By Dave O'Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
There's a killer rumor going around Kent State University: Apparently, television psychic Sylvia Browne recently predicted on Montel Williams' television talk show that a mass murder would take place at KSU on Halloween. More specifically, the killer would target a specific building on the Kent campus.
Horrible, surely. But untrue, and extremely unoriginal.
It's called an "urban legend," the same urban legend that struck fear in the hearts of students and caused a ruckus at KSU in 1998, when rumor had it a psychic appearing on Oprah Winfrey's television show predicted a mass murderer would target a Midwestern university with an H-shaped building and an X-shaped building.
KSU's Eastway residence halls -- Allyn, Clark, Fletcher and Manchester -- are shaped, more or less, like the letter H. Terrace Hall, before the university tore it down last year and put up a parking lot, was X-shaped.
The same rumor also surfaced at Bowling Green State University in 1998, the year the Hollywood movie "Urban Legend" featured a cast of young people being systematically slaughtered by a masked killer at a liberal arts college.
Not leaving anything to chance, KSU officials were concerned enough about the rumor this past week to start a KSU Police Department investigation and eventually to post an e-mail message to the KSU community. In the message, Pete Goldsmith, vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, said an investigation to determine "the source and validity of the rumor" revealed it to be an urban legend and mentioned the events of 1998.
Goldsmith wrote that "safety is a top priority at Kent State, and during the Halloween weekend there are increases in police staffing on and off campus due to increased campus and off-campus activities."
Margaret Garmon, a doctoral student and instructor in the School of Communication Studies, said at least 20 of her students reported hearing the Sylvia Browne rumor after she brought it up in class.
Another permutation of the rumor told to the Record-Courier had it that the murders would occur in an L-shaped building. If so, the "murderer" would have his or her choice of Stopher, Johnson, Harbourt, Heer, Dunbar or Prentice residence halls, a number of the Small Group residence halls at East Summit Street and Loop Road, all of the Allerton Apartments and any number of L-shaped academic buildings.
For the full explanation -- and debunking -- of the serial killer rumor, its history and different versions, and many other dubious urban legends, visit www.snopes.com.