Jonathan Colton (Who is Killing the Cheerleaders?)

**Jonathan Colton** (Austin Freeman) is the main villain from the 2020 Lifetime film, *Who is Killing the Cheerleaders?* (airdate October 18, 2020).

## Backstory

Jonathan was a resident of a small town in Georgia named Mosier. In high school, he was a socially awkward nerd that took pictures for the yearbook. He had a crush on one of the cheerleaders was main protagonist Elliete "Ellie" Oliver, but she saw him as nothing more than a friend. Whenever he tried to ask her out, she would just laugh it off, along with her friends. These incidents fueled Jonathan's hatred of Ellie, her friends, and women in general, believing that they were nothing more than just bitches who thought they were better than him.

As a result of this hatred, Jonathan snapped one day and killed one of them, hanging her body from the bleachers. In the span of a couple weeks, he murdered two other cheerleaders and left one of their bodies in a locker. Then, one night after a game, a masked Colton attacked Ellie and the remaining two cheerleaders with a chef's knife. He killed the other two and attempted to kill Ellie, however, was prevented from doing so, when the police showed up to the school. While he was distracted with the sirens, Ellie managed to pull off his mask. Colton then stabbed Ellie, leaving her severely wounded and fled. Ellie survived, but fortunately for him, blocked out the memory.

## Events

Ten years later, Ellie returned to Mosier and still harboring hatred for her, Jonathan began stalking and tormenting her. He started out doing small things like appearing outside her house and moving her stuff. But when Ellie became the coach for the current cheer squad, Jonathan began kidnapping the team and recreating the set-ups for the original murders which resulted latest recruit Chloe Carter to abduct her. In attempt to frame Ellie and make her wonder if she really was the killer, Jonathan stole her phone and activated it at every attack site. He also spiked her drinks, so she would have memory loss during the time of the attacks.

Days after the disappearance of the third cheerleader, Ellie began to suspect that another teacher at the school, Lisbeth Trudel, was behind everything, due to also having a hatred for cheerleaders. When she went to Jonathan's house to find and tell him about her suspicions, however, her memory of the murders came back to her and she realized that Jonathan was the one. Upon seeing her memory returned, he knocked her out and tied her up in his attic. Once he had her, he confessed and explained that his intention to frame her for everything. However, his plan was foiled when Ellie's cheer squad, who had followed her to Jonathan's house, recorded his evil gloating. Ellie informed him of this and used the distraction to escape her binds and knock Jonathan out with a fireplace poker. Afterwards, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

## Victims

* Abigail (stabbed on a throat and hanged from the bleachers)
* Maggie (method unknown; body was found in a locker with a lots of blood)
* Dana (method unknown; corpse was found in a trunk)
* Kat (stabbed on the stomach)
* Val (stabbed)
* Ellie Oliver (attempted and failed, several times)