If you’ve ever seen a message starting ‘Hi my name is Carmen Winstead’ you will be all too familiar with the sense of unease. Urban legend states that, if the ghost of the allegedly murdered teen contacts you and you don’t share or repost her story, she’s coming for you.
It sounds like the plot of a horror movie. Maybe that’s why it has taken the internet by storm. After all, from the safety of our own homes, we all think we’d survive a slasher pic. The reality, of course, is quite different.
What is Carmen Winstead’s story?
For this, we need to go back to 2006. It was in the internet’s earlier days that a story began to spread. Chain letters used to be a big thing online and Carmen Winstead’s story is one such example.
The message always started the same. It claimed to be from Carmen herself; a teenager who was pushed down a sewer by five female students at her school and left to die.
One of the girls was later killed, her body found in a nearby sewer, and the remaining four had targets on their backs.
Seeking revenge for her demise, Carmen’s ghost sought to spread her story as widely as possible. If you ignored it, or even paused for a day or two, she dragged you into the underworld.
It was this sense of act now or regret it that saw the legend spread like wildfire. Emails were forwarded at an alarming rate and, more recently, Carmen’s story is reposted by those too scared to see what happens if it’s ignored.
Is the story true?
The short answer is: No. There is no evidence that a girl called Carmen Winstead was murdered in the United States during this timeframe. There are no reports of missing or murdered girls with that name; only the oft-shared chain-letter.
There is a strange joy in sharing this kind of creepy story. We know it’s not real and yet…
Something makes you share it anyway. After all, you don’t want to be the subject of Carmen Winstead’s next message.