Murder of Adrian Mellon

The murder of Adrian Mellon on July 21st, 1984, was the event that convinced Mike Hanlon the cycle of terror had begun again in Derry. Mellon, a freelance writer who had come to town to write a piece about the Canal, was a gay man who had fallen in love with a local draftsman, Don Hagarty, and had decided to stay. On the final night of the Canal Days Festival, a week-long celebration of the town's centenary, Mellon and Hagarty were leaving a gay bar called the Falcon when they were set upon by three teenagers: John "Webby" Garton, Steven Dubay, and Christopher Unwin. The attack was precipitated by Mellon's wearing a paper top-hat he had won at a carnival game, which bore the slogan "I DERRY!" Garton, whose "civic pride" was offended by a homosexual wearing the hat, confronted the couple. After a brief altercation that was broken up by a police officer, the three boys cruised the streets in a car, found Mellon and Hagarty again, and dragged them from the sidewalk. They beat Mellon savagely, with Garton using rings to tear his lip and shatter his teeth, before throwing him over the railing of the Main Street Bridge into the Canal below.

The Attack and the Clown

As Hagarty watched in horror, he saw a clown—a figure he described as a cross between Ronald McDonald and Bozo, with a white-painted face, wild tufts of orange hair, and a baggy suit with big orange pompom buttons—emerge from under the bridge. The clown, who called himself Pennywise, spoke to Hagarty, offering him a balloon and saying, "They float. Down here we all float; pretty soon your friend will float, too." Hagarty saw the clown drag Mellon's body from the water. Christopher Unwin, who had looked over the railing, also reported seeing the clown, describing its teeth as "like the lion in the circus" and claiming it bit into Mellon's armpit. Hagarty saw the clown's arms tighten, heard Mellon's ribs splinter, and then witnessed the clown carry the body under the bridge, where thousands of balloons, each printed with "I DERRY!", floated against the underside. Hagarty fled, later telling police that the clown was "Derry. It was this town."

The Investigation and Cover-Up

The police investigation was marked by institutional homophobia. Officer Harold Gardener, whose father had discovered the body of George Denbrough in 1957, and his partner Jeffrey Reeves were openly dismissive of Hagarty's testimony, with Reeves winking at Gardener as Hagarty described the clown. Assistant District Attorney Tom Boutillier, eager to secure convictions, actively suppressed the clown testimony, fearing it would allow the defense to argue that a "psycho in a clown suit" was responsible. Boutillier pointed to the physical evidence—Mellon had been stabbed seven times, had four broken ribs, and had a large chunk of meat torn from his armpit—as proof that the teenagers were the killers. He argued that introducing the clown story would let the defendants walk free. The trial proceeded without any mention of a clown.

The Aftermath and Significance

John Garton was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to ten to twenty years. Steven Dubay received a fifteen-year sentence. Christopher Unwin, tried separately as a juvenile, was given a suspended sentence. All three sentences were under appeal at the time of writing, and Garton and Dubay could be seen in Bassey Park, not far from where Mellon's body was found. Don Hagarty and Christopher Unwin left town. The murder of Adrian Mellon was the first in a new series of child murders that would escalate through 1984 and 1985, directly prompting Mike Hanlon to call the members of the Losers' Club back to Derry to fulfill their childhood promise. The event also served as a direct parallel to the murder of George Denbrough twenty-seven years earlier, confirming the cyclical nature of the evil that haunted the town.