Original Jeff The Killer Image

Last Edited: 29 November 2023
Original Jeff The Killer Image

What we know and what we think
Written by Detective Ra and naskivik with contributions from investigators and
researchers
Current bounty: $11,401 USD
r/OriginalJTKImage JTK Image Search Official
Espanol version:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RI780t7ooc24XSLbZgSeBDyvW0YkewqqjOmL
GCLQ2w8/edit?usp=sharing
Japanese version:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQVKX86olotMnkysUC_og_W3kz4p
OCVKlx1OXf-r4VCA2eytxQvb73X86MaAtDKnq9mEzX1Lcoe4N1I/pub
1
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Contacting witnesses 5
1. Miyama: 5
2. MightyOmnivore: 7
3. Cman: 14
Image analysis 18
Unconfirmed Theories 33
Annex 1: Miyama twitter posts 42
2
Introduction
Jeff the Killer is a Creepypasta character, portrayed as a noseless and pale-faced man
without eyelids and black loops around his eyes. This character became famous with its
image, used as an internet screamer, and over time grew to a widespread Creepypasta. The
image is a composite of someone's unedited face, the identity of which is unknown, but
believed to have once existed on the Internet. The modern version of the Creepypasta was
created in 2011, but the original version was written on October 3rd, 2008 by the YouTube
user Sesseur and gained over 700,000 views. It has since been removed due to copyright
claims. Sesseur, also known as "killerjeff", posted the image on the Newgrounds forums and
claimed that the image was, in fact, a picture of himself.
Later it was discovered that Sesseur lied, and the image was of Japanese origin. Since the
search started, two versions of the image have been discovered:
JTK1 JTK2
We will refer to these images as JTK1 and JTK2. JTK1 is an earlier iteration of the famous Jeff
The Killer image. These two images have been reposted many times over the years.
JTK2 was first posted on a Japanese website named pya.cc on 16th November 2005 by the user
"Omega Volt'' and was titled “(Kowa) Ahyahyahya !!!”. The image was captioned “Which one
are you afraid of?” which is linked to an earlier post of JTK1 from the same website made by
"Mr Mulholland''. We are pretty much certain that JTK2 was created by Omega Volt.
Unfortunately, he is as big of an enigma as the image itself, so we weren’t able to find him.
3
The earliest upload of JTK1, so far, is on a website called Fileman under the name “Fear of
summer nights … ” and the description “A celebrity before plastic surgery… ”.
It is not clear if the post description is related to the image's origin, or if it was just given to add
an interesting backstory. Xaft, one of our Discord members, managed to find the thread attached
to the Fileman post and some of the comments mention seeing the image on other sites,
suggesting that there were previous posts. These comments talk about JTK1 being the scariest
out of all the edits and this image being part of the Obake no Q trend.
We found about the Obake no Q trend from this board:

https://tsumanne.net/si/data/2022/03/28/7943611/
The image later appeared on other image boards and forums such as gazo05.chbox.jp
gamushara.net, blog.livedoor.jp/warata2ki, pya.cc, and more, along with hundreds of reposts on
2channel (now under the URL of 5ch.net), mainly with the purpose of scaring people. It is
believed that JTK1 might have come from one of the following websites: wibo, 2chan or futaba.
For who is interested in reading the complete timeline, it can be found in this google sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V7QX33SXJR-S6O0yf0GBR8aW0g4fv-RkcKc
WxabvAGw/edit?usp=sharing
While searching for the original image, we found multiple people that either reposted the edited
versions in 2005 or we are confident that they saw the unedited image in 2005. Their testimonies
will be discussed in the next chapter.
4
Contacting witnesses
1. Miyama:
Miyama or Mr. Mulholland posted JTK1 on 10th September 2005 on the website pya.cc under
the name “White Powder”. We have contacted Miyama (Mr Mulholland) on Twitter, and he told
us that in mid-2005, a cropped image of a video of a middle-aged Asian woman appeared in
Japan. Her face was very white. This image was a Japanese meme, being posted on various
bulletin boards on shitaraba.com as a surprise image. Miyama took JTK1 and made minor edits,
such as brightness correction; the modified version can be found on sorai.jp. Miyama does
not have the original image, and he believes that the original video
doesn’t exist on the internet anymore, but he told us that he believed
that the video was from a show named ほんとにあった!呪いのビデオ (Honto
ni Atta! Noroi no Video). We managed to find all episodes that aired between
1999 and 2005, but unfortunately, it looks like the JTK image is not from this series. If
you would like to watch this series, we have all the videos saved in a Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Vzw7HD1dgg4xHR8X4kU9FPDb_dAfjvO_
There have also been multiple people claiming that this image is from a variety show.
Comment by ななしのよっしん
“The background looks like a dressing room, because it is based on the captures of a variety
show at that time. I don't remember what kind of show it was, either.”
Source:
https://dic.nicovideo.jp/t/b/a/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%95%E3%83%BB%E3%82
%B6%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC/1-?from=a_bbs_5620263
Comment by トカゲ大好き
“I think the original was a screen capture from a variety show around 2000… I think it was a
close-up of the end of a comedy act, and then it was further processed.”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJSHzRXTZk
5
Other people think that the original image is Tamao Takamura when she was young in a dressing
room.
Comment by BmーGEN【課題で忙しい】
“I've heard that the original image of Jeff Killer was processed because the background of Jeff
Killer resembles a photo taken in the dressing room of Tamao Nakamura when she was young.”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJSHzRXTZk
“Jeff Killer looks like a backstage photo of Tamao Nakamura when she was younger, so people
say it's a doctored version of that, but probably not.”
Source:
https://dic.nicovideo.jp/t/b/a/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%95%E3%83%BB%E3%82
%B6%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC/1-?from=a_bbs_5620263
We think the Tamao Nakamura rumour started from karapaia, a japanese blog.
Source: https://karapaia.com/archives/52194451.html (comment 63)
All of Miyama’s twitter posts will be added in an annex at the end of this document. If you
believe we missed anything important for this search, contact us on the official Reddit or
Discord.
6
2. MightyOmnivore:
Discord user My little emo found the image link

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y33/MightyOmnivore/prettyFACE.jpg(dead & unarchived)
on https://www.speedguide.net/forums/showthread.php?187092-Some-Funny-Weird-Pics, while
searching for the term prettyFACE.jpg. Then, PerditusRedux found the twitter of the person that
uploaded the image (MightyOmnivore) and contacted him. He responded and confirmed that it
was JTK1. Below are their conversations:
7
8
9
10
11
12
PerditusRedux started contacting other members of the weird_crap community on LiveJournal.
One of the members confirmed seeing JTK1, but she didn’t remember where she saw the image.
Traumntt, one of our discord members, tried contacting Photobucket Support Team to find out if
they have any backups of the MightyOmnivore image on their servers. It looks like it was
removed for breaking TOS.
MightyOmnivore wasn't able to find an image related to JTK on his old hard drive, but he says
some details about the filename:
13
3. Cman:
The Militarist, one of our ex discord members, found some interesting comments under the video
"Jeff the Killer's True Identity | Mini Mysteries" by Goose Boose. The user Cman is claiming to
have seen the original image on 2ch/Futaba. He described the original image as being of a fat
asian girl (obese), with long, black, oily and shiny hair, no makeup, terrible camera quality,
having a dirty room with visible hanged clothes and a window covered by curtains.
14
We believe these comments might be real because Cman knew about 2ch/Futaba and the image
being reposted on 2ch as a scary image before we contacted Miyama. His description also
aligned with other descriptions we found of the original image from japanese users. But we also
found some discrepancies, of course after almost 20 years since the image was posted it’s normal
to misremember some things.
15
Source: https://hawk.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/livejupiter/1500130432
Discord user Pi0h1 managed to contact Cman, but their discussion didn’t offer any new leads,
Cman just showed us a similar thread to the one he claimed to have seen the image for us to get a
better idea. (http://majikichi.com/archives/8544520.html)
16
17
Image analysis
Firstly I will discuss some speculations we have about the original image, after that we will take
a look at a more in-depth analysis of the edits that we have.
The image was once called prettyFACE as seen in this image board posts:
(https://hobby7.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/occult/1127918832/)
(https://human5.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/honobono/1128780954)
Multiple versions of the image exist; this is most likely how they were made:
1. Original image gets posted

2. Edit gets made
3. Edit gets made on top of another layer
18
Miyama’s tweets seem to support this heavily. The image most likely comes from 2chan. Read
this post from hotandcoldcoffee from the discord server related to the search:
"The origin of JTK is definitely 2chan/gazobox, or a website that uses a system similar to them.
There are two types of image addresses for 2chan and gazobox. src or thumb. src is the actual
image and thumb is a reduced thumbnail of the image. Reduced images are of poorer quality, and
the width is usually scaled to 251. gazobox's JTK image also has a width of 251 and has the
same level of quality as the thumb image. But the image address in gazo JTK uses src, not
thumb. This means that a user of gazobox brought a thumbnail of JTK that was posted
somewhere (possibly 2chan or gazobox) before the gazo05 post."
Terms used more than once by people referencing the image were いつ
もの画像 (the usual image), おたふく (otafuku mask), 白塗り (white
makeup), 白粉 (white powder, used by geisha), オバQ (Obake no Q-Tarou,
an anime/manga character) , パック (face pack), and prettyFACE.
There have also been multiple eyewitnesses who have claimed to have seen the unedited image.
Here are some accounts:
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Comment by エクスカリバー:
"This image before Jeff the Killer is personally scarier back then. Nowadays, I laugh at it, but
during the summer holiday in 2005, I was completely off guard when I was stuck on the BBS for
feature phones called "Tarekomi", which was "interesting image". And it's still the number one
image ranking that scared me. I just saw it there, so it's unclear if "Tarekomi" is the origin of this
image. It may have been pasted as a shock image in various places because of how creepy it is.
Comment by ハム:
"I remember seeing the original image in a mess. I think it was an image of a normal female who
was just a little fat and laughing. Perhaps it was a thread to put a Photoshop image, Jeff the Killer
(which was not called by that name at that time) was pasted together with the original image, and
I remember feeling sorry for it being made a Photoshop. Kora (?) has become famous, but since
there is no one to put the original image on, it seems that the source is unknown."
A few years later, I saw an image of Jeff the Killer, but I was impressed that "something was
overkill, and I wasn't scared at all." I miss many things now."
Comment by える:
"I'm sorry to say that Jeff the Killer was popular before spreading about in 2000. At that time, it
wasn't called Jeff, and the original photo was said to be a Japanese woman (there was a person
who said that she was a Chinese woman in the "rice" section of the occult summary site when I
was researching the other day). The original story probably had a cosmetic mask on their face.
There seems to be a theory that it is a picture of a female YouTuber."
Comments above taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJSHzRXTZk
20
http://blog.livedoor.jp/tansokumery/archives/1011904696.html claims to have seen the og image
around 2004/05 on 2chan (now 5ch)
There is also major speculation that the image is based on Japanese folklore, with
Kuchisake-onna (slit mouthed woman) being based on the prettyFACE name.
According to Wikipedia, the legend goes like this:
"According to popular legend, she asks potential victims if they think she is beautiful. If they
respond with "no", she will kill them with her long medical scissors. If they say "yes", she will
reveal that the corners of her mouth are slit from ear to ear, and she will then repeat her question.
If the individual responds with "no", she will kill them with her weapon, and if they say "yes",
she will cut the corners of their mouth in such a way that resembles her own disfigurement."
The width of the JTK picture found on gazo05 is 251 pixels, which is very similar to the
thumbnail image of the Futaba channel. Thumbnail images in Futaba usually have a width of
250, but sometimes 251. There were many image boards that used futaba's source code, but the
images from JTK had exif data saying "CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), quality
= 30.". As far as I know, only thumbnail images of Futaba show quality as 30. Perhaps the
Futaba channel appears to be one of the original sources of JTK. There was a discussion about
JTK on Futaba recently.
(web.archive.org/web/20220324045756/https://tsumanne.net/si/data/2022/03/22/7932053)
Some users on Futaba claimed to have seen the original JTK image. Here is notable testimony:
*Rumour that 'they were edited photos of a high school girl'. These claims are not unique to that
thread. In 2021, I asked a Japanese YouTuber to write a thread on Futaba. Even at that time, there
was an anon who claimed that JTK was an edited photo of a high school girl.
*Rumour that 'there was laundry in the room' - The 55th reply refers to "laundry". It seems to be
the piece of clothing you see on the left. In the past, the Jeff The Killer article on the Screamer
Wiki had a rumour that "It is also rumoured to be of an overweight Japanese girl in a room with
hanging laundry who spammed her image across the Japanese image board, 2chan in 2004".
2chan is another name for Futaba channel, but it is recommended to refrain from using this name
21
to avoid confusion with 2ch, an internet bulletin board that uses a similar name.
(https://screamer.wiki/index.php?title=Jeff_the_Killer&oldid=96782)
*Rumours that 'witnessed original JTK on 2ch' - That thread claims to have seen the original
JTK image in a 'jar'. 'Jar' is a slang term for 2ch in Futaba. Previously, there were testimonies that
2ch had witnessed the original JTK in 2004 or 2005.
(http://blog.livedoor.jp/tansokumery/archives/1011904696.html)
In gazo05's JTK, exif data of "Resolution Unit : inches , X Resolution : 72Y , Resolution : 72"
also existed, but this is not the data attached to the thumbnail image of Futaba. It looks like it's
probably been uploaded to gazo05 through one pass from Futaba to another website. A JTK
image uploaded recently in July was found on a website called fileman. The same exif data came
out in this image as well. Around the same time, ahenobarbus henocied images and Futaba meme
images were found on this website, which also had the same resolution data as JTK. We need to
find that 'website'.
(The original image of ahenobarbus henocied was also recently discovered in Futaba.)
From these eyewitness reports, the image could have come from a webcam site. Some websites
we suspect are:
1. Girlsonair.tv
2. Haduri
3. Livedess
4. http://www.chatlife.jp/search/sitelist.php
5. http://livechatex.fc2web.com/nonad/02.html
6. http://www.matomex.com/dir/rank.cgi?mode=rank_bf&kt=0502
7. https://www.livechatman.com/
22
Possible origin of edited eyes
The eyes of JTK1 (oldest record found on July 24, 2005) resembles the eyes of a Mr. Potato
Head toy from 1999, more specifically “Toy Story 2 Remote Talking Mr. Potato Head PlaySkool
Hasbro 1999”. A gif showing the similarity between an arbitrary potato head eye and JTK is
shown below as a demonstration.
While JTK2 was made on top of the first edit, the only changes being the mouth and eyes.
* (JTK 2) The eyes in this version were painted in, while the mouth stretched.
The eyes also could have originated from CV若本 which is a Futaba meme.
23
Mole/mouth
It is believed that the mouth belongs to the photo, that is, it is not of a different person/picture, as
it fits perfectly with the face and there are no clear signs that it was placed there.
A mole near the mouth is also notable, but it is not known for sure if it is really a mole.
The hair does not appear to have undergone any changes, although it appears very dark.
Image forensic analysis

˞˗ℓ from the Discord search server wrote up a digital image forensic analysis and where the
image might have possibly originated from:
"Alright. So I want to start by saying by no means I'm a professional at digital image forensics.
There are people out there who can most definitely do a deeper analysis on these images. I'll be
covering the most useful findings:
JPEG fingerprinting and Metadata.
------------INTRO--------------
So in 2020 I decided to take a forensic approach in analyzing Jeff The Killer's image. The images
are used are sourced from Pya.cc and are both the prettyFACE variant and the Jeff variant.
An interesting aspect from the images found in Pya.cc is that the metadata for these are intact.
Which is the reason why we can see user comments, software used and the layer name
(prettyFACE).
24
Let's analyze the JPEG artifacts found in prettyFACE. If you don't know, in the world of digital
image forensics, A JPEG's compression artifacts are very important because it can be used as a
form for detecting various kinds of
image tampering and can be analyzed even if the image was compressed twice. I'll show you my
analysis of these artifacts and what they can reveal to us.
Let's look at prettyFACE's resolution, although it is a very low quality image, it's at 640x548.
There are very visible signs that it was a smaller image scaled to a bigger size, but how can we
confirm this, and most importantly:
What is the original resolution?
The process is simple: In JPEG encoding, a given image is divided into non-overlapping blocks
of size 8x8 pixels. This is because the way JPEG compression works is that it uses a
transformation technique called "Discrete cosine transform" that compresses data in sets of
discrete DCT blocks, usually 8x8. Every time a compressed JPEG image is encoded, it will
contain a DCT grid, even if on top of an already existing DCT grid.
Because these blocks are very hard to observe with the naked eye, we can do a Principal
Component Analysis of the image.
https://i.imgur.com/Ugz08wm.png
In the middle of Jeff's face, we see squares that are exactly 21x21. Using simple maths, we find
out that the image was resized 2.625 its size, and that its original size is in fact 244x209 when
rounded. This is what happens when we resize
the picture.
https://i.imgur.com/OMbNpZF.png
If one has an excellent eye, they can also notice that the image itself has 8x8 grids, which means
it was recompressed to JPEG. (https://i.imgur.com/xBE6HjL.png, highlighted:
https://i.imgur.com/Rr6JuXm.png)
But wait, if you were to look at the clothes on the left, you can see even bigger squares, and
indeed they are 40x40 blocks. It is still fairly hard to perceive the blocks, so in here I have
highlighted them in red. (https://i.imgur.com/ZtHtMDt.png)
These blocks are 40x40, so here is what happens if we resize them to its original size,
https://i.imgur.com/eZBOhic.png. So let's look all of these into a timeline:
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The original image first started out as a very small 130x111 picture. It was then resized and
compressed (2.625x) into 244x209 and then upscaled (around 5x the original) its size at 640x548
and compressed again.
At 244x209 and resized with a rather unusual decimal number, we have a very important clue:
244x209 fits very closely into what is the max horizontal length of a thumbnail (250px) of a
futaba post. The metadata shows us that the image was created by gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG
V62).
gd-jpeg is simply the image processing from libgd, which is used in web for PHP and as futaba's
way of compressing thumbnails automatically. Save any futaba thumbnail and check for its
metadata, you will see the exact same user comment. (https://i.imgur.com/j5Hf5Vl.png)
This directly proves that the earliest variant of this image came from futaba or a similar site, the
same thumbnail aspect ratio and gd-jpeg version can also be found in any 4chan thumb. This
metadata doesn’t prove that this image is from a specific image board, but at least, it proves that
this image came from an image board similar to futaba or 4chan.
The second variant of Jeff shows that the modifications were done on top of blown up
compressed thumbnails, as the actual modifications themselves are higher quality.
https://i.imgur.com/c5WfXRl.png you can even see the brush strokes and the liquify strokes
(This means that the eyes were not cut out from anywhere else, but rather drawn in).
----------CONCLUSION----------
I strongly believe there is strong evidence that the true Jeff the Killer came from an image board
thread with a similar encoding process of Futaba or 4chan. And that the only way to find the
original picture is if someone, somewhere, saved the first image from the thread where this all
started.
Another thing to point out is that it seems like Futaba and 4chan use the same image encoding
process.
The original image was a heavily compressed small thumbnail as of which was later blown up
about 300% into the image we see now.
Another thing said by ˞˗ℓ is that the mouth is likely part of the original image because it has
about the same level of detail and noise on all RGB channels as the rest of the image and has
proper shadows around the cheek (which the rest of the image unfortunately clipped).
26
Here are a couple of things made by him that help explain more in detail about the forensics of
the edits:
Forensic analysis spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/195zJuTR4sigp2HQ6PCe71cbG0uNaiei9J16m3hfW2dw
/edit?usp=sharing
Regarding size, the thumbnail is roughly 251 x 215 [251:215 (1.17)]

Futaba thumbnails lower the src width by one pixel, so in reality it's: 252 x 215 [252:215 (1.17)].
Closest aspect ratios:
VCD
352x240 - 281x240 Diff: 71

352x288 - 337x288 Diff: 15
SVCD
480x480 - 562x480 Diff: 82

480x576 - 675x576 Diff: 195
ASF/SMR/nAVI/RM
320x240 - 281x240 Diff: 39
Webcams in 2005 had either 640x480 video or 320x240.
320x240 - 281x240 Diff: 39

640x480 - 562x480 Diff 78
It is very likely the original image was intended to be 320x240.
By assuming the 1px horizontal part of the bar is not part of the image and applying the
thumbnail 1px difference, we can anchor the image to the bottom center part of the image, and
get an estimate of roughly what is probably the actual size.
Here is a recreation of the original size, using content-aware fill:
27
From this, we can see that the framing of the picture is much more natural and akin to that of a
mounted webcam.
What is a PCA analysis?

The idea behind a PCA analysis is "reducing dimension", what this means is that we reduce the
dimension of the information while still maintaining the variance the information has, as the
principal components go up, the less variance the data actually has and the less the information
displayed has correlation with the overall picture. We can use this along with an equalized
histogram to enhance all the JPEG artifacts that are otherwise very hard to notice to the naked
eye.
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PC3 is where any signs of image compression should be very obvious, and in this case for the
pya.cc JTK2 image, it's completely smooth and free from any 8x8 DCT artefacts.
From this alone, we can notice two things:
● There are huge squares in the background. These are in fact JPEG artefacts from the
original image, specifically the ones from the chrominance channel, blown to 3x its
original size (16x16, as opposed to the luminance channel, which is 8x8).
● The face and eye portions are completely smooth, with absolutely no DCT artefacts.
From metadata and the quantization tables, this also means the image was saved at almost
100% quality (roughly around 98%, quality 11/12).
29
In the original thumbnail image, the last bottom row of the DCT grid is cut short. This is
particularly noticeable on the chrominance channel, where instead of 16x16, it's 16x7. What
happens here is that during the process of the transformation, the edge pixels of the top
neighbour are repeated. (Because it's missing half of the information it needs to get a better
averaging of the pixels.)
And because there is not much information, it sort of creates a "gradient" which is more
noticeable once you upscale it to 3x. As is the case of most Jeff pictures. Because JPEG converts
an RGB to YUV image, all we have to do is check the UV Chrominance channels to see this:
Y (Luminance) U (Blue Chrominance) V (Red Chrominance)
→ ←
U (Contrast enhanced)
30
→ ←
V (Contrast enhanced)
From this, we can see that the "wrapping pixel" artifact is merely the result of the averaging
process in JPEG compression. Specifically, at the bottom part of the chrominance channel
repeating the pixels on top (due to a lack of information on the macro block missing half of its
needed height content).
We can also observe the ringing effect of the 1px white horizontal line, which is commonly seen
in compressed crops of things typically contained in a window frame. (comment from editor: “
a1px white/black line is also caused when cropping a picture with old photoshop versions such
3.0/4.0”, and that was the photoshop version used in the JTK edits)
Resolution & Bytes for image boards

This is useful when searching for a specific image size and dimension. The way the sites have
the codes indexed are different as code changes over time for some of them (2000-2006), and
different image boards on the same domain sometimes have different coding in terms of width
and height because placement and embedding can change due to multiple factors; therefore there
are sometimes multiple ways to type it out when searching the same domain.
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## Replace 1's with resolution, bytes or KB.
chbox.jp
width="111" height="111"
width=111 height=111
11111byte
11111B
11111 B
11KB
fileman.n1e.jp
width='111' height='111'
gamushara.net
111 x 111
11KB
gazo-box.com
11111 B
11111B
11 KB
pya.cc
height="111" width="111"
Width='111' Height='111'
Futaba
11111 B
11111B
32
Unconfirmed Theories
Mariko/Suza
Possibly the most convincing lead that has been discovered thus far would have to be the Mariko
lead. On April 28, 2023, “eatrawskin” discovered a woman on Japanese imageboard
gazo-box.com that went by the name of Mariko. The facial similarities between the subject of the
White Powder edits and the newly discovered lead, such as the hairline and mouth, were quite
intriguing as they were unparalleled compared to previous ones that have been discovered.
Multiple key points of interest were her reputation as a “net-idol” and consistent harassment
from multiple people, which are recurring themes in previous finds. All of this information is
stemmed from an exhaustive two month search conducted by her search team, which are credited
in the last paragraph of this section.
The earliest documented mention of Mariko on the World Wide Web dates back to April 14,
2004, on a Futaba thread. Images and videos of her were documented on an Infoseek page
operated by her “boyfriend”, Suzakumaru (who also had multiple pages about himself), that
acted as a “diet diary” of Mariko attempting to lose weight. Suzakumaru promoted URLs to it on
various websites. The peak of harassment guided towards her was between a three day period on
May 20-22. Multiple threads on 5ch and bbspink referred to her as “the net-idol who would
surpass Sonoko and Terumi”. Later on, a consensus was established between members on
multiple imageboards accusing Suzakumaru of having an unstable relationship with Mariko, due
to how he posted his pictures of her. It is unclear whether or not that Mariko consented to the
creation of the Infoseek page (it has also been theorized that Suzakumaru was attempting to
generate profit off the traffic that came from the onslaught of people discovering her).
An attempt to erase Marikos presence on the Web and Suzakumaru also happened around May
20th of the same year (the majority of the snapshots on the Wayback Machine related to her
come from the immediate aftermath) due to the overwhelming negative reception it had garnered
as a result of the manner in how the images/videos were posed, with additional captions attached
to multiple of them adding fuel to the fire, with some even describing the situation as a “human
rights violation”, asking other people to report the page, despite claims of Mariko expressing
approval with it. Due to the high profile of reposts, it has been theorized that a witness of them
saved at least some of the content created by Suzakumaru, and later modified one of them (or
possibly by Suzakumaru himself) into the well known White Powder edits that in turn was
known by Western audiences as the image that accompanied the infamous Jeff The Killer
33
creepypasta. A fourteen month gap exists between the shutdown of the page and the earliest
known instance of JTK1 appearing (May 2004 - July 2005).
The general idea between the investigation members was that the image used for the White
Powder edits was taken after May 2004 from a (possibly unarchived) video recorded by
Suzakumaru about Mariko, especially since there are at least three video of her, with two being
considered “disturbing” due to the way she looked in them. The possible reason why material of
her is hard to come by was because of a rare instance of 5ch users coming together and
protesting the acts done toward her and thus making them not archived.
The lead is also supported by the fact that Suzakumaru is proficient with Photoshop (version 5.1,
to be exact) and has made edits of himself related to the paranormal, something akin to the
images that we are all familiar with.
Examples of these images (with comparisons between the known edit) are:
34
An image of Suzakumaru seen in a room can be compared to the White Powder edits due to the
positioning of the closet and shoes (image edited by the subject himself that also shows his
interest in the paranormal).
35
Further information is present in a dedicated document such as the thread links containing
mentions of Mariko, more images of the duo and keywords related to the incidents (the status of
it is currently unfinished and will be updated as more information comes along) managed by a
subsection of the investigation team responsible for discovering the lead (consisting of “Prime”,
“Lifted”, “Milk” and “Eatrawskin”):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1luPrIMAGt7OHSlRrKuMT9pI06lB7M2I3_Mne8P8unYg/
edit
White powder link from 2004
On 1 February 2023, a link on pya.cc with “(18+) White powder (Information:

Dakimakura-sama)” was found, and is a potential contender for the earliest instance of the JTK
image so far. The post date is 3 February 2004, more than 1 year from the earliest known
occurrence of the image showing up on the internet. Unfortunately, the whole thing is not
archived and that means that we are not able to see what the post contained.
(https://web.archive.org/web/20040222080251/http://pya.cc/key.php?tpage=3950&keywd=&ord
r=)
We found the forum post and the image link, but these links are dead:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050310060628/http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=262
0 (forum post)
http://pya.cc/pyaimg/img2/2004020308.jpg (image link)
Haduri
Haduri is a webcam site that contains an image that seems to be close to the JTK image.
36
Their username is kojzzang0617 (the image is blurry because of its original resolution, also
because it's a thumbnail)
Note: This is the preview of the person's profile, the image could have been screenshotted from a
video session.
We have attempted to contact somebody who is allegedly the same person in this photo, to no
response. Please don't attempt to contact this person.
THERE IS NO PROOF THAT THIS IS THE UNEDITED IMAGE. THIS IS SELECTED

BECAUSE IT LOOKS CLOSE.
Also, the Reddit eyewitness report points to a cam site, but we can't prove that the person seen
was the one in the JTK image.
Natchi
Also, the Reddit eyewitness report points to a cam site, but we can't
prove that the person seen was the one in the JTK image. Natchi (なっ
ち) was the title for a post on fileman on July 11th, 2005 (3 days before
the earliest jtk). Only the preview was archived, leaving the full post
a mystery. One month later in August, however, there was a comment
saying "Natchi?" on the gazo05 repost page. The name Natchi is
generally a cute nickname for girls whose name starts with Natsu,
like Natsumi or Natsuko. At the time, the nickname was most
popularly used on the internet for Abe Natsumi who was an idol. There
is no more information about this image.
37
Discovered by @Dark_Dominator, an ex discord member (banished for his pedophilic
tendencies)
Fileman preview:
https://web.archive.org/web/20051031084039/http://fileman.n1e.jp/TOP.PHP?mnu=LIST&OFF
SET=6930&cate=&type=ALL&osu=&admin=&act=ST
Gazo05 comment (10):

https://web.archive.org/web/20051030101506/http://gazo05.chbox.jp/occult/19.html
Koge donbo
Koge donbo is a manga artist that became popular in the late 90s. She is known for hiding her
face, but there are a couple of images of it out there. Some comments on japanese threads and
videos also have compared her to the image. The one above spread on a lot of 2ch threads in the
early 2000s. An interview on this show https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4989744 with the clip
showing at 10:15.
Someone also mentioned her on a comment on theつぶろ's video
38
Also, on comment 109 on https://fox.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/poverty/1409227917, a user says
something along the lines of "I thought it was the image where Koge donbo's face picture was
edited to look like a white Oba-Q type face." Presumably they are comparing one of the images
from the thread to JTK
Another old picture of her
Sonoko
Sonoko Tsukagoshi was a popular net idol from approximately 2000-2007, with websites that
spiked in popularity around 2005. Sonoko has uploaded hundreds of images, gifs, and videos of
herself across multiple websites. Due to her physical appearance and brief meme status across
2chan threads (mostly for the purpose to harass her) it is believed she could be a possible
identity.
Document on Sonoko's threads, websites and related things:
39
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GvNIbRSofmzFo8ROjJYnv1FRiu2zSYLjray_IXrA9ZI/ed
it?usp=drivesdk
Japanese Webcam Site

One of the theories for the origins of the Jeff The Killer picture is that, according to /b/ old fags,
it was originally an "ugly as a sin" camgirl from a japanese webcam site like Stickam in 2005
that had her picture of her webcam taken during a streaming session and a photoshop battle
thread created to mock her. She was also mocked for having a very strong webcam flash on her
face, so the brightness on her face was exaggerated for comical/scare effect.
This theory has a very strong base supported by multiple facts:
1. The original image resolution corroborates to that of Futaba's thumbnails.

2. The second variant of Jeff's image is drawn on top of the low resolution but upscaled image,
typical of "photoshop battles" type threads
3. The original resolution is tiny, such size is typical of mid 2000s webcam sites.
4. The very clipped highlights and shadows suggest that Photoshop's legacy Brightness/Contrast
tool was used to ramp up the contrast.
5. If one were to analyze the bottom horizontal line of the picture, they'll find it's the exact same
line found in screen captures of Stickam webcam windows. (NSFW proof:
https://imgur.com/a/3Efjt8R)
40
Debunked Rumours
To get everything out of the way first, the Katy Robinson rumour is false, she is not the person in
the original image. The rumour comes from 2008. We found Katy Robinson on a Christian
forum: https://web.archive.org/web/20061122165849/http://www.truechristian.com/favoa.html .
Katy Robinson's real name is Heather White. In 2019, Heather was interviewed by user Gage. In
this interview, Heather confirms that the story is fake, here is the link to the interview:
http://web.archive.org/web/20191002223047/https://pastebin.com/A4kwc5Kp
This image is not the least photoshopped edit. Source here:

https://www.deviantart.com/reed82/art/81408-Jeff-the-killer2-351856947
There was a rumour about a third JTK image which depicted Jeff next to a dirty bathtub holding
a piece of flesh, and that he had long fingers. This rumour is most likely false, because there is
no evidence about this image existence and an anon on 4chan admitted to have created this
rumour:
http://web.archive.org/web/20220210233156/https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/13132950/
There are many fake edits floating around the internet claiming to be the original image, but
most of them are just mock-ups created on the discord server or images that we found on discord.
If you found an image, and you are not sure if it’s fake or not, don’t spread it, join our discord
and ask if it was debunked.
Here is a list of debunked images:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tGpsoGAy4ehgGz0nXts-NxImnO17CEpS6sAXdU
rICmc
41
Annex 1: Miyama twitter posts
https://twitter.com/miyama/status/1431573912467361792
https://twitter.com/miyama/status/1434353250031988741?s=19
https://twitter.com/DARKDANTE5000/status/1434283642243723271
42

Original Jeff The Killer Image - What We Know and What We Think

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Original Jeff The Killer Image - What We Know and What We Think

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Original Jeff The Killer Image - What We Know and What We Think

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Last Edited: 29 November 2023

Current bounty: $11,401 USD

r/OriginalJTKImage JTK Image Search Official

We found about the Obake no Q trend from this board:

Discord user My little emo found the image link

1. Original image gets posted

Comments above taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJSHzRXTZk

According to Wikipedia, the legend goes like this:

Image forensic analysis

Forensic analysis spreadsheet:

Regarding size, the thumbnail is roughly 251 x 215 [251:215 (1.17)]

Closest aspect ratios:

352x240 - 281x240 Diff: 71

480x480 - 562x480 Diff: 82

320x240 - 281x240 Diff: 39

Webcams in 2005 had either 640x480 video or 320x240.

320x240 - 281x240 Diff: 39

It is very likely the original image was intended to be 320x240.

Here is a recreation of the original size, using content-aware fill:

What is a PCA analysis?

From this alone, we can notice two things:

Y (Luminance) U (Blue Chrominance) V (Red Chrominance)

Resolution & Bytes for image boards

White powder link from 2004

On 1 February 2023, a link on pya.cc with “(18+) White powder (Information:

THERE IS NO PROOF THAT THIS IS THE UNEDITED IMAGE. THIS IS SELECTED

Gazo05 comment (10):

Someone also mentioned her on a comment on theつぶろ's video

Another old picture of her

Document on Sonoko's threads, websites and related things:

Japanese Webcam Site

This theory has a very strong base supported by multiple facts:

1. The original image resolution corroborates to that of Futaba's thumbnails.

This image is not the least photoshopped edit. Source here:

Here is a list of debunked images:

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