In Supernatural, the spirit was a man named Jacob Karns, a preacher in 1862, who was so angry about the red light district that he went there one night and killed 13 prostitutes with a hook. Jacob was later sentenced to death and was hanged. His body was buried in an unmarked grave, and his silver hook donated to the church, where it was melted down and created into something else. Following that, the spirit of the hook man latched onto priests and their daughters.