Most of the two thousand got themselves to a television or kept a constant cell phone vigil with viewers. It took only a few TV mentions for the trench coat connection to take hold. It sounded so obvious. Of course! Trench coats, Trench Coat Mafia!
TV journalists were actually careful. They used attribution and disclaimers like "believed to be" or "described as." Some wondered out loud about the killers' identities and then described the TCM, leaving viewers to draw the link. Repetition was the problem. Only a handful of students mentioned the TCM during the first five hours of CNN coverage--virtually all fed from local news stations. But reporters homed in on the idea. They were responsible about how they addressed the rumors, but blind to the impact of how often.
Kids "knew" the TCM was involved because witnesses and news anchors had said so on TV. They confirmed it with friends watching similar reports. Word spread fast--conversation was the only teen activity in south Jeffco Tuesday afternoon. Pretty soon, most of the students had multiple independent confirmations. They believed they knew the TCM was behind the attack as a fact. From 1:00 to 8:00 P.M., the number of students in Clement Park citing the group went from almost none to nearly all. They weren't making it up, they were repeating it back.