A Nightmare on Elm Street: Nancy's mother, Marge, explains that Freddy Krueger was the Springwood Slasher, a serial killer who took kids to a boiler room and slashed them up. Krueger had killed 20 kids before he was eventually caught but not convicted because the justice system is messed up.

Over the course of the first two Nightmare on Elm Street films, all we really learn about Freddy is that he was a blue collar worker who killed his young victims in a boiler room, and that his signature knife-glove was a homemade murder weapon.