The cases associated with it. One of the biggest cases linked to the series is the 1992 kidnapping, torture, and murder of Suzanne Capper in Manchester, England.
Then 16 years old, Suzanne Capper was described as a gentle, easily influenced young girl who came into with her killers while babysitting for a woman named Jean Powell. Capper began spending more and more time at Powell’s house as her mother and stepfather separated. Powell, along with her close friend Bernadette McNeilly, a woman with three children who also lived with Powell, began bullying Capper into doing their bidding.
On December 7, 1992, Suzanne Capper was lured to Jean Powell's home where she, Bernadette McNeil, Powell’s ex-husband Glyn, and McNeil’s boyfriend Anthony Dudson were all waiting for her. The reasons for the kidnapping and subsequent torture and murder were inexplicable and trivial with explanations ranging from her taking a coat from McNeily, to McNeilly and Dudson contracting lice after sleeping in a bed they believed Capper had also used.
Child's Play Supposedly Inspired The Murder of Suzanne Capper
Over the next five days after the kidnapping, Suzanne was subjected to increasingly violent acts that escalated over the time that she was held. They also subjected her to audio torture in the form of rave music played at maximum volume through a pair of headphones, particularly the song “Hi, I'm Chucky (Wanna Play?)” by 150 Volts, featuring samples from the movie Child's Play. McNeilly would regularly come to torture her and begin each session with the words, “Chucky’s coming to play."
Finally, after days of torture, the group left Capper for dead. Though she ed away on December 18th, succumbing to her injuries, Capper was able to name her attackers and tell police the details of what happened to her. When the case came into the public eye, there was a moral panic when people found out that the murder was committed by a gang led by two women, and that the crimes were influenced by the so-called “video nasties.” Peter Wall of the Greater Manchester Police reported that "throughout interviews with the accused there was no suggestion that the reason Suzanne was killed had anything to do with Child's Play," but this was overlooked by more sensationalist media headlines.
Director Tom Holland has always defended Child’s Play from these accusations, stating that viewers of horror movies could only be influenced by their content if they were unbalanced to begin with, and most genre fans agree. While many crimes have featured references or influences from books, films, and music, none of those crimes have ever been committed solely because of the piece of media itself. At the center of true crime is always the human will, which is the most frightening monster of all.
