“One night a girl was babysitting at her neighbors house.  After putting the kids asleep the girl went down stairs to clean up the dishes from dinner.  After the babysitter finished cleaning up the kitchen she went into the family room and turned on the TV.  Right before sitting down the girls remembers that she had left her cell phone in the upstairs bathroom while she was making sure the kids brushed their teeth.  The girl goes up stairs and grabs her phone.  As she is heading back down the upstairs hallway towards the stairs she notices a weird clown statue.  As she gets closer to the clown she wonders why the family would want a four-foot clown stature for their hallway.  Scared and creeped out by the clown the girl runs down the stairs back to the living room and turns the T.V. back on.  Waiting for the parents to come home the girl falls asleep in her chair but is woken up by the ring of the phone.  Looking at the caller id she sees that it’s the parents and answers.  The mother is on the phone and apologizes for being late but says that the will be home in the next fifteen minutes.  In a joking voice the babysitter responds, ‘No problem I’ll just be watching T.V. as far away from that scary clown statue as possible’.   In a confused voice the mother says, ‘What clown’.  Then the babysitter says, ’You know the one in the upstairs hallway that almost looks like an actual clown’.  Now in a concerned voice the mother replies, ’We don’t have a clown statue’. The girls heart starts beating and she begins to panic, ‘Then what the fuck is that thing up there?’.  The mother tells the girl that they will be home in five minutes and to just wait down stairs for them to return.  The mother and father come home to the babysitter terrified and bawling.  Together the three of them go up the stairs to check on the children.  After seeing that nothing had happen with the kids the babysitter takes the parents to the place where she had seen the clown but nothing was there.  The go down stairs and turn on the T.V. as everyone is still a little confused about this situation.  On the news channel an alert comes up warning people that there was a midget who had escaped from the local prison and he was breaking into houses wearing a clown outfit.”

I was told this story by my brother, Peter, who had heard it at high school from another girl in his class.  Talking to him about the story I found out that Peter had heard several versions of this horror story from his friends with each one containing a slight variation.   Peter also talked about how some of the guys in his class would use it to “scare” girls as if it were some type of flirting.  While his friends and him are still unable to make this work when it comes to talking to the girls in their class he did say it is a popular story around the school.  I am not sure if this incident with a fugitive clown every actually took place but it does make for an interesting story.  Looking at this as a piece of folklore it is easily understood that this story has taken on a life of its own and there is no true original version.