South Dakota – Walking Sam
Over one hundred suicide attempts happened between December 2014 and mid-2015 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Though, some witnesses claim it was as high as over 200. Nine people succeeded in taking their own loves, some as young as 12, and this is not legend. This is fact.
These attempts were attributed to “Walking Sam,” a figure from folklore described as being over 7 feet tall, very slim, has no mouth, and carries the bodies of men and women off. If this sounds like “Slenderman” or the more well known Bogeyman, you aren’t wrong, but the locals and Native Americans have talked about “Walking Sam” since long before Slenderman was created in 2008. When Walking Sam is spotted, a surge of teenage suicide follows.
You missed the boat on New Jersey! THE JERSEY DEVIL is most definitely the official haunting creature of the Garden State. Long before NJ was even a state, the legend of the Jersey Devil began. It was the 13th child of Mrs Leeds, who had no desire for another baby. According to legend, she cursed the baby even before it was born. At its birth, the creature assumed otherworldly dimension and flew up the chimney of the home. Since then, the Devil regularly haunts the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, frightening all it encounters. On the eve of a National tragedy, the Devil is said to appear at many varied places in the state to warn of evils to come (most notably in December 1941, just before Pearl Harbor.)