MILLBROOK CITY 🎃🔪

SPOILERS — THE FULL STORY OF MASK MAN

Warning: This section contains major spoilers for the mystery. Read only if you want the full truth.
And if you don't, well, why are you here? Curiosity killed the cat, and apparently it's about to kill you too.

MASK MAN 

roleTHE HUNTER

Nobody knows who the masked man is, only that he has been spotted around town near abandoned buildings and that the sightings have become more frequent as Halloween gets closer. The police have no suspects, no fingerprints, and no bodies that clearly point to a killer, which is why most people assume it's a prank or a copycat looking for attention.

Daniel and you are planning to investigate him for the channel, which is probably not a good idea.

WHO HE IS

Steven Garrard is a thirty-eight-year-old surgeon at Millbrook General Hospital, a colleague of Daniel's father, and one of the most respected men in town. He attends church, volunteers at community events, donates to local charities, and speaks in a calm, measured voice that never rises. He is polite, quiet, and helpful, and no one in Millbrook has a single bad thing to say about him. He is also a serial killer, and he has been one for three years.

Yes, really. The guy who brought the potato salad to the church fundraiser. That guy.

HIS DAUGHTER

Before Millbrook, Steven lived in a neighboring state with his wife and his daughter, Lily Garrard. Lily was the center of his life, and she was the reason Steven sought help for the violent tendencies he had struggled with since his own adolescence. Therapy helped. His marriage was not perfect, but it held. For a while, he was almost a normal man. 

In October 2007, Lily went to a party with a group of older kids she wanted to impress. Four teenagers — Tyler Vance, Marcus Webb, Jenna Kowalski, and a few others — thought it would be funny to scare the quiet girl. What started as a prank escalated into something much worse. They held her down, humiliated her, and filmed it on a phone. Lily came home that night and did not speak for two days. When she finally talked to her father, she told him everything. 

The next week, the video was uploaded. Lily saw it spread. She went to school and faced the whispers. Two days later, she was dead — not by her own hand, as the town believed, but because Steven, in his grief, did something he has never explained to anyone. Her death was ruled a tragic accident. 

The teenagers were never charged. Their families had connections. Tyler's father was a lawyer. Marcus's mother worked for the district attorney. The case was closed before it opened. 

Funny how justice works when your dad knows a guy. 

Steven's marriage fell apart within months. His wife left, unable to look at him without seeing their daughter.

THE FIRST KILL

On October 23, 2007, four teenagers were found dead in a remote hunting cabin forty-five miles outside Millbrook. Each had a single gunshot wound to the head, the gun was in Tyler Vance's hand, and a typed note on Tyler's phone read: "We couldn't live with what we did. We're sorry. We're so sorry." 

The police ruled it a suicide pact. There was no evidence of anyone else at the scene. No fingerprints, no DNA, no witnesses. Four teenagers, one gun, and a typed note. The police looked at this and said "yep, seems legit."

MILLBROOK, TODAY

 After the first kill, Steven moved to Millbrook, took a job at the hospital, and built a new life. He told everyone his daughter had died in an accident and his marriage had fallen apart. The church ladies felt sorry for him. His colleagues respected him. Daniel's father, Mark Burton, became his closest friend and trusted him completely.

Mark, buddy, you might want to reconsider that friendship.

But Steven did not stop. He had discovered something about himself in that cabin — a purpose. He was not a murderer. He was a surgeon. He made the world clean. Steven targeted people who had done something wrong and escaped punishment, and he staged every death to look like an accident, a suicide, or a natural cause.