American Horror Story has always been a master at taking real-life events, people, and tragedies and weaving them into the show. The show gives us people like Richard Ramirez, Elizabeth Short, and Anne Frank and puts us in situations that are eerily similar to real-world tragedies. It’s like an added layer that leaves me completely hyped when I put two and two together on who and what these characters or moments are supposed to be emulating.

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So here are some of the characters and events from AHS that were seemingly inspired by their namesakes or some creepily similar real-world tragedy or monster:

Content warning: Some of these will contain disturbing descriptions of violent crimes.

1.The Nurse Murders (American Horror Story: Murder House)

In the first season of AHS, two of the many people who met their demise in the murder house were a pair of nursing students in the 1960s. They were studying in their home before receiving a knock on the door from a seemingly bleeding and broken man that we later learn to be named R. Franklin. When the women realize it’s all an act (after opening the door and inviting him in, of course), he quickly murders one of the two nurses and forces the other to wear a nurse’s uniform before he ties her up and eventually kills her.

Ryan Murphy confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that this scene was loosely inspired by the Richard Speck murders. After previously assaulting and robbing a woman earlier in the night of July 13, 1966, Richard Speck broke into a townhome in Chicago that was being used as dorms for local and international nursing students.

He horrifically tortured, sexually assaulted, tied up, and murdered eight of the residents (Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Jo Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Pasion) in one night. He was eventually caught and ordered to serve from 400 to 1,200 years in prison through eight consecutive sentences in 1972. It would later be reduced to 100 to 300 years. While in prison, Speck petitioned to be paroled more than seven times but was (thankfully) unsuccessful. He died due to what is believed to have been a heart attack on December 5, 1991.

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2.Tate’s Shooting At Westfield High (American Horror Story: Murder House)

Throughout the season, we see the family interacting with a boy named Tate Langdon. Of course, we later find out that Tate is a ghost who was murdered by SWAT in his bedroom of the murder house in 1994. He brutally murdered 15 students and permanently disabled the school librarian after showing up and opening fire on them in the middle of the school day. After years of searching, five ghosts of the victims come for Tate on Halloween. The ghost of one of the victims, Stephanie, claims that Tate asked her if she believed in God, and even though it was a lie, she still said, “Yes,” and he killed her for it. In actuality, after we as viewers saw the shooting unfold, Tate never asked her anything before killing her; he didn’t even speak to anyone at all.

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Although unconfirmed, this horrific moment is not just similar but exact to what “reportedly” happened to Cassie Bernall during the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Cassie’s final moments were incorrectly perpetuated by the media, mistaken witness accounts, the public, and a book written by her mother titled She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall.

Months later, after further investigation, it was revealed that Cassie probably wasn’t asked anything before she was murdered. A student by the name of Valeen Schnurr was the one who actually said, “Yes,” after being shot with a shotgun. She was asked, “Do you believe in God?” She replied, “Yes,” and was met with, “Why?” She responded that it was because she believed and because her parents had raised her that way. She crawled away while the shooter reloaded and wasn’t shot again; she survived the massacre. As I said, although unconfirmed, I think it’s safe to say that Columbine (and the details that unfolded) was more than likely the real event that inspired the Westfield High School massacre in AHS.

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3.Bloody Face (American Horror Story: Asylum)

In Season 2 of AHS, we’re quickly made aware of this looming murderous entity that we come to know as Bloody Face. As most murderous figures do in horror movies and TV, he has some deep-rooted childhood issues that, for some reason, should explain why he goes on murderous killing sprees wearing other people’s skin as a mask. Due to being abandoned by his mother as a young child, Bloody Face set out to find an adequate maternal figure, and those who didn’t fit the bill were murdered and posthumously skinned and decapitated.

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Yeah, this one is pretty clear, as the parallels are far too similar. My first time seeing this when it aired, I thought, “Woah, is Bloody Face supposed to be like Leatherface?” Well, yes, because both are based on one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, Ed Gein.

In 1957, police were finally on Gein’s heels after the disappearance of a hardware store owner named Bernice Worden. Gein had been seen with her shortly before her disappearance, and when they made their way to his farm, they sadly found her decapitated body. They also subsequently found evidence of his grave robbing, as he had a collection of bones, skulls, and body parts. The parallels between Gein and Bloody Face are totally uncanny. Between a deep desire and bizarre infatuation with maternal figures to using body parts as household items, masks, and clothing — there’s not a doubt in my mind that Bloody Face, Leatherface, and Ed Gein are all cut from the same terrifying cloth.

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4.Kit and Alma Walker (American Horror Story: Asylum)

Back in Season 2 of American Horror Story, we met two characters by the names of Kit and Alma Walker, who were a mixed-race couple in the 1960s (which of course posed its own unique set of threats and problems). To keep a very long and confusing story short, Kit and Alma were at home when Kit went to investigate some strange noises he heard outside while Alma was preparing dinner. Outside, he’s confronted with a blinding flash of light and a loud noise. He goes to check in on his wife, and she’s nowhere to be found. Kit tells authorities that aliens abducted his wife, and he’s promptly sent to Briarcliff Asylum.

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Producers confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that Kit and Alma Walker are actually inspired by the very real and infamous couple Betty and Barney Hill. In 1961, as they were driving back home to New Hampshire from a trip in Canada, the couple claimed they saw “bipedal humanoid creatures in the window of a large spacecraft that landed in a field,” and after the landing, they had no recollection of the next two hours.

Betty and Barney both returned home, still unable to explain what happened during those missing two hours but with noticeable changes to their bodies, including scuffs and torn clothing. A year later, Barney and Betty decided to try hypnosis therapy sessions that eventually helped them regain their memory, allowing them to recall what happened, and they told very similar stories. Betty went on to become one of the most well-known voices in UFO research and continued on with it for the rest of her life. She and Barney also did a lot of work with the NAACP. She passed away in 2004, and Barney suddenly passed away in 1969.

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5.Papa Legba (American Horror Story: Coven)

In AHS, we meet Papa Legba; he’s depicted as the gatekeeper of the spirit world and balances the scales of life and death. He’s depicted as this man with a white-painted face and red eyes who makes very unsavory deals with mortals. He granted another character, Marie Laveau, immortality in exchange for an annual innocent human sacrifice and her soul. Known to many in real life and in the show as a Lua or spirit of West African and Caribbean Vodou, he allows communication between the living and spirit worlds, is a master communicator, and is usually depicted in Vodou as an older, feeble man who walks around with a cane and wears a straw hat. Very different from how we see him on the show.

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Though it’s clear they attempted to take Papa Legba’s story and insert it into this character on Coven, there’s been quite a bit of debate on whether he was misconstrued for another lua named Baron Samedi. Samedi’s main function is to meet the souls of the newly departed as they rise, and then he guides them to the afterlife. He’s also responsible for making sure souls cannot be resurrected by outside forces.

He speaks in a nasal voice while wearing a black tuxedo, a top hat, and carrying a cane. Depending on who you ask, he either wears dark sunglasses and cotton plugs in his nose or face paint that resembles a skull. He’s also known to be a bit rude, crude, and flirtatious, but a gentleman nonetheless. Baron also has the power to deny or admit people into the afterlife, the power of resurrection, the ability to cure mortal illnesses and wounds, and even the ability to counteract curses and hexes. It seems that although Papa Legba was the namesake, they chose to combine two Luas of Vodou to inspire the character in the show we know today.

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6.The Axeman of New Orleans (American Horror Story: Coven)

Back in Season 3 of AHS, we meet a very scary man that we come to know as The Axeman, who is contacted via an Ouija board by Queenie, Nan, and Zoe to find out information about the whereabouts of their fellow witch classmate Madison. The Axeman’s story is that he was a jazz musician who played saxophone throughout New Orleans. The stories between the characters and real life are pretty much the same — to a point. Between 1918 and 1919, it’s reported that about a dozen people were attacked with axes throughout the New Orleans area. On March 13, 1919, a letter appeared in the Times-Picayune newspaper that was supposedly from the Axeman. The letter starts with “They’ve never caught me, and they never will” and continues to explain how he’ll “claim” his victims when he sees fit.

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The letter also detailed his love for jazz and stated, “I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people.” AHS even used direct excerpts from the real letter that was sent to the newspaper in 1919.

Since the real Axeman was never caught and his victims and their families were never given the justice they deserved, the show had to take creative liberty to expand upon his story and what could’ve possibly happened to him. In the show, he’s made out to have been killed in 1919 by a group of witches at Miss Robichaux’s Academy after he was lured in there by loud opera music. They stab him to death to end his terrifying reign in their city, and his ghost is basically left around at the school. He’s then brought back to life by the girls in 2013 and eventually killed again in the exact same way by the new generation.

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7.Madame Delphine LaLaurie (American Horror Story: Coven)

Madame Delphine MacCarthy Lalaurie was a very real, very wealthy socialite and notorious slave owner in New Orleans. In 1832, she moved to a home in the French Quarter with her children and her latest husband. Rumors about how Delphine was treating her slaves had been going around New Orleans since 1828. Specifically for the show, to dramatize her horrible crimes, Madame Delphine also believed that putting the blood of the enslaved people on her face and body would make her appear more youthful. The claims of her horrific treatments were big talk around town, but it wasn’t until 1834 that things really came to a head.

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Things really begin to differ here, so here’s the real story: A fire broke out at the Lalaurie mansion on April 10, 1834. According to old testaments from the scene, firefighters were attempting to put out the fire, and they ended up finding a multitude of enslaved people who were “horribly mutilated,” chained, and locked inside the building. The firefighters that came to the scene luckily saved them and brought them to the town hall.

Eventually, it was reported that over 4,000 people had shown up to the town hall. Neighbors also went into the rubble of her now-burned mansion to continue to destroy and ransack the place. After realizing how bad it really was, Delphine escaped Louisiana with her family and fled to Paris, France, where she died. From having young children chained up and only feeding them once a day to putting bugs in the open wounds of the enslaved to bashing in an elderly woman’s head, the word monster or demon doesn’t even begin to explain this woman. In the show, Delphine’s real story is heavily intertwined with a lot of witchcraft, her show-specific beef with Marie Laveau, and living in the modern age. We also see on the show that her French Quarter home was eventually turned into a museum. In real life, the ownership of her home has varied over the years, but it still remains a top tourist destination that people visit on any ghost adventures in New Orleans.

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8.Marie Laveau (American Horror Story: Coven)

In the show, we know Marie as a present-day version of herself who owns a hair salon and is over 200 years old. Since 1801, she’s been in a constant quarrel with the witches and horrific past figures of New Orleans. In real life and on the show, Marie was known as the “Vodou Queen.” Aside from that, we see a very different version of Marie play out in the show from how we know her in reality. In the show, at the height of her power, she became pregnant with her first child by her lover, Bastien (a house slave for Madame Delphine). However, she couldn’t accept death, and when Papa Legba showed up, she sold her soul to him in exchange for immortality and “performing a service” for him once a year. Once her child was born, she found out that she had to offer up the souls of innocents to keep her immortality, beginning with her child.

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In real life, there were no horrifying women coming back to life, and Marie did not have immortality, nor was she some demon-conspiring, revenge-seeking woman. She died in June of 1881 and lived a full life of helping her community. She was one of the few free Black people at the time and made herself a powerful woman of high status. Just like in the show, Marie really was a hairdresser, she did hair for the wealthy in New Orleans. Newspapers that still exist today spoke out about the death of Marie Laveau. She was often mentioned as being incredibly helpful, a woman who nursed the sick, a talented herbalist, and a dedicated Catholic.

Due to horrible acts of vandalism, the section of the St. Louis Cemetery where Marie is said to be laid to rest is no longer accessible to the public and can only be accessed via guided tour. However, people still make their way to Marie’s grave to this day to make offerings and ask the Vodou Queen for help and blessings. In the show, Fiona actually takes a dig at present-day Marie about her burial site saying, “I have been to St. Louis Number 1, and I have seen the tomb of Laveau, seen the fat tourist, from Little Rock to Hackensack drawing crosses on the bricks making wishes to the bones of Marie Laveau. Little did they know, all they had to do to get their wishes granted was to come down here to the ninth ward and get their hair braided.”

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9.Pepper (American Horror Story: Freakshow)

Pepper is an AHS regular and fan favorite. She’s actually the first character to reprise the same role twice in the series (once in Asylum and again in Freakshow). Pepper is a woman who has microcephaly and was the first performer for Fräulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities show. After being abandoned at 18 and found by Elsa, she performs in the show, meets a boy named Salty (another person with microcephaly), and they get married. After Salty’s death, she refuses to perform and is sent to live with her sister Rita. Her sister and brother-in-law, Larry, did not treat her well. She was set to live a life of serving her sister and taking care of her sister’s equally unwanted child. Her brother-in-law eventually murders the baby and frames Pepper for it, which is how she would eventually find herself at Briarcliff.

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It seems safe to say that Pepper was actually inspired by Schlitzie Surtees. While a lot of information about Schlitzie has been lost to time, we do know he was born with microcephaly. He was featured in movies such as Freaks (1932) and started his movie career in the late 1920s. He performed as a sideshow performer for decades for various (very famous) circus acts.

After his handlers died in the mid-’60s, he was put into a hospital in the Los Angeles area. Thankfully, another sideshow performer (a sword swallower) was working at the hospital when they saw Schlitzie and took him out to start performing again. He loved to perform and hang around feeding pigeons in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. He died in 1971 and was buried in an unmarked grave, but fans of his were able to collect enough money to buy him a headstone and hold a proper burial.

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10.James Patrick March (American Horror Story: Hotel)

This season was full of references to past horrible crimes and destinations. Ryan Murphy confirmed to Collider that he was very inspired by the infamous Hotel Cecil in Los Angeles for the Hotel Cortez. In the show, our setting is a place called the Hotel Cortez, built by Mr. March in the 1920s, who also happens to be an infamous serial killer. He built the hotel with a series of rooms and hidden spaces to carry out his murders, and he used spaces within the hotel to hide any evidence of his horrific crimes. By the 1930s, the police had come for him after being given a tip about his disgusting crimes. Inside the hotel, he slit his own throat in a murder-suicide, leaving his ghost to haunt the hotel for centuries.

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Sound semi-familiar? Well, Evan Peters (who played March in the season) confirmed to Variety that there was definitely some inspiration taken from “America’s First Serial Killer,” H.H. Holmes for his character. By 1885, Holmes had changed his name and left his hometown of New Hampshire to move to Illinois. He left his wife and child behind after being accused of fraud and murder.

He became a pharmacist under his new name and built a new home that we would later all know as the “Murder Castle.” Inside the home, Holmes had built a series of chutes, trap doors, soundproof rooms, acid vats, and kilns for cremation. After living a life of running from the law, multiple cases of insurance fraud, murder, faking his own death to collect insurance money, killing people at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, and finally being caught and convicted for only one murder, Holmes would eventually admit to killing over 130 people. He was later executed by hanging in Philadelphia for the singular murder he was convicted of (out of possibly hundreds).

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11.The Countess (American Horror Story: Hotel)

In the show, we meet Countess Elizabeth (aka The Countess), who’s the current owner of the Hotel Cortez. She’s a 112-year-old creature, extremely glamorous, and the carrier of a mysterious blood virus. She’s lived a very long and fruitful life that consisted of a polyamorous relationship between a Hollywood actor and his wife that would affect her for decades to come, vampirism, and even becoming the apple of serial killer James March’s eye. She spent a lot of time inflicting people with her virus, seducing them, drinking their blood, and killing them after with her very stylish but sharp chainmail glove. She was eventually killed inside the hotel, and we know how it works in the AHS world: her ghost was left to haunt the hotel forever.

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Although seemingly unconfirmed, it’s hard not to see the similarities between Lady Gaga’s Countess Elizabeth and Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary, who was born into a wealthy family that controlled then-Transylvania. Born in 1560, Báthory still holds the Guinness World Record for “Most Prolific Female Serial Killer.” According to the tales, she’s responsible for the murders of over 600 young women. She believed bathing in and drinking the blood of her virginal victims would grant her some kind of eternal youth.

At 13, she was engaged to an 18-year-old man named Count Ferenc Nádasdy from another prominent Hungarian family. He moved her into Nádasdy Castle and taught her everything she needed to know about human torture. Countless atrocities happened in this castle; accounts say there was a young girl at one point that they had restrained, lathered in honey, and insects released upon her body. After the death of her husband, Elizabeth moved to a new castle in 1604 named Čachtice Castle. Here, she continued her terrifying mutilations with needles, pincers, and, oh yeah, vampirism. Tales of her horrors were so widespread at this point that people were hiding their daughters from her. An investigation was eventually launched by the King of Hungary in 1610 after nobles began disappearing. They found her guilty of murdering and torturing 80 young women. Guess what they did to her? They locked her in her castle of horrors, where she died in 1614, and if you ask me, she probably still haunts it to this day.

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12.The Lost Colony (American Horror Story: Roanoke)

This season, we begin by meeting Shelby and Matt Miller, who are telling their story through a documentary called My Roanoke Nightmare. The couple fled to North Carolina after an assault by a gang in Los Angeles that caused Shelby to miscarry. They come across an abandoned, old colonial house, and naturally, after they use all of their money to buy it and move in, strange and very violent things begin to happen. They eventually find themselves encountering mobs with pitchforks, ritualistic sacrifices and ceremonies, and a woman by the name of Thomasin White. She was the wife of real-life colonist John White; it seems unclear if she ever made it to Roanoke in reality, but in the show, after her husband John leaves for England, Thomasin becomes the leader of the colony before she’s usurped and left in the woods to starve.

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Well, nothing screams American folklore like a bunch of colonists disappearing on lands that were never theirs! Back in July 1587, over thirty years before the Pilgrims made their way to Plymouth Rock, a group of 117 men, women, and children landed on Roanoke Island in an attempt to create the first English settlement in North America, led by a man named Sir Walter Raleigh. Among the settlers were a man named John White and his family, including his pregnant daughter.

After the birth of his grandchild (known as the first English baby born in America) on August 18, 1587, John thought it best to return to England to gather more supplies on August 28th. Three years later, John returned to Roanoke Island to find the place deserted and the wildlife completely overgrown. He found the words “CROATOAN” and “CRO” carved onto nearby things and believed his family had moved inland. Before he could explore further, a hurricane arose that damaged his ships and forced him back to England. Despite repeated attempts, John was never able to raise the funds to make his way back to America. Walter had completely given up on the colony, and John died many years later on one of Walter’s estates. To this day, it’s completely unknown what happened to John’s family and the rest of the settlers on Roanoke Island.

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And finally, here’s the woman that’s left children afraid of mirrors for generations:

13.Bloody Mary (American Horror Stories, Season 2)

In the spinoff of the main series, American Horror Stories, we finally explored one of the most renowned folklores of all time, Bloody Mary. Their story is that once summoned, she’ll look into your soul; if she doesn’t like what she sees, she’ll scratch your eyes out. If she likes what she sees, she’ll look into the future and tell you how to get what you desire. Mary ends up telling the girls what it takes to get what they desire (which includes horrible acts, of course) and promises death if they don’t fulfill their pacts. Later, we learn that the origin of the story they made up for the show was this version: Bloody Mary was an escaped slave who had been tricked along with others to a stop along the “reverse” Underground Railroad. Mary called upon a powerful African spirit to aid her and murdered all of the slavers, along with another slave that was being used to lure the fleeing. The African spirit she called upon to help her trapped her behind the mirror after she sullied her soul and couldn’t control herself.

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Just like much of folklore, there are hundreds of different theories on the origins of Bloody Mary. Even the way you summon her can vary from person to person. I learned that you go in the bathroom, turn the lights off, spin around three times, and say her name. No candles, no sitting, and it only works in the bathroom.

Some people believe you have to have the water running, or you have to flush the toilet, or even that you have to say her name 13 times instead of three. Regardless, just like the discrepancies in summoning tactics or even what happens if she shows up, there’s a major discrepancy in her origins. Everyone’s first thought is that she’s probably named after the only other “Bloody Mary” in history, Mary I of England, who was given the nickname for her gory persecution of Protestants to restore Roman Catholicism in England. Some people believe she’s meant to be Mary Worth, a woman who’s said to have a disfigured face from a bad accident, and so upset over her looks, she put a curse on the mirror she looked into one day, and it shattered, killing her. There’s also Mary Whales, who died after she was run over by a truck. Years later, a couple saw her attempting to hitchhike; she was soaking wet, bleeding, and had cuts all over her face. Both of these Marys are usually summoned via mirrors as well. Lucky for us, AHS tacked on another version of the story we can slip in every now and again.

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Any other American Horror Story ties to real-world events and urban legends you know of? Let me know in the comments. Happy Halloween!

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