Jeff the Killer

"Go to sleep."

- Jeff the Killer's most famous quote.GoToSleep.ogg

Jeffrey Woods, also known as Jeff the Killer, is the titular main protagonist villain of the creepypasta story of the same name by the brother of GameFuelTv, who loses his sanity and begins murdering to satisfy his homicidal urges.

Jeff has extremely pale skin and burnt off eyelids, giving him an even more ghostly appearance. Jeff later got his most distinctive trait, the smile that he had carved into his face. His build is commonly described as slim but fit at the same time and reaching a height of around 5 to 6 feet. His clothing normally consists of a pair of black skinny jeans with a white hooded sweatshirt, sometimes stained with fresh and old blood from his victims.

He has become one of the largest creepypasta icons to date, even rivaling Slender Man. Jeff is a teenage boy, who was a caring youth and deeply cared about his brother Liu. As a killer, all that changed and he became a vengeful, dangerous, and bloodthirsty sociopath.

Story
Jeff started out as a normal suburban teenager, living with his Mother Margaret, Father Peter and Brother Liu.

At some point in Jeff's life when he reached the age of 13, he and his family moved into a new neighborhood after his father got a promotion. Jeff and his brother were happy about the idea. Not long after settling into the neighborhood, Jeff obtains an odd feeling in his mind, but does not think too much of it.

A day later Jeff and Liu go to a bus stop void of people, while waiting for the school bus three kids named Randy, Troy and Keith approach the brothers and mug them at knife point, taking Liu's wallet in the process, Jeff gets the feeling in his head again and gets into a fight with the three bullies, incapacitating all three of them, shocking Liu. Jeff and Liu leave the scene after the school bus nears in and go to school, believing they are in the clear.

The next morning however, police arrive at Jeff's house and both Jeff and Liu are accused of attacking the trio with no apparent motivation, even after Jeff tries to explain that they were being mugged, the police don't believe him. Jeff rightly takes the blame for the whole thing and is about to be taken away by the police to a Correctional Facility for a whole year, but Liu steps in with a knife in hand and takes the blame for the whole incident, showing cuts and bruises on his arm to prove it, Liu is then taken away in Jeff's place, leaving Jeff into a depression.

After 2 days, Jeff becomes more and more debilitated with guilt and loneliness. However on a Saturday morning, Jeff's mother insists that he goes to a neighbors birthday party as she believes it will make him happy. Jeff reluctantly goes to the party, which shortly takes his mind off of Liu, making him feel slightly better. However things take a turn for the worse when Randy, Troy & Keith track Jeff at the party and confront him, with anger in their eyes showing that they are wanting an obvious fight, Jeff tries to reason with Randy believing that the odds are even between the two as he got to beat them and they got his brother sent to the Juvenile Detention Center, but Randy dismisses this as he claims "I don’t go for even, I go for winning".

Randy then proceeds to brutally attack Jeff whilst Troy and Keith hold the parents and children at gunpoint to prevent them from stopping the fight, during the fight Randy smashes a bottle of Vodka over Jeff's head, drenching him in alcohol. After Randy incapacitates Jeff, he constantly yells at Jeff to fight back, but after struggling to stand, Randy finally insults Jeff, telling him that Liu will rot in prison and that he should be ashamed of himself that he won't do anything about it.

This infuriates Jeff to stand up and knock Randy to the ground, striking a vicious punch to Randy's chest, causing Arrhythmia to his heart, which results in his death. Troy and Keith, enraged by Randy's death, begin to shoot Jeff with their guns, they fail to hit him. After the two run out of ammunition, Jeff lures them to the bathroom where he mortally wounds them.

During the struggle with Keith, a tub of bleach drenches Jeff, and so Keith takes this opportunity to set Jeff on fire by throwing his lighter at him. With the combination of alcohol and bleach drenched on Jeff, it sets him ablaze, making it practically impossible for him to put out the flames himself, Jeff then falls down the stairs of the house and passes out as the flames engulf him.

Jeff wakes up in a hospital room with bandages covering his face and body and is informed by his mother that Liu is being released from jail after witnesses overheard Randy mention that he was responsible for getting Liu in prison. Several weeks later, Jeff's bandages are removed, revealing his face to be deformed, Jeff takes a liking to his face, and when his family notices the behavior, the doctors mistakenly assure them that it is a result of the painkillers.

When taken home that day, during the night, Jeff's mother wakes up to find Jeff in the bathroom burning out his own eyelids and carving a Glasgow smile up to his cheeks, she realizes that Jeff has gone insane and knows he needs to be killed, when informing Jeff's father, Jeff overhears this and proceeds to butcher his parents. Liu wakes up from the noise and tries to avoid it by trying to go back to sleep, however, Jeff creeps into the room and tells Liu to "Go To Sleep", before plunging the knife into his chest, Liu's fate is then left uncertain.

Jeff then goes on a serial killing rampage, killing those who refuse to sleep at night, Jeff becomes infamously known as the "Ominous Unknown Killer".

Creation and Development
Jeff the Killer was originally created by Newgrounds user killerjeff better known on the internet as "Sesseur" for his YouTube name on August 10th, 2008, through a news post. Stating that he found the image on his ED account and gives a background story of Jeff.

Jeff the Killer is apparently a ghost game similar to that of Bloody Mary. The instructions are that you perform it in a closet with all lights in the room turned off, then you sit down cross-legged, repeat the sentence "He's in here with me." three times whilst turning your head back and forth, then close your eyes and call out the name "Jeff". Jeff will then appear in front of you and proceed to yell and try to chant harm at you. To make him stop is to stand there and compliment him, not doing so will result in a disaster.

On September 12th, 2008, killerjeff posted the source of the Jeff the Killer image that he used to create it, claiming the face to be the aftermath of an acid attack.

On October 3rd, 2008, killerjeff uploaded a video on his YouTube channel, titled "Jeff the killer (Original Story)", the video explains the story of Jeff the killer and his brother Liu, using stock images that can be found on the internet (NOTE: killerjeff's YouTube channel has been terminated due to his violations of YouTube's community guidelines, which took the video down with it. When questioned, his response was that his account was taken down due to the disbelief of him being the original creator of the Jeff the Killer character. Fortunately the video was re-uploaded by a YouTube user called PhenomenonPoltergeist, however, the original audio was not kept, which was the song I Guess You're Right by the Posies playing in the background for a majority of the video).

Liu is described as a well-liked person and a "ladies man" who will befriend those who drink alcohol with him, Jeff is said to have often teased Liu back in his mid-teens by wearing his glasses. Jeff is then described as a serial killer, as he kills people "in favor of the world", he is also said to be "good with children".

The video then transcribes to an explanation of what happened to Jeff's face, it is said that Jeff was hauling a gallon of acid into his bathroom to clean out his bathtub, however he accidentally slipped on a bar of soap and as a result the acid splashed all over his face, however luckily he was saved by his neighbor who called an ambulance after hearing his cries, Liu quit work that day to come and visit Jeff in the hospital after hearing about the accident.

Derivative Works
In 2010, the Jeff the Killer image was posted by an anonymous user with the headline "Go To Sleep" photoshopped at the top, the image was used for a YouTube video on November 21, 2010, titled "creepy pasta " go to sleep ", which depicts the image being slowly zoomed in with the song Hasta El Ultimo Silencio by Arcadia Libre playing in the background reversed and slowed down. It is believed that the lyrics of the song describe Jeff's pain and suffering.

In August 14, 2011, the image was used for a 4chan post, presenting a story about Jeff the Killer spying on someone in bed struggling to sleep, he whispers to the person to "Go To Sleep" before hiding under the bed, the person silently panics before unintentionally falling asleep, after waking up the person is immediately killed by Jeff, his eyes being the last thing the person sees.

At an unknown date in 2011 (the earliest possible known date being November 21st, 2011), wiki user GameFuelTv, posted a story (written by his brother) onto the Creepypasta wiki. The Creepypasta tells the story of a 13-year-old Jeff, who gets into a fight with several bullies and in the end suffers scarring on his face after being burned alive while drenched in bleach and vodka, after waking up in hospital and seeing the result of his face, he went insane and later that night he damages his face to become more disturbing.

This Creepypasta became well-known among many Creepypasta readers, soon after MrCreepyPasta narrated the Creepypasta, it blew up quickly, creating an inexplicit fanbase and was declared the official Jeff the Killer story, making Jeff the Killer a full-fledged Creepypasta character and altogether is what made him well known across the internet. Many of the fans including MrCreepyPasta declared that Jeff's theme song be Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These) by Marilyn Manson.

Fans created various Creepypasta crossovers to Jeff, such as Slenderman, as well as making various ridiculous fan favouriting Jeff, pairing him with other Creepypasta characters such as Ben Drowned, Eyeless Jack, Ticci-Toby, Laughing Jack and even becoming a "proxy" of Slenderman as well becoming friends with MarbleHornets characters "Masky" and "Hoodie", examples like this can be seen in the fanmade webcomic pasta monsters. Some of the fan bases made video games based on Jeff the Killer, most of them (if not all of them) are very poorly made (check out John Wolfe's video if anybody wants to see a good example of them).

Some of the fans even made expansions to the Creepypasta, the most well known expansion is Jane the Killer, created by DeviantART user FearOfTheBlackWolf, a woman who views Jeff as her nemesis and kills those before he can, telling them to "Don't Go To Sleep, You Won't Wake Up.". Although her Creepypasta story was short, she became well-liked among the Creepypasta fan base and many created fan arts of her, even a full audiobook style written Creepypasta was created between the two rivals encountering. One fan of the character even a made Creepypasta of Jane's backstory and motivation for wanting Jeff killed, integrating her into the original story, although the story plagiarizes the character (such as changing her surname from "Richardson" to "Arkensaw"), the fanbase took it as canon, which made the creator of the character unpleased. Eventually, the creator made Jane into an independent character, cutting her completely from the Jeff the Killer universe and the Creepypasta community.

Another expansion was Homicidal Liu created by DeviantART user VampireNote13, a story about Jeff's brother Liu surviving his encounter with Jeff in the Creepypasta and obtains a split-personality, becoming a serial killer himself and contemplating whether to get revenge on Jeff or spare him, the expansion also claims that Liu is the older brother even though it was never stated in the actual Creepypasta itself which sibling was the oldest, this expansion was also the origination of where fans gave Jeff the last name "Woods" as Liu is named "Liu Woods" in the expansion. Even though the creator made the story as a "what-if" scenario for a role-playing group, and even acknowledged that Liu dying may have been canonical, a majority of the fanbase took her expansion as canon.

However, the Creepypasta itself was criticized by many for its poor quality and it was even protested that it should not have been allowed on the Creepypasta wiki for not meeting the actual required standards. Because of this, it was taken down from the Creepypasta wiki a year later, however, users constantly re-uploaded it, objecting to the idea of it being taken down due to it being one of the most popular Creepypastas at the time. In late 2014, it was finally decided by the community that the story is banned from the Creepypasta wiki entirely and officially be moved to the Spinpasta wiki, however, the story was also taken down from it as well. The story can be found on the official Creepypasta website, Trollpasta wiki, and Just The Kittens wiki (originally "Jeff The Killer wiki", a wiki dedicated to all Jeff the Killer fandom stories, but later renamed for unknown reasons).

As a result of the Creepypasta being taken down from the Creepypasta wiki, a [http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Underscorre/Jeff_the_Killer_Rewrite_Contest! competition] was made to remake the story entirely and create something more realistic and frightening that can be featured on the wiki. Admin K. Banning Kellum's story [http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Underscorre/Jeff_the_Killer_Rewrite_Contest_-_The_Winners! won first place], however, it had to be cut down to half its size due to the contest's word limit, the fully uncut version can be viewed on the spinpasta wiki.

The remake stays true to the original Creepypasta with the same characters and with Jeff and his family moving into a new neighborhood as well as a fight with between Jeff and a trio of bullies, however, the result of Jeff's deformed face is different to one in the original Creepypasta. Unlike the original Creepypasta, Jeff and Liu's ages are stated, Jeff being 15 years old, and Liu being 14 years old, however, this is only revealed in the uncut version of the remake.

K. Banning Kellum became proud of his remake, and soon after wiki user Kevin Tierney made a Jane the Killer adaption to the remake, he decided to [http://spinpasta.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Banningk1979/Jeff_the_Killer_2015_Sequel_Coming_Soon_to_Spinpasta! continue the Creepypasta] by making a sequel.

YouTube user [https://www.youtube.com/user/MrBettyKrueger MƦ. ƁЄƬƬƳ ƘƦƲЄƓЄƦ] created a brand new version of Jeff, creating him to be a more 90's style villain. In this version, Jeff Keaton starts out to be a really tall man with pale skin, blue eyes, and a black trenchcoat. Once he becomes "The Killer", he gains the appearance similar to how the original Creepypasta depicts him, but his red-lipped smile is much wider, and his eyelids are not burned off. Eventually, Jeff dies and is resurrected, becoming a zombie, being a far more monstrous character than originally created.

In 2015, it was announced that Purity Films plan to make a full film of Jeff the Killer, an indiego page raising money for the film was made to kickstart it. It sought 1 million dollars in donations and merchandise sales for its budget, but only made $402. Submissions are now closed. The teaser of the film was heavily criticized by many, and it is assumed that the project has been abandoned as no update about the film has been released since 2015 (It should be noted that Sesseur has mentioned that he has had his production team working on trying to get the project shut down for copyright reasons. Whether Sesseur succeeded in this or has had any involvement with the project lacking any updates whatsoever is unknown).

Sesseur's Response
In an interview with YouTube user ScareTheater, Sesseur reveals that he became unpleased about the direction that the fanbase viewed Jeff the Killer as. Viewing Jeff as a child murderer, as he claims that Jeff would never kill Liu or his parents, he was also disappointed about the fact that the fans view him as a teenager as he made Jeff be a mature character and not as a child. Sesseur was hoping when he first made the character back in 2008 that it would blow up and become a phenomenon across the internet and when the character finally became popular in 2011, he felt insulted and found the fanbase to be that of anti-fame seeing as the creepypasta story was practically a remix of the original authentic one that Sesseur himself made in the first place. Sesseur also revealed that Jeff the Killer's name was in fact based off of his own true name "Jeff".

For a while, Sesseur believed that he did not get enough credit for the whole thing as people did not acknowledge that he was the creator of the character, but years later when people shortly started to realize that he was the creator, he became more appreciative. He hopes that in the future if Jeff the Killer becomes more popular then people will have a whole new level of appreciation for it and that more adult viewers will enjoy it. Sesseur claims that he now has a company that spots for him if any works that are based on Jeff the Killer are now informed to him so he can do something about it, if it was made without his permission, he plans to do this for the Purity Films Jeff the Killer film that is being made.

In a video by a YouTube user whom contacted him, Sesseur reveals that in the future he and his company plan to make a new story arc of Jeff the Killer and that it will be more than what would be expected from the other stories. Sesseur hasn't hinted or given out any information about the project, aside from the fact that it will be an expanded version of the original story from 2008, he also mentioned that the project will be something for the fan base to "eagerly await for". When it releases, Sesseur hopes that it will finally become the true vision of Jeff the Killer and his legacy. Should this happen, Sesseur is confident that the project will grow further on from there.

In 2016, Sesseur gave out some more details surrounding Jeff. The details consisted that Jeff's full name is; Jeffrey C. Hodek, his middle name being "too embarrassing" to reveal to the public. He is 35 years old, stands at around 5'7" to 5'10", is Italian-American, has brown hair and green eyes, and is heterosexual.

In September 2018, Sesseur released a journal entry on his DeviantART detailing events on his custom stories, one of which being Jeff the Killer. The details expand on his story from 2008, revealing that Jeff and Liu lived together as roommates and were popular among the townsfolk, Jeff did not have a job but Liu worked for them both and was happy to do so. The details also show that both Jeff and Liu went on to commit a decade of murder and even faked their deaths using Liu's influence, even after, elite bounty hunters went after them to take them down, forcing the two to flee.

In January 2019, the events of Sesseur's Jeff the Killer were also included in his timeline combining all stories he created, detailing Jeff and Liu's date of birth and their first murders (Jeff being born in September 22, 1982, and Liu October 21, 1984). Sesseur further more made a journal detailing the events in order of Jeff's incident.

In June 2019, Sesseur created a "mark 2" version of his timeline, which also includes Jeff and Liu's part in it.

In July 2019, Sesseur expanded the story further more in a journal entry revealing more depth about Jeff's disfigurement as well as his and Liu's life of crime.

Sesseur often responds to anyone whom asks questions about Jeff the Killer on his DeviantART account and is willing to give away details.

Controversy on the Image Origin
In 2013, there was much speculation and confusion as well as theories as to where the image was originated from and who created it. It was believed for several years that the image originated from a 4chan post on April 21, 2008, about a young woman named "Katy Robinson" who committed suicide after being cyberbullied, the centerpiece that motivated her to end her own life was a photoshopped image of herself that somebody posted, that image apparently being the current Jeff the Killer image.

Sesseur claimed in an interview with YouTube user ScareTheater that the Katy Robinson suicide is a "bogus story", that the image is actually a photoshopped version of an individual wearing a white latex mask that had its picture taken in late 2005.

However, Know Your Meme users found the image in a Japanese YouTube video from August 2nd, 2007, which was uploaded a year before Sesseur claimed ownership of the image.

In January 2nd, 2018, a user under the name "Shaan" on the /x/ thread post from 4chan claimed to have found the earliest possible source of the image. The user discovered that the image originated from a Japanese website called pya.cc. The image itself was uploaded on November 16th, 2005 by a user under the name Omega Bolt. In the image's description is a link that provides a source to the early photoshopped image, revealing that it was posted on September 10th, 2005, this one was uploaded by a user under the name Mr. Mulholland. More information can be found on this 4chan post.

On April 18th, 2018, an anonymous user on a 4chan thread post, discovered that the Katy Robinson suicide story is a hoax. The user found out that the girl in the 4chan post is actually a girl named Heather White; she made her first appearance on a website in November of 2004 called TrueChristian.com, and even found her hate emails on the site. The user furthermore confirmed that the woman in the image did not die in 2008 as she created a Twitter account in 2009 and even made Myspace a page in 2013, which shows that she currently lives in Mallory, West Virginia, she is currently married and is living with her children.

The user went onto further analyze whether to confirm that the girl, Heather White, was the face of the photoshopped image of Jeff the Killer all along. The user discovered that apparently the girl started a thread post on the /b/ forums, which was presumably in 2008, however according to several anonymous users, the post may have been created before 2008. In the thread post, the girl asked those on /b/ if she was "pretty" in response to many pictures she posted of herself on the thread, one picture in particular had a bad flash which created the illusion that most of her facial features could barely be seen due to the brightness, her nose was one of those features that were blinded. The /b/ forum used this very image to troll her by photoshopping her face, the trolling went on for 2 days and by then, many images were posted, one of those images is apparently the early photoshopped Jeff the Killer image.

According to a user who had been around 4chan for years (often referred as an "oldfag"), the /b/ threads were spammed with images of photoshops of this girl's face, all of which was after the girl kept complaining about her appearance and posting images of herself on the thread post for 2 days straight, the user remembers that apparently the current photoshopped image uses a canine jaw overlapping with hers. Ultimately after the trolling went on, she stopped posting and left the /b/ forums. The user claims that one of the images was caught in a screenshot he took, but has not revealed it to the public. He remembers that all of this happened in 2005, as it was the time when /b/ took turns photoshopping the girls face and spamming it across the forums.

One of Heather's images even made an appearance on a youtube video from May 4th, 2007.

Further more, the users got in contact with Heather White herself, and she has confirmed that the image is not her. Making the mystery of her being the face behind the infamous image, solved.

Bottom line, Sesseur has gone out and claimed that the early photoshopped image, is in fact non-photoshopped and is let alone an image he took in 2005 of a mask that is currently damaged, which he plans to repair one day. The infamous Jeff the Killer image is the only photoshopped one, and there was a third one that consisted of the person in the mask standing next to a bath tub with some flesh which has unfortunately not resurfaced, and Sesseur even claims that the website that it was uploaded on has no archives of it.

2015 Remake
Main article: Jeff the Killer (K. Banning Kellum)

Trivia

 * A reboot of Jeff the Killer, written by K. Banning Kellum, is available on The Chilling Tales For Dark Nights YouTube channel.
 * For 2016, YouTuber Mr. Betty Krueger is planning a fifth installment in his Jeffery Keaton series, titled "The Wrath of Jeff the Killer".
 * One of Jeff's most villainous acts was revealed in "Jane The Killer: The Real Story" when he murders Jane Arkensaw's family, friends and his own family like in the original story and lights her on fire by using bleach and gasoline, leaving her scarred and disfigured. He did something similar to this act in her original story however it wasn't portrayed as dramatically as the latter.

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Jeff the Killer