How was Krueger Caught?

We all know that the reason he was released from jail had something to do with a search warrant signature.But how was he caught in the first place?

We know he wasn't caught in the act, as that alone would have sent him off to jail because the evidence at the scene of the crime wouldn't need a search warrant to be collected and used to convict him.

No, the reason for him being arrested had to do with what they thought they would find WITH the search warrant.But what did they think they would find?Why would they suspect Krueger?

Note to reader- this conversation excludes the ever evolving details of Fred Krueger's background that was explored in the sequels. Specifically Freddy's Dead-Despite the movie being part of the series, I have just never subscribed to the idea that Krueger had a family.

His sinister work required for him to have a lot of time alone to himself.Even that lone wolf nature is part of what drove him to become the monster he became.He was abused and abandoned by the world until he wanted to strike back.

While it is disturbing and frightening to think there is a mass murderer living next door...with his own child .It just doesn't feel right,for me,as being part of Kruegers psychological and personal makeup.

For one,the time it takes to kill.
This would make it hard for him to have a home life.For Freddy to stalk and find his victims while alive and well, that alone takes time,planning and immense patience .He can't just snatch ANY child.

In the beginning, he could very well have selected some of his children by chance.Finding that one lone child on the swing-set in the playground on a spring afternoon.But,He wouldn't always get lucky to find them by mere chance.Even in the beginnings of his spree, all this selecting and snatching of a child would take time to create opportunities.Time he wouldn't have to himself if he had a wife AND child.

Before the threat of the Springwood Slasher became a real fear, he would have more opportunities to find the kiddies outside.From playgrounds to parks,school yards to backyards.Krueger could capture kids who were left alone.And there are always kids left alone.Kids walking to school that was only a few blocks away.Latchkey kids(Watches for patterns,same kid always alone at the same time).Kids who have run off in a tantrum(Crying kids offered candy).Kids waiting for their Parent to come pick them up from school.("I'm your uncle Freddy,*reads name written on kids backpack*Andrew, your Mommie sent me to get you")

After he became the town terror,as the numbers of the fallen and the fear of the parents grew, Krueger would have to seek out his new victims closer to home.Parents would start to lock their children away.Not even allowing them to leave their own front yards.Getting to new kids in their backyards....and even their bedrooms would take even more planning and time than before.Only some of those kill opportunities being the result of a unlucky open window.Can you imagine if Krueger was able to slip inside a child's bedroom and slice them up in their sleep only for the parents to discover the bloody bed the next morning?

And then there would be the playtime.

He wouldn't just cut and run. Freddy would play with his new toy.Savor the slaughter.Chasing his victims around the abandoned boiler room in his demented version of "Tag,...you're IT!". Imagine the children he took waking within the dark and dirty, hot and sweaty confines of the boiler room.Krueger watching them from the shadows.Laughing out at them from in the dark as they cry for their mommies and daddies.Whispering the filthy things into the silence that he will do when he catches them.Scraping his blades along the metal to send them run blindly to be trapped into corners.

 Watching,admiring how the blood emerges and drips from each fresh new cut on the bare white flesh.The murder of each child would take time. It would be increasingly difficult for him to work a full time job,take care of his home life ...and... stalk and slice 20 plus victims.

Krueger HAD to live alone.Away from the public eye.In Wes Craven's original Nightmare,there is very little information given to us about Freddy other than just a few details of his past and death. We know he killed multiple children from the neighborhood.So he was around for some time.We know that he built the glove himself.We know he has a history with the boiler room of the dreams.

But that's about it. We never actually learn much of his capture or his personal past.Certainly not that he was born to a nun from rape.Just that the parents tracked him down to the old abandoned boiler room and set him on fire."Tracked him down"....

Now,it wasn't till after Krueger was caught that they learned of the boiler rooms connection to this story. If they knew before ,they wouldn't have had to track him to it in end.And they certainly would have not needed a search warrant to investigate an abandoned property.

To be honest, I know very little how a search warrant actually works.My assumptions are that it is first requested by an officer of the law who is trying to prove a crime has been committed by a specific individual based on what evidence or witnesses have been collected and it allows them to search for that specific evidence that is the key to conviction.The warrant even has to state specifically what they are looking for, not just we want to search your private property because of...stuff.Perhaps the part that was not signed in the right place was the listing of exactly what piece of evidence to be allowed to search for inside Krueger's property.They found something while they were inside that pointed directly to one or more of the lost children, but since it wasn't listed as a specific,and it was the only physical evidence collected that proved their case, they had to end the trial.

But even then, there has to be enough evidence or witnesses beforehand to point that the answer lays beyond the legal threshold of one's property.

And that raises another question.The abandoned boiler room would not have been Krueger's property.Sure,he may have spent a lot of time there.Even slept there.Or most likely passed out in a drunken haze after the adrenaline rush of his kill wore off.But it wasn't his home.So they wouldn't need a search warrant to access the abandoned property.No, I don't think they knew where Freddy took his kids.Even after he was arrested.I doubt Freddy confessed to anything.He probably just sat there and smiled his creepy grin in silence.The whites of his eyes gleaming from beneath his grimy face.

Though, on the day he was set free the Parents soon learned where their children came to die.Someone surely followed him "home".Or followed him through town.Probably watched him load up his car with intent to escape Springwood and start over in a brand new town.Watched him casually eat a meal from a burger joint.Buy booze and then drive off to the edge of town.Pulling his van behind the old property and then going inside.After hours of waiting and watching to see if he went anywhere else,maybe the person or persons who followed Freddy peeked inside the boiler room to see Krueger drinking himself into a stupor.Giving the parents of Springwood the opportunity but also the time sensitive need to do away with Krueger.If they didn't kill Krueger while he was passed out drunk tonight, then he would get away and more children would die tomorrow.

So for what personal space of Krueger's would the search warrant have been written?

His person?It's unlikely he would have the glove hidden on him in public.And they wouldn't even know of the glove because anyone who saw it, never survived it.If they saw blood, that would be out in the open evidence that wouldn't require a search warrant.

His vehicle? I imagine he drove one of those white windowless child molester vans.Had it been seen driving around the small town of Springwood ? Did folks recall seeing it in the area before their child went missing.And its reoccurring description showing up in statements over and over start to point the police in Freddy's direction? Was it's nondescript appearance actually not so nondescript? Did folks start to notice it more and more because he got careless and drove by his victims homes afterwards hoping to soak in the sadness?

But what would make them think there was something inside the van that would confirm suspicions of Freddy as the Springwood Slasher? It's presence near crime scenes wouldn't be enough.Might one of Freddy's failed snatches have told their parents about an interaction with the strange man in the van? Did they describe seeing a dress worn by or a specific toy belonging to a previous victim on the floor of the van when Freddy opened the door to tempt the next child to come to him?

But would that be enough?The smallest observation from a child would likely be taken completely serious considering the temperament of the town drowning under the rain cloud of Krueger's terror.

Would they go for where he slept at night?I never pictured Krueger as actually owning a home,let alone even living in an apartment.Maybe he crashed at a flophouse and one of the other residents spotted something suspicious.

Honestly, I pictured him more as a drifter.A homeless person with no one and nothing in his life but hatred for innocence and an all consuming desire to cut it down.Someone who was so poor he slept in the abandoned boiler room.We are shown what looks like Freddy's cot and various belongings strewn around one corner of the boiler room in the Nightmare.(Could many of those items have been souvenirs of his previous victims?-he did keep Glen's headphones).I do wish clearer photos of the set design where available to see even after all these years.

This living quarters of his felt to me like actually a memory of Freddy's that was imprinted on the Nightmare world he inhabited.It was what he knew as home and in this void even he would want to remember the familiar.

But if he also slept where he slashed, then the cops would have certainly found some kind of evidence with a search warrant that with which to convict Krueger.Burnt child's bones in the ashes.Sliced children's clothes and toys.The glove whose bloody blades match the cuts found on the discarded bodies of the babies.As abandoned property they could have simply investigated the site and discovered the horrors. This makes me think that they didn't discover the lair till the night they burned him alive.

So what triggered the warrant? Did they just have suspicions and a deep desire to capture and blame someone,anyone, for their failures to protect their children? So they took advantage of the local weirdo seen in the red and green sweater?Wrote up a search warrant but never asked a judge to sign it because they really only had the barest of circumstantial evidence Thinking that ,once they found the evidence they needed to prove he was the killer, a Judge would easily sign it after the fact in secret and pretend that he had done it beforehand.Just to finally get the bastard.

Might Freddy's famous sweater be what done him in? As previously stated,I imagine Krueger as a drifter,as a deeply poor soul who owned very little to his name. And one of those items was the now iconic Red and Green Sweater. An item I imagine he picked up at a homeless shelter one cold winters night after spending a night freezing on the town.Someones donated or discarded old christmas sweater.He wore it often.Not so much by choice, but more necessity.This being one of the few items he actually owned.

I picture Krueger as maybe having worked a variety of odd jobs around town.And on these various jobs he would find ways to watch and sometimes speak with children.Picking his victims.But also on these jobs he would be seen wearing that sweater.Maybe even using it to his advantage later with the kiddies who had already met Freddy."Remember me?"

Since he was often seen wearing it.It eventually stood out to those who were finally looking in his direction.

And this sweater would stand out.For it's color,for the oddness of choice to wear,or the fact that he always wore it because he had little else. Since he was often seen wearing it,so much so,the sweater became associated with him with the townsfolk of Springwood.Whispers of "That weirdo in the red and green sweater was seen stumbling drunk through the field behind the Lost River Drive-In.Swinging his arm back and forth at nothing"

It probably smelled terrible ,too.Caked in sweat and ash from the heat of the boiler room.Underneath that filth, maybe bits of blood from a child.Might someone have seen what looked like blood on his sweater? And someone took that suspicious thought and ran with it?

Krueger most likely spent what ever little money he earned on alcohol to then drink himself into slumber.And maybe he was seen drunk around town,even arrested every now and then for public intoxication. Maybe he got a little too drunk one day and passed out in a park.And someone saw blood that he forgot to try to remove. Or kids who were playing nearby came across him and he said something threatening-"I'm coming for you" Something that the kids repeated to their parents. And when they asked who the man was or what he looked like the kids called him "the guy in the red and green sweater".

Maybe the search warrant was for the sweater.Someone saw it near a potential crimes scene.Maybe someone saw it flash by in the backyard of a house with children where an attempted break-in occurred.The cops were called.And since the eye witness said they saw a man in a red and green sweater the search warrant was for the actual sweater.Since they couldn't be 100% sure to find Krueger wearing the evidence on a sunny summer day.And they hoped to have the witness identify the sweater as the one they saw in the backyard.

Maybe the search warrant came after he was arrested.As a means to gather more evidence to connect him to the crimes.But then all that evidence collected became mute due to the lack of that all important signature.

What made them suspicious?

I imagine that at first Krueger disposed of the bodies in the fire of the boiler.Leaving very little to no evidence of the crimes he committed.Burned it all away.But smoke coming from an abandoned boiler might attract unwanted attention even on the edge of town.If that gave the police enough motive to arrest Krueger, wouldn't the body evidence be enough to put Freddy away? Again, I don't think they ever caught him in the act.

Freddy probably later discovered that he could add to the pain of the parents by letting the bodies, or parts of them, to be found.Leaving their slashed naked corpses out in the open and then standing in the background to watch as each new horror was discovered.Scattering parts around the playground to be seen by the schoolmates of the victim in a twisted easter egg hunt that would add to their fears.I could see Krueger even leaving one of the bodies on the parents front porch to be discovered with the morning paper.Imagining the parents horror as they discover their little girl with the morning milk.Relishing the thought of their screams as they clutched their child's limp lifeless body to their chests.Knowing that it will only get worse for them when they get to see his handiwork up close.Because he knows they will look.They always look.

And maybe he wanted to look too.That he wanted more than just the mere dream of them finding the body.He wanted to see them find it in person.

And maybe he was seen once too often enjoying the fruits of his labor.His image connected too often to the vicinity of the scene of the crimes.

At what point did they decide Freddy was the killer and go forward with arresting him? Where did they arrest him? Who arrested him?

Might Lieutenant Thompson have been directly involved? It would be interesting if he was the officer who requested a search warrant... and then forgot to sign it in the right place in his rush to cuff Krueger.That one mistake resulting in Freddy's freedom and then later forcing his own hand to commit murder.Which in turn placed his daughter, Nancy, in danger.

It would be even more intriguing if the warrant was obtained under false means.This act would tie into his willingness to join in on the burning mob.I've occasionally wondered just how involved Donald Thompson wanted to be.Say perhaps he even found out about the mob murder of Krueger after the fact from his wife and to protect his family reluctantly helped in the cleaning up afterwards.

His personal involvement in the plan of setting Freddy on fire would have made the others participating more likely eager to act.They had a cop on their side so their anger would not have to be held back.

Side thought, I wonder how his involvement in arresting Krueger helped or hindered Donald's career.If he helped in capturing Krueger that would have been a hell of a feather in his cap.But if it was his screw up that resulted in Freddy being set free , that would have hindered any advancement.Also, Lt. Thompson seems like he has a bit of a temper.

Regardless Thompson's level of involvement,they never found Krueger's body.The fire would have been reported.But no one would have know Freddy's real fate.It might have looked as if he himself had burned his lair in effort to destroy any remaining evidence.

But it all still begs the question.How was Krueger caught? When and where  did they arrest him?What was their lucky break?