‘Jeff is inside me’: Teen killer blames internet bogeyman for mum’s murder

A teenager convicted of murdering his mother blamed it on an internet bogeyman in a case with disturbing parallels to the infamous "Slender Man stabbing".

Donovan Nicholas was 14 when he fatally stabbed and shot his father's long-time girlfriend Heidi Taylor in Urbana, Ohio, in April 2017.

Ms Taylor and her partner, Shane Nicholas, had raised their children as a blended family.

In a chilling call to 911, Donovan Nicholas told the dispatcher he was not to blame, but had been "taken over" by somebody called "Jeff".

"I'm sorry, this will come out really hard to explain but I kind of have another person inside me," he said.

"He killed her, he snapped".

He claimed "Jeff" was "tired" of Ms Taylor, and claimed she used drugs.

"I am so scared, I didn't want to kill her," he said.

"I hate Jeff so much. He's going to make me die in prison."

"Jeff", US media has reported, is based on the internet urban legend of "Jeff the Killer".

The character is usually depicted as an insane, sadistic killer with a white face, wide grin, and no eyelids or nose.

Nicholas's defence claimed he had dissociative identity disorder, which the prosecution rejected.

The jury agreed with the latter, convicting Nicholas in July this year as an adult of aggravated murder.

He has been sentenced to life in jail and will be eligible for parole in 28 years, but his defence has indicated they will appeal the decision.

The case has eerie similarities to a stabbing carried out in Wisconsin in 2014 by two 12-year-old girls against their friend.

The attackers, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser claimed they had done it to protect their families from the "Slender Man", another internet urban legend who is usually shown as a tall, inhuman hunter of children.

The victim, Payton Leutner, survived the attack.

Weier and Geyser were both committed to state psychiatric care.