Today we’re talking about Ruthie Mae McCoy, the real-life inspiration for the urban legend of Candyman. We’re going to read the article that started it all and react to it as we go. But before we dive into the real-life case that inspired Candyman, let's set the stage by talking about the legend itself—how it started, where it came from, and why it freaks people out so much.

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Credits:

Compiled by Sovereign Syre

Hosted by Sovereign Syre and Josh Darling

Produced by Joshua Anderson

 

Sources:

"They Came in Through the Bathroom Mirror: A Murder in the Projects" by Steve Bogira, September 3, 1987

Barker, Clive. Books of Blood: Volume 5. HarperCollins Publishers, 1985.

Barker, Clive. The Forbidden. Razorline Press, 1985.

Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. The Persistence of Whiteness: Race and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. Routledge, 2007.

Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press, 1992.

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Verso, 1990.

Dika, Vera. Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990.

Glass, Ira, and Cecil Adams. “They Came in Through the Bathroom Mirror.” Chicago Reader, 1987.

Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Los Angeles 'Riots': Race, Seeing, and Resistance. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Kotlowitz, Alex. There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America. Doubleday, 1991.

Koven, Mikel J. Film, Folklore, and Urban Legends. Scarecrow Press, 2008.

Perry, Imani. More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States. NYU Press, 2011.

Turner, Patricia A. I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. University of California Press, 1993.

Zipes, Jack. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press, 2000.

“Schizophrenia.” American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), 2013.

Siegel, Steven. “Mental Health Services in Low-Income Urban Communities.” Journal of Urban Health, vol. 65, no. 2, 1987, pp. 305-312.

Hahn, Jeffrey. “Drug Trade and Violence in Public Housing.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 4, no. 3, 1996, pp. 187-209.

Becker, Howard. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. Free Press, 1963.

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