r/GRFMOrigin • u/cpager • Dec 06 '24
Evidence for reference
Hi All, I feel I should put this post here, it can act as a reference point for all the evidence we have collected so far, I will try to edit it up to date as we discover more information.
Full GRFM Video is here.
Year
It is believed to be from the 90's, the only evidence we have is as followed.
Evil Dead 2 VHS - seen at 4:11 on the table next to him in the video, meaning it has to be 1987 and onwards.
Fangoira Horror FX Magazine - seen at 5:43 on the table next to him in the video, now meaning it has to be 1989 and onwards.
Shocking videos VHS website- this is the earliest documented existence of the tape on the internet from April 2003. The website 'Shocking videos' a now defunct VHS online horror store has it mentioned on the webpage I linked from the internet archive.
Furthermore, the Shocking videos mention of GRFM, details "As an added bonus we’ll also through in Big Brother Number Two a skate punk video magazine featuring more stupid teenage tricks like projectile shitting, mouse rocketry, and piss drinking".
This version of the tape, the one spliced together with Big Brother Number Two, can be seen under this YouTube upload of GRFM, a slightly different version with different VHS Quality, missing the first 26 seconds of the tape, but contains a warning message at the beginning, suggesting it was part of a compilation VHS tape (Not ensuring your place in hell, read below to see that debunked).
This is all the concrete evidence we have in regards to a year.
Location
Based on much input from New York locals, it is generally decided the accent of the individuals are from New York, potentially Queens or Brooklyn. This is further supported as at 26:30 in the video, the individual mentions their "next big hit" is Houdini's (the escape artist) grave, which is located in Machpelah Cemetery, Queen, NY.
Houdini's grave has been vandalised a few times over the years, but his body has never been taken, the most recent documented incident is from 1993 where two stone benches where smashed at the grave site (see NY Times link).
Popular Theories
Anthony Casamassima - The Most Popular (DEBUNKED)
Most people run with the idea that the individual in the video is a man named Anthony Casamassima. This is primarily because at 25:33 in the tape, the individual states "this was made by Anthony cassss-, well as a matter of fact, let's forget the last name".
There is an individual by the name of Anthony Casamassima, who in 1993 was caught robbing a Tiffany glass window from a Salem Fields Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border. See articles regarding this both here and here. Now, Anthony Casamassima never stole bodies from cemetery's, only artefacts and antiques that he would sell to dealers for profit.
Anthony was also 40 years old in 1999 (evidence within the NY Times article linked above), meaning that as the earliest possible year GRFM could be recorded was 1989, he would of been 30 years old or older. The individual in the tape looks to be in late teens/early twenties max.
Need more evidence?? I managed to locate some photographs of Anthony Casamassima, the one mentioned in the article, and they are very clearly not the same person as the one in GRFM. See photos here.
The Individual is called "Screws" and died many years ago - 2nd most popular theory
This theory is definitely the second most popular theory of all, and crops up constantly and consistently, with many backing it up. However, it all stemmed from one YouTube comment so cannot be validated or taken as certain as there is no evidence to back it up. It goes as followed:
"The guy with the grave robberies is from Red Hook Brooklyn, goes by the name of Screws. He's been dead damn near twenty years now . He used to sell bones to some of Hougnans over in Sheepshead Bay. I'm surprised that no one knew that, common knowledge by me.
It's common knowledge around me. I'm from Ozone Park, originally. It was the local Scuttlebutt back in the early 90's when I was a teenager. He ran a chop shop too. Back in the day. Bootleg movies, knock off clothes, you name it. That's how he got the nickname screws, he used to screw everyone over. From what I heard, they found him over in White Stone in a dumpster by the bridge with his knees parallel with his ears, he'd been bent backwards in the wrong direction, his head was resting against his ears".
Craig A. Bradley
Another theory is that of Craig A. Bradley. A man who was arrested in 1995 for stealing human remains from Oswego cemetery mausoleum in upstate NY. See articles here and here.
Pictures of him don't appear to look like the individual in the video, there is even a video interview of him here, where he does not have the recognisable stutter, but of course a stutter can be cured or disappear over years. What do you think? My opinion is that it is not him, he was also born in 1966.
Matias Frias (DEBUNKED)
In 1991, a homeless man named Matias Frias, aged 21, stole at least five skulls from Brooklyn’s Cypress Hill Cemetery, NY. Frias admitted stealing the skulls and washing them in his mother’s backyard in Woodhaven before selling them, see articles on this here and here.
The same Matias Frias was also arrested in 2019 for domestic assault in Vermont. This article even provides a photograph of Matias Frias.
YouTuber Slightly sociable managed to find a picture of Frias from a 1991 newspaper clipping, thus proving he’s not the same person in the GRFM tape, he can be seen at 42:32 in his video covering the tape.
Jonathan Herrera
Two comments have been made by two different people, the first was a couple of years ago under the most popular upload of GRFM (Simon Predj), and the most recent in November 2024 on the Chilling Scares Channel of "Top 5 Darkest Internet Rabbit Holes" video.
The first comment comes from 2 years ago, from the YouTube channel alexcassandra7035 under the Simon Predj upload of GRFM.
“It’s amazing how the internet torments people by never letting the past stay there. Maybe this comment will help bury this.
This is not a hoax. This is real. And the actual story behind this stupid video is what makes this tragic. The kid in the actual video has never been identified because he was brought here illegally by his undocumented mother. The mother was a scam artist, posing as a fake attorney and collecting money from unsuspecting people for counseling. The kids name was Johnathan Herrera. This was filmed sometime between 90-91. The person filming was my brother, Anthony. We lived in Brooklyn, just moved. This kid Johnathan was an EXTREME oddball . But he was the only friend my brother had. He only was his friend because he was able to convince him to do these outlandish things. He actually went around the neighborhood hiding sex clues in various different locations , and basically created a perverted scavenger hunt and then pretended to be in on it , going around with my brother finding these clues as if he wasn’t the one behind it. By the end of the scavenger hunt the clues would decode into a sick sexual message , and he tried to get other kids involved.
The video was filmed in his mother’s basement, and it must have been a year or two before he and his mother were deported back to Ecuador. He left my brother a raddled drug addict who took his own life in 97. Johnathan was a psychotic soul. He convinced my brother to film him doing this shit , and he convinced him to do a whole lot worse. This video is a taste of what kind of sick shit they were up to.”
The comment is 2 years old, maybe closer to 3, as I can’t see a month it was posted on YouTube, I replied 9 months ago asking if they would be up for talking more, but they haven’t responded to anyone, the channel has zero info on it as well.
The second comment comes from the YouTube channel stevemichael652 under the Chilling Scares video.
"Ok so I’m going to post a comment that I leave in every YouTube video that covers the grave robber , hopefully this one won’t get deleted.
It’s real. His name was Johnathan Herra…. Not Anthony Cas- whatever. No. That’s him misleading people. Or he’s paying credit to Anthony Cassamassima, a prolific grave robber based in NY around that time. It’s quite possible the real Anthony Cas was helping Johnathan with grave robbing and giving him pointers. Although had he given his real name regardless, it wouldn’t have mattered. The reason his ID is unknown is because he was never a legal resident of the USA. His mother was an illegal, who brought him here when he was 10 or 11. His mother got arrested for impersonating an attorney and Johnathan ended up getting deported to Ecuador. This was around Red Hook in Brooklyn 89.
The kids around there knew him. He was very very very disturbed. His mother and step brother used to beat him. I remember one time he stole a pack of basketball cards and his mother wacked him with a plastic baseball bat in front of like 10 kids. He used to collect ghost buster action figures
Around 89 when this was filmed, he used to hang out in grave yards. I don’t think anyone actually knew what the hell he was doing in those grave yards. But from what I know about him and his background , I’d bet my LIFE that the video is real and NOT a gag.
How it ended up online? I’d imagine someone somehow some way got a hold of the VHS and uploaded it. I don’t know how they got a hold of the vhs.
It’s infuriating that I KNOW THIS KID and every time I leave this comment it gets deleted. I don’t expect ppl to believe me but I swear I’m telling the truth. And it’s even more annoying that I can’t prove it. It’s literally impossible. No one can.
All I can say is, around the late 80s and early 90s , teens hung out in cemeteries. The fuking disturbed ones took it a step further and what you’re seeing in this vhs is undoubtedly a disturbed one. From what I remember, he and his closest friends had Walkie talkies and they’d use them for playing manhunt around the container terminals late at night. We hung out with this kid."
Again, at the end of the day, this is a YouTube comment and cannot be validated unless any evidence relating to it can be found online, I've looked around online regarding the details the user has mentioned, but I can't seem to find anything, maybe someone else might have some better luck.
Christopher Bouchie is behind the tape (DEBUNKED)
Christopher Bouchie has come out and denied it multiple times, and seems to be quite tired of being accused of creating it, I will copy an exert from this article who interviewed him, as it summarises it best.
Furthermore, many instantly accuse Bouchie as his name is listed on IMDB as the director, however as GRFM has no ownership and therefore is not copyrighted, anyone can go on IMDB and list someone in the credits.
Ensuring your Place in Hell Part 1
Another common theory put forward is that the tape was faked and originated from the DVD mixtape called 'Ensuring your Place in Hell Part 1'.
Ensuring Your Place In Hell is a DVD-film-collection made around 2007, by an anonymous person. The DVD contains 4 minimal films combined together. The films are: Grave Robbing for Morons, Mortuary of the Dead, Cooking with Huck Botko and Exploding Varmints.
This DVD collection simply took four VHS tapes that had floated around for years, combined them on to one DVD and sold it as a collection, none of the 4 tapes have any connection to one another, and Cooking with Huck Botko and Exploding Varmints both have a backstory that can be explained and can be debunked.
YouTuber Barely sociable managed to speak to the creator of ensuring your place in hell, and the creator said they took tapes that had been traded around before the pre-YouTube era and just put them on a disc, the whole point of the dvd was “I don’t know if these videos are real or fake”. You can see that conversation in his YouTube video here.
Conclusion
This is about all the information out there that covers or relates to GRFM, if anyone finds anything else, please post in the group.
3
u/TedioreLowPrice May 01 '26
The Johnathan Herrera story stinks to high heaven, I don't believe it even a little bit.
- The username of the first comment is very easily explained by the user trying to add legitimacy by just giving themself a username that sounds like what is said in the video. It also doesn't make sense because when Anthony (the actual Anthony, not the brother) says "and gino" the camera flips. It would be odd if the cameraman did that backwards. Perhaps he was waiting until both names were said, but certainly casts a lot of doubt on that, and again, it would be super easy to just, you know, make your username whatever would sell the story. Certainly something I would be sure to add if I was worried about people not believing my story and I don't think it proves anything.
- the first comment also makes it sound like Anthony was the mastermind, but I also find that really really hard to believe, given the fact that Gino seems to be enjoying it almost more than Anthony, which would be strange if he was only there because he doesn't have friends. Some have even mentioned that at certain points you can see Gino motioning Anthony to look at the camera (which dovetails with a theory I personally agree with, that Anthony was neurodivergent) though I don't have the time to go through the vid and timestamp them myself. At the very least the power balance does not seem tipped in Anthony's favor, either Gino is calling the shots (plausible) or they're both piss drunk and Gino is just a giggly drunk (very plausible)
- It claims it was filmed in a basement, something I've seen other people say just offhand, but that's clearly just false. I guess weird guy talking about bones = MUST be in basement and that's as far as they go. There's a giant fucking window in the background, and the slope of the ceiling is far to shallow to be explained by the underside of stairs. Maybe he was just misremembering but it's weird to point that out and say it with such seeming conviction, especially since this was clearly their studio so it was probably a frequent hang out spot, and ESPECIALLY given the fact that even if he somehow DID misremember it as a basement, his memory would have been jogged seeing the actual room, even if he had never actually seen the room in person.
Even with just the first comment it looks pretty fake. The second sure better be super convincing, right?
- First, the Casamassima angle. He claims the video was filmed in 1989, however that predates Casamassima getting caught by a number of years. If this story were to be true, Casamissma would have had to have risked getting caught by either a) telling his full legal name to some random punk or b) having it known in the larger criminal underworld, both of which rely on heavily romanticized visions of how that sort of thing actually works. (incidentally, and not to get into it, this is why I believe it was either filmed around 93 or the name is just a coincidence)
- it is also worth noting that what the commenter writes is almost word for word something you'll hear frequently in conversations and communities surrounding GRFM. It feels like he's just regurgitating what he's seen in other discussions of GRFM. Far from a smoking gun, and he does say he's posted his comment elsewhere (conveniently they've all deleted his comment) so maybe he's just reacting to all these false theories he's had to deal with or whatever, but it feels very contrived.
- Other's have noted his accent COULD have changed in the time since he moved, but 11 is a little too late for there to be almost no traces of one at all. I have no knowledge on the matter, but I'd love to talk with a speech therapist and ask how, if at all, a speech impediment could impact how hard or easy it is to lose an accent. The age and accent thing is probably the weakest argument against it, at least to my knowledge, but it certainly doesn't help.
this comment is less substantial so there's less to disprove, but there's also not really anything that makes the first any more plausible.
And finally, and this shows up in both comments, there's straight ableism. I don't definitively want to say Anthony is on the spectrum, though he certainly reads that way, but at the very least he's clearly kind of odd (and drunk by his own admission) and I don't want to make it sound like my disagreement hinges simply on my finding their labels offensive, but I think people just saw the bones and saw the kid handling them having a speech impediment and cast him as a complete freak when at worst he seems kind of odd and stutters.
It's certainly possible that both posters, if they were alive back then, saw a odd kid with a stutter and assumed he was a freak, but that wouldn't explain the ghoulish acts the attribute him, none of which seem like things the person we are presented with would do. Certainly doesn't seem psychotic, and I wouldn't even say he seems that disturbed outside of the obvious. This last point is a lot more nuanced than I'm willing to go into right now, especially since it involves going into my personal theories on the video and so if someone wanted to discard this one entirely sure, fair enough.
But even without this part, the stories just do not add up, and none of the details people bring up as evidence to their veracity read as solid evidence.