“It could be anyone…”: Midnight Scrawler’s death threats

All photos: Ruth Gibson

Terror and suspicion have pervaded a Langwith College block this fortnight as frightened students received public death threats from an unknown flatmate. The ‘Midnight Scrawler’ continues to write threatening messages in public areas on one of the floors of the block.

“Dead Dead Dead,” “I’m coming” and “See you soon” were among the messages scrawled over the walls of the flat. They accompanied drawings depicting individuals from the floor being hanged. One such drawing bore the message that two flatmates “will burn in hell.” Drawings and messages have appeared sporadically on corridor walls, toilet and shower doors, mirrors and lights.

Police visited the scene on Friday afternoon and took statements from each resident of the flat before issuing their terms. Officers left a contact number and demanded a confession by 12.00pm Saturday otherwise a full investigation would be instigated.

The police added that the tormentor would only receive a verbal warning if they confessed, although the University would be informed so that they could take their own disciplinary action. At the time of going to print, the Midnight Scrawler’s identity has still not been discovered.

After being called to the scene, police officers discovered a marker pen hidden on a head-height ledge in the corridor. It is understood that the pen has been taken away to be forensically tested.

The flat currently houses 19 residents, any of whom could be responsible for the ongoing psychological torment. Consequently, many are staying with friends on and off campus until the terroriser is caught. Some have already requested to move blocks.

On visiting the flat, Vision witnessed an exchange between two flatmates, concerning that night’s sleeping arrangements:

A: “Are you staying here tonight?”
B: “No I’m staying over at a friend’s, but if you are [staying here] I don’t mind camping in your room so you’re not alone.”

One of the residents, who wished to remain anonymous for their own safety, spoke to Vision about the experience. They explained that “no one feels safe. Whoever is doing it is obviously enjoying the reaction and they don’t seem to care about getting caught.”

Vision was told that the messages had appeared even more frequently since the arrival of the police on Friday. One resident of the flat has already dropped out of University, in part because of the personal death threats and abuse they received.

The student continued: “it’s the time frames that are scary – you always feel so close to catching them doing it and part of you wants to, but then you also never want to have to confront them. I just want the police to catch them.” They described a recent incident where the offender wrote messages on a wall outside the kitchen “within five minutes” of several students walking in and out of the room.

he abuse began on a smaller scale last term but has escalated uncontrollably in the last couple of weeks, Vision was informed. It was originally limited to the kitchen area, where messages which highlighted personal information of residents were written.

In addition, cupboards were tampered with and food was taken from them, the wrappers being left to “deliberately taunt” residents. On another occasion, around £60 was stolen from a wallet.

Following these incidents, a motion detection camera was fitted inside the kitchen, but, after proving ineffective, it was soon removed. University security services recently fitted the kitchen with a keycard lock in order to restrict access from other floors in the block. Despite this, the death threats have continued. The Midnight Scrawler has taken to writing on the walls of the corridor and inside other public facilities such as the toilet and shower.

While this could suggest that the perpetrator was somebody from a different floor, the highly personal nature of the attacks has led the flatmates to continue to be suspicious of one another. One said: “it’s awful – it must be someone that knows us all quite well, and they must have access to the flat. It’s got to be someone in the flat.”

At one point, “due to certain coincidences,” a group of them began to suspect another flatmate, but without evidence they “felt guilty” and speculation stopped. They added that “it’s difficult to talk to anyone in the flat about it or [about] how we could try and catch them, because you don’t know who to trust. It could be anyone.”

In one attempt to expose the perpetrator, some residents fitted a rape alarm to the inside of one of the cupboards. Failing to catch the offender, the alarm was instead set off by Langwith provost Dr John Issitt during his initial investigation of the incidents. One student said that “it was quite funny actually – we all rushed into the kitchen to find John the Provost standing next to the cupboard.”

IIssitt said in a statement that “we are currently doing our best to support all residents of the block. Over the last few days there has been some really disturbing and personal graffiti. Welfare, Security and Police are fully aware of the situation which we are trying to resolve ASAP.”

The terrifying reality is forcing many members of the flat to return home as soon as possible this week: “I was going to go home on Saturday but I’m going home Wednesday instead; everyone’s going home quite early in the week and I didn’t want to spend Thursday and Friday by myself,” said one student.
North Yorkshire Police told Vision that they were called on Friday, but that “nobody from the University wished to make a formal complaint.”

14 thoughts on ““It could be anyone…”: Midnight Scrawler’s death threats

  1. Firstly, the “Midnight Scrawler”? Really? Funny, because all of the things that were written happened during the daytime – specifically, in the morning.

    “…depicting individuals from the floor being hanged.” – I will willingly pay you £50 if you can find somebody living in LA/C that is clearly the person being depicted by the doodle. Only, you won’t, because it’s not depicting any specific individual at all.

    Also, it’s not been happening “sporadically”. It all happened at once.

    “One resident of the flat has already dropped out of University, in part because of the personal death threats and abuse they received.” – even this is dubious. Two people have moved out of the flat since the start of the academic year; one at Christmas, for reasons unrelated to all of this, and the other recently but not even the people living there know why. I’m curious to know how you’re so sure that it’s been because of this.

    “…the death threats have continued.” – the death threats only happened the one time. There was nothing to continue. How many times are you under the impression that this has happened?

    I mean really, Vision. I would have thought that you’d want to actually get the facts right before you went and published what seems like an awful lot of speculation or just plain bullshit.

  2. Quoting from the above comment:

    ‘…depicting individuals from the floor being hanged.” – I will willingly pay you £50 if you can find somebody living in LA/C that is clearly the person being depicted by the doodle. Only, you won’t, because it’s not depicting any specific individual at all.’

    ——————————

    If you would be so kind as to look at the top image. That small pixelated area on the top image fairly obviously conceals a name. You know, the bit before “will burn in hell” with an arrow pointing to the doodle of someone being hanged.

    I don’t know about you, but I would say that the doodle is *probably* supposed to picture the person whose name is pixelated.

  3. I’m sorry but none of you actually know what you are talking about. Some of us were involved in this and know the facts so don’t talk rubbish about things you know nothing about.

  4. Does anybody know how close they are to catching them? My sympathy is with the whole floor; I find it chilling! Especially as I am going to York next year and was considering Langwith!

  5. wow. this is really shocking, i hope everyone in that block is ok, it must be horrible to live in an atmosphere where you wouldn’t want to get up to use communal facilities in the night for fear of what you’ll discover. .

    although with the vast quantities of students coming in every year, there are bound to be a percentage with severe behavioural or mental issues resulting in stuff like this. we’re very lucky this isn’t more common. i hope they catch them and the house are ok, will vision be able to do a follow up story or will they have to conceal the identity/finer details because of YUSU’s welfare policy?

  6. @Erm Yeah, obviously that’s what’s happened!

    @Disappointing The quotes are attributed to people within the flat, presumably your flatmates, if you do indeed live there. So maybe you take it up with them instead of poorly criticising the author who obviously wrote a really powerful piece based directly on the quotes he received?
    And “midnight crawler” is just fluff to make it more exciting! Chill out, it’s a well interesting piece that people should know about.

    @Barry I really hope we get a follow up piece too! Though I expect if someone is arrested or admits to it or whatever they won’t be allowed to publish their name. Which is a shame, but such is uni life…

  7. @ chris, i just want to know how they get found to be honest! the rape alarm set up was genius & the fact some one is doing this is disturbing/weird. i don’t mind not knowing the name (as a second year who has never set foot in langwith accommodation, i wouldn’t know of them anyway and respect how dangerous it could be to print the name) i just want to find out how they trap them/what happens to them/if anything else gets written (especially after this article)/how the rest of the flat get on afterwards!

    i do think it’s a group of people though, either that or a very disturbed individual. there might be a bit of “mob mentality” going on (worsened by drink) where it’s jokes to write this stuff just to freak people out. explains why they’re not being caught if they can share info (the rape alarm trap) or look out for each other during scrawl sessions. and with how cliquey halls can get, it’s not that out of the question?!

  8. This may be an excessive overanalysis, but I think Barry could be right that it’s a group of people. Compare the handwriting of the 3 photos. The Es in “DEAD DEAD DEAD” and “WILL BURN IN HELL” are rounder/more curvy than the Es in “SEE YOU SOON”…it should be pretty easy to identify the first 2 by looking at a sample of handwriting…assuming the perpetrators have actually done any handwritten work, that is.

  9. I’m from the block. We think it’s one person who has “disguised” their writing. It’s too awkward for people to collude and do this.

  10. I lived in Derwent halls last year and although we were always playing pranks on each other and leaving notes/pictures on doors etc. we wouldn’t have dreamt of writing anything like this. The content of the scrawlings crosses a line and is indicative of someone quite sinister. The majority of first year students at York are bright young people, who would know that messages/pictures like these are not funny or acceptable as jokes; thus, even if the person/persons responsible for this are doing it as a joke then they are quite disturbed.

  11. If you look at the letter ‘E’ in the lamp drawing its clearly someone different writing than in the other two examples…Maybe ‘midnight scrawlers’ is more appropriate?!

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