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On 2 December 2015, the web site Now8News published a story reporting that a convicted pedophile was caught using a clown costume to hide in a child's room in Oregon: There was no truth to this report, however. Now8News is a clickbait fake news web site that publishes fabricated stories in order to drive traffic to the site and generate advertising revenues. Now8News has previously published hoax stories about McDonald's using fetuses to make McNuggets, a haunted house massacre, and a homeless couple living in the attic of a Walmart. The aforementioned stories have two things in common: Not only are they all works of fiction, but they include real mugshots from unrelated crimes. The mugshot included in the Now8News story about a rapist's employing a clown costume to hide in a child's bedroom actually shows Marvin Walker Jr., who was arrested in January 2015 after an attempted carjacking. This fake news story mirrors an urban legend about serial killers disguising themselves as various inanimate objects. While this legend reappears from time to time, it's safe to say that homicidal maniacs and pedophiles have not commonly taken to donning clown costumes and passing themselves off as items of home decor.
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