February of 1952. The string of murders continued throughout 1952 and 1953—always with a severed head—before mysteriously stopping abruptly.
Vigilante gangs formed in at least Piscataway, Edison, Highland Park, East Brunswick, New Brunswick, Monroe, Metuchen, Franklin, North Brunswick, and Woodbridge. Groups roamed at night looking for the killer armed with baseball bats, pistols, kitchen knives, and sometimes machetes. The perpetrator was never found.
Some theorize he was convicted of another crime and went to jail. Others think he resembled a patient who was checked into Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in late 1953 based on the account of the one person who escaped the killer and provided a description. But local legend has it that he was finally caught by the group of vigilantes who gave him a taste of his own medicine. While the truth may never be known, the final theory gained more adherents when an East Brunswick man claimed he was a member of the vigilante group that found a large man with a machete prowling around this area in November of 1953. The man made the claim shortly before dying in 2012—he swore he was the last living member of the vigilante group and said they didn’t go to police because they were afraid they would be prosecuted. Of course, others pointed out that his mental health had been failing him for years prior to his death, and that he also made claims about winning a gold medal in downhill skiing at the 1944 Olympic games.
We will likely never know the truth, but the story goes that the vigilantes took the man to these woods before administering their brand of justice.
This cache is part of the Socially Distanced Halloween series. A number is listed on the log sheet that will allow you to find the bonus mystery cache, The Mysterious Outbreak of 1720. This is a larger container and contains a log and pencil with plenty of room for swag or trackables.
The rest of the series is here: