So, working on this fanlore wiki (if you don't know about it, check it out here), has me considering the timeline of The Black Phone. Hear me out as I try and explain my process.
1957: The Grabber kills Felix York, Calvin O'Keefe, and Ronnie 'Spike' Matuka Jr over a prolonged period of time at Camp Alpine Lake.
1975: Billy Showalter is kidnapped on his paper route by the Grabber, probably during the summer based on the setting of the ghost flashback. Hope Adler/Blake is also killed after discovering Billy by the Grabber, who stages her death as a suicide.
1975/76: Griffin Stagg is kidnapped, either before or after Billy.
Spring 77: Vance Hopper is kidnapped.
18 July 78: Bruce Yamada is kidnapped after a baseball game.
9 Nov 78: Robin Arenallo is kidnapped behind a convenience store.
Friday Nov 78: Finney Blake is kidnapped walking home from school.
"Established in canon" means events that are actually depicted onscreen, or referred to with a definite date such as through title cards, or dialogue referencing a specific period of time.
e.g. "our mom died seven years ago" by Gwen in 1982, or the opening titlecard of The Black Phone (2022) establishing 'North Denver 1978'.
Established in canon: Hope's phone call to Gwen about the dead kids in 1957, and Camp Alpine Lake's closure in 1958.
Honestly, aside from the order of the victims shown to us in dream sequences, there is no evidence to suggest when each of the Alpine Lake kids was killed. The only endpoint we have is Hope's phonecall sometime in 1957, when she was having dreams of the murdered children. Thus, these murders occurred at the end of 1957 at the very latest.
On one hand, mando does mention them as if they're one singular event, and I find it hard to believe that the camp would have stayed open if the kids keep getting killed sequentially. However, I find it more compelling that it's maybe over the span over a season, or a few years. Enough to let the dread set in, but close enough that it works timeline wise. Also, we don't know exactly how much was known about these kids. Were they all considered murdered, or just missing? I know they talk about finding pieces Calvin's burnt jacket, but was that conclusive enough to denote murder instead of "death by misadventure"?
It could be like, Al does his killings over a season or two of his tenure, getting sloppier by the end and just leaving pieces behind cause fuck it. He knows that they won't check the ice-skating lake, he's gotten away with it already.
But either way, there are some weird temporal crinkles, like how no one would connect the killings to this one guy showing up, or notice they stopped when he's gone. But then again, it could just be a culmination of years of abuse for him.
I just really struggle to imagine he killed all 3 of them in one night, that's some major fucking hauling ass he has to do. Plus, even if it was spread across a few days, how would he get away with it with the camp at best worried about a lost kid, and at worst a murderer?
There is also the question of the Grabber's modus operandi.
Did he always have a thing for the slow game of stalking, then prolonging the murders over time, like he does in TBP? Or did it start as something abrupt and violent, and Al realised he needed to be more careful if he wanted to continue this as he went on? I don't think there's a right answer necessarily.
"The Grabber" Kidnappings and Murders
The more thorny canon of The Black Phone, because the flashback with Hope and Billy in Black Phone 2 (2025) retcons/changes so much!
The Black Phone (2022) is set in 1978, and Black Phone 2 (2025) is set in 1982.
Billy Showalter was kidnapped around the same time as Hope's death, between 1975-6
Vance Hopper is kidnapped 'last spring', probably 1977
Bruce Yamada is kidnapped after a baseball game on July 18th
Robin Arellano is kidnapped behind a convenience store on Nov 9th
Finney Blake is kidnapped sometime in November, probably on a Friday and held captive at least over the weekend
There is VERY limited evidence about the duration of the boy's captivity in the Grabber's basement, aside from being able to infer that they were down there long enough to play the "Naughty Boy" game. I'm not even going to make any assumptions here.
We see that their ghost boy's testimony is unreliable as their memories and identity decays after death, so it's tricky to make extrapolations from their knowledge of the layout of the house, stages of the game, etc.
In contrast, the costume design and makeup of their mortal injuries are a much better narrator, as they capture a snapshot of their time of death. What's important to consider is that none of the boys show signs of prolonged captivity- such as emaciation, ragged clothes, grown out hair etc. This suggests that they may have only been kept alive for a reasonable period of days to weeks. I say this only because there is a significant deal of fanon regarding some of the boys being kept for years, and I cannot find any source backing this up.
Regarding the Grabber's MO: Doing a lil bit of research into "cooling off" periods and frequency of serial killings, there doesn't appear to be a strong casual relationship between murders increasing over time. The cooldown periods where normal life resumes can last days or years, and tends to be prolonged either by satisfaction with the previous killing (e.g. trophies) or increased risk of law enforcement. Now we have no evidence about why the Grabber kills in the intervals that he did, only that 1978 shows a distinct ramping up in killings with bruce, robin, and finney.
Interestingly, some studies show that the longest cooling off period tends to be between the 1st and 3rd murders, which would align nicely with the 3 year period we have between Billy/Griffin and Vance. Of course this doesn't account for the Alpine Lake murders, and the decades long break in between.
Onto TBP2 retcons: it places Billy's kidnapping waay before what the fandom originally expected after the first film. This shifts the whole timeline backwards, and brings into question if he or Griffin was the first victim. Whilst Max's crime board states that Billy is the 'second' missing kid, this evidence is not the most reliable (read more below), and one could argue that Hope's dreams would be triggered by the first missing kid, not the second. I honestly can't say either way, there's just not enough evidence to convince me, therefore I am putting Griffin flexibly in 1975-6 to account for before or after Billy.
But what about Max's crime board, or the missing persons posters?
Well that's tricky, as it has been pointed out by other fans that these props are not consistent with other elements of the films. For example, the newspaper clippings on Max's board for Vance Hopper state that he is the fourth victim, whilst Gwen's dialogue states that Vance went missing 'last spring' referring to 1977, before Bruce Yamada, the supposed "third victim" on July 18th 1978. As @fisticuffy said in this post , props are not the most reliable sources for canon because they are often created before the script is finalized. This is not even beginning to get into the shitstorm that is the unofficial props such as posters from influencer mailers. Those are bad, and I'm going to disregard them entirely.
In general, I prioritize dialogue and title cards as more sufficient evidence for establishing a canon because these elements are more deliberate and prominent in the films, and thus must have undergone more scrutiny than background props.
And that's all! Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk and let me know what y'all think.
