A photograph often appears on social media accompanied by the claim that it shows that it shows a human corpse hung up like a scarecrow:
In the early 2000s, a man bought a ranch in Texas. He noticed a scarecrow in the middle of his land. He went up to it and smelt something rotting. He took the clothes off the scarecrow and discovered it was a human skeleton. This is the photo he took before authorities arrived.
The photograph actually depicts a Halloween prop which first appeared in May 2012 on the website The House of Marrow, a blog dedicated to Halloween art and props, in a post titled Scarecrow Country. Although this image (and several others showing this skeleton scarecrow) was posted without additional information, it was filed under the props tag, and the scarecrow's creator, "Marrow," replied to several comments complimenting his artwork:
Marrow also posted images of the scarecrow on the Haunt Forum message board in March 2012, adding a backstory that probably provided fodder for the meme:
This poor fellow trespassed on the wrong farmer's property. He was beaten and tied to a scarecrow post with barbed wire, a burlap sack over his head, and left to die. He was still alive and conscious when the crows started to peck at him...
But Marrow also explained that he used newspaper and masking tape to create the prop:
Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate the awesome feedback!
Q: Is there a how-to on your blog? I know that many of the techniques you used have probably already been presented somewhere or another; but I always like seeing how individual creations are made.
No how-tos as of yet. I first learnt to make this stuff from SpookyBlue's amazing tutorials, and I've just been experimenting with different hands, ribcages and so on.
Q: Did you corpse an existing piece, or was this prop built from scratch?
Built from scratch. Newspaper and masking tape.
: D