The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs

The Babysitter and the Killer upstairs — also known as The Baby-sitter or The Sitter — is an urban legend that dates back to the 1960s about a teenage girl babysitting children who receives telephone calls from a man who continually asks her to "check the children". The basic storyline has been adapted a number of times, including in Foster's Release (1971), O Anjo da Noite (1974), The Sitter (1977), When a Stranger Calls (1979), When a Stranger Calls Back (1993), When a Stranger Calls (2006) and Amusement (2008). (The Sitter, When a Stranger Calls, and When a Stranger Calls Back are all the work of director Fred Walton.)

It has also been covered in the television programs Freaky Stories and Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed.

A teenage girl is babysitting at night. The children have been put to bed upstairs and the babysitter is downstairs, watching TV. The phone rings; a man tells her to check on the children. The teenager dismisses the call and goes back to watching TV. The stranger calls back several times. Eventually the girl becomes worried and calls the police, who tell her they will trace the next call. After he calls again, the police call back, telling her that the call is coming from inside the house and tell her to get out now. She goes outside and the police meet her. They explain that the calls were coming from inside the house, and that the man was calling her after killing the children.

The crime on which this urban legend is based happened in 1950. On the evening of March 18, 1950, 15-year-old Janett Christman was babysitting 3-year-old Gregory Romack at his home on West Boulevard and Stewart Road in Columbia, Missouri. Sometime after Christman put the toddler to bed and before his parents returned around 1:30 a.m., an intruder shattered a window and attacked her in the Romacks’ living room. Although a garden hose left outside was used to break the window, police said the furniture and light fixtures near the window were totally undisturbed, making it impossible for him to have entered that way. This indicated to investigators that the intruder attempted to make it look like the house had been broken into, when in reality, Christman probably opened the front door for someone she knew.

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