The disturbing case of Dennis DePue has long been connected to the opening of Jeepers Creepers, and once you know the real story, the similarities are hard to ignore.
Jeepers Creepers hit theaters on August 31, 2001, introducing horror fans to the Creeper and one of the most memorable opening sequences of the early 2000s. Twenty-five years later, we’re revisiting the real-life murder case that may have helped inspire it.
Horror has always borrowed from reality. We’ve previously explored the stories surrounding Robert the Doll and his connection to Child’s Play, as well as the bizarre real events that helped inspire A Nightmare on Elm Street.
But the possible real-life connection behind Jeepers Creepers is particularly unsettling because so many elements of the film’s opening resemble an actual encounter on a lonely Michigan road.
The Dennis DePue Murder Case
On Easter Sunday, April 15, 1990, Michigan resident Dennis DePue arrived at the home of his ex-wife, Marilynn DePue, amid what had been a bitter divorce and custody dispute.
According to accounts of the case, an argument escalated into violence. DePue attacked Marilynn in front of their children before telling them he was taking her to the hospital.
She never made it there.
Marilynn’s body was discovered the following day near a deserted road. She had been shot once in the back of the head, and DePue quickly became the subject of a manhunt.
But it is what happened shortly after the murder that has drawn comparisons to Jeepers Creepers for decades.
A Lonely Road, a Van and a Blood-Soaked Sheet
That same day, Ray and Marie Thornton were taking a Sunday drive along a rural stretch of road near Coldwater, Michigan, when a speeding van passed them.
The couple reportedly amused themselves by making phrases out of letters they spotted on license plates. After noticing the letters on the speeding van’s plate, they continued down the road and soon encountered the vehicle again.
This time, it was parked near an abandoned schoolhouse.
The Thorntons saw the driver carrying what appeared to be a blood-soaked sheet behind the building. They didn’t know it at the time, but the man they were watching was Dennis DePue.
After the couple drove away, the van suddenly appeared behind them and began following closely for several miles.
The Thorntons eventually got away, but instead of simply continuing home, they turned around in an attempt to gather more information about the suspicious vehicle. They later saw DePue apparently changing the van’s license plate and noticed what looked like blood inside the vehicle.
When they returned to the abandoned schoolhouse, they found the bloody sheet partially hidden in an animal hole and contacted police.
Jeepers Creepers and Unsolved Mysteries
Here is where things get especially creepy.
On March 20, 1991, Unsolved Mysteries aired a segment about the Dennis DePue case. The episode included a dramatized recreation of Ray and Marie Thornton’s encounter on the road.
That was more than ten years before Jeepers Creepers arrived in theaters.
If you’ve seen the film, the parallels are immediately recognizable.
In Jeepers Creepers, siblings Trish and Darry are driving along an isolated rural road when an aggressive vehicle suddenly appears behind them. They later see the same driver outside an abandoned building, apparently disposing of sheet-wrapped bodies. Once the mysterious driver realizes they’ve seen him, he gets back into his vehicle and comes after them.
Even the license-plate banter between the characters has a real-world counterpart in the Thorntons’ account.
The circumstances are not identical, but the combination of a lonely road, a threatening vehicle, an abandoned building, a suspicious sheet and a driver pursuing the witnesses makes the resemblance difficult to dismiss.
Still, one important distinction needs to be made: there is no known public confirmation from writer and director Victor Salva that Dennis DePue or the Unsolved Mysteries segment directly inspired Jeepers Creepers.
Salva has, however, openly discussed Steven Spielberg’s 1971 thriller Duel as an influence on the film. He has also acknowledged that the opening of Jeepers Creepers bears similarities to Spielberg’s story of a motorist being terrorized by an unknown driver.
Whether Salva also saw the Dennis DePue episode of Unsolved Mysteries has never been publicly established. Because of that, the safest way to describe the DePue connection is as a long-standing theory rather than a confirmed source of inspiration.
But watch the two sequences back to back and it’s easy to understand why horror fans have been making the connection for years.
What Happened to Dennis DePue?
The Unsolved Mysteries broadcast ultimately helped bring the DePue manhunt to an end.
On the night the episode aired, people in Texas recognized DePue, who had been living under the name Hank Queen. Realizing authorities were closing in, DePue fled.
Police eventually located his van, leading to a pursuit that continued into Mississippi. After authorities disabled the vehicle, DePue exchanged gunfire with officers.
When the shooting stopped, police approached the van and discovered that DePue had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It happened in the early hours of March 21, 1991, only hours after his story had been broadcast nationwide on Unsolved Mysteries.
More than a decade later, audiences watched Trish and Darry encounter something eerily familiar on another deserted road in Jeepers Creepers.
Coincidence, subconscious inspiration or an unacknowledged influence? We may never know for certain.
What we do know is that the real story of Dennis DePue is disturbing enough without any supernatural monster at all.
