CROSBY, Minn. — A man-made lake in Crosby, formerly a mine pit, has been home to a slasher villain for a decade. Jason Voorhees, popularized by the "Friday the 13th" film franchise, was placed 112 feet below the surface at Louise Mine Lake in 2013. Today you can still find him, creepy as ever.
Ten years ago, Doug Klein, a big fan of the movies, decided to create "Jason" out of scraps he got from construction sites while working his day job as an electrician. Klein, who also scuba dives, borrowed a fake head from his diving buddy, Curtis Lahr and spent around thirty dollars on some thrift store clothes.
Placing the figure down there had its challenges.
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"Because he was made out of wood and bubble wrap, he was really buoyant," Klein said. "I got him down to the bottom where I wanted to chain him to the pipe and grabbed the cinderblocks to move him over closer to the pipe, to chain him on. And when I did that, the rope broke. And because he was so buoyant, he shot to the top like a Polaris missile."
Klein said initially he worried "Jason" may have scared others out on the water.
"All I could think when I was down there is, as he was going up, I’m thinking, ah, I hope there’s not a kayaker or a tuber up there, because it’s gonna scare the crap out of them," he said.
Thankfully, Klein successfully submerged the creepy character. Then every few years, Lahr posted YouTube videos, filming his dives to visit the statue.
"I think it was probably 2017, I went and took a selfie with him," Lahr said. "Went down, shot a video with me right next to him and posted that, it was just real short. And that video went viral."
Just like many horror movies, the stunt had mixed critical reception.
"People would say like a lot of positive things, like that’s the coolest thing ever. And there was people that would say – somebody’s gonna get hurt, they’re gonna get scared and go to the surface too fast."
However, Lahr and Klein assured me that Jason's depth of 112 feet means only an advanced open-water diver would be able to access him, and if you're down that low already, you're sure to see plenty of other amusing objects placed down there: flamingos, pirates, and a mermaid.
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"I intentionally put him a lot deeper so that he was a destination," Klein said. "So if you knew about him and you had the training, you could go down and look at him. Because he’s pushing the edge of the recreational limits."
Over the past decade, Jason has become a national destination. Lahr and Klein say divers have traveled from Washington state and California to pay him a visit.
"I’m just glad people enjoy it," Klein said. "I never would’ve imagined that it would’ve blown up like this, but people just really enjoy it, and that makes me happy."
So what's next? Klein said he's cooking up an idea to make a Freddy Krueger. In his garage in Princeton, he's already got a mannequin in mind.
"That will be pretty easy, because all I gotta do is find the clothes, and make the glove with the knives on it," he said. "And then he’ll be done."
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