Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
- A pro-choice politician in Missouri thought anti-abortion extremists were targeting her.
- She was mailed an eerie anonymous drawing that she believed was "related to abortion."
- It turned out it was marketing for "The First Omen" a film about the birth of the antichrist.
Amanda Taylor gets a lot of mail. The Missouri-based mom has spent the last few years establishing herself as a film blogger and recently turned her hand to politics, meaning her mailbox is full of promotional materials from film studios and leaflets concerning local issues.
But when Taylor, who is running for the state's House of Representatives as a Democratic Party candidate picked up her mail in late March and opened an envelope to find nothing but what appeared to be a children's drawing, her mind went into overdrive.
Why? Well, the crudely drawn picture featured four women with their faces scribbled over, standing around the floating body of a little girl who looks out with a disturbing gaze. Taylor's name was also scrawled in spidery, slightly eerie handwriting on the envelope.
To anyone else, it would be creepy. To someone running for public office on a pro-choice ticket in a state that outlaws abortion with limited exceptions, it felt very sinister, threatening even.
Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
"Right away, I was thinking, 'Ah, this has something to do with abortion," Taylor told Business Insider. "The day before I had received something from a pro-life organization so I was like, 'Okay, I'm starting to receive all the propaganda stuff.'"
Not knowing what to make of the mysterious letter — it came with no return address and featured an out-of-state stamp — Taylor sent it to her campaign advisor, who quickly called the police, fearing the letter was from one of Taylor's constituents, unhappy with her stance on reproductive rights.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Missouri GOP officials have triggered a near-total ban on abortion procedures— with no exceptions for rape or incest, only some medical emergencies. Taylor is among those campaigning and gathering signatures to bring the issue back on the ballot.
"She called me, and she was like, 'Put that into a plastic bag, wash your hands, the police are on the way,'" Taylor said, explaining that her campaign advisor was concerned the paper could have been laced with something poisonous.
Taylor said it wasn't until a few weeks after she had set herself up a PO to redirect mail away from the family residence, that she discovered the identity of the letter sender.
It was Marshall Weinbaum, a senior publicist from Walt Disney Studio's PR department.
The letter, it turned out, was just an elaborate publicity stunt to promote "The First Omen," the latest installment in the long-running horror franchise. Weinbaum has been credited with thinking up the marketing stunt.
The creepy kids' drawings, it turns out, appear in the new movie, which fills in the back story of 1976's original "Omen" movie, introducing the world to Damien, a terrifying take on the antichrist.
After sending the first anonymous letter, Weinbaum had the team working on the horror flick send prospective critics another equally disturbing image, this time featuring five little girls looking on as a sixth girl floating in the sky.
Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
However, this one, Taylor said, was sent alongside all the standard information you normally would find on a press release, including the film's name, synopsis, and the hashtags the studio would like cinemagoers to use while talking about the film on social media.
It all clicked into place and Taylor realized that she and her family were safe.
Now, looking back on it, she can almost see the funny side.
"That was the best promotion I've ever seen," she continued. "But it's also the one that's affected me the most."