Cropsey: Synopsis

The spine-tingling documentary "Cropsey," which peels back the layers of fact and fiction behind one of New York’s most disturbing unsolved mysteries.

Growing up on Staten Island, NY, filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio had often heard the legend of “Cropsey.” For the kids on the island, he was the escaped mental patient who lived in the tunnels of Willowbrook and came out late at night to snatch children off the streets. “Cropsey” remained just that, an urban legend, until the summer of 1987, when Jennifer Schweiger, a 13-year-old girl with Down syndrome, disappeared from her neighborhood. She was found buried in a shallow grave five weeks later on the grounds of Willowbrook. In Cropsey, Brancaccio and Zeman return to Staten Island to undertake their own investigation of Jennifer and four other missing children as well as the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances. Brancaccio and Zeman skillfully combine a riveting true-crime drama with a personal exploration of the Cropsey myth, uncovering a reality more terrifying than any urban legend.