What do you think of when you think of Easter? Odds are the first thing to pop into your head is the Easter bunny. Well, we aren’t going to talk about a cute, irresistible fluffy critter, after all this is a horror site. Instead, to mark the holiday, we are going to explore another bunny, the dark legend of the menacing Bunny Man.
The first incident with the Bunny Man was reported on October 19, 1970, by U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée. While visiting relatives on Guinea Road in Burke. Around midnight, the couple was returning from a football game, and reportedly parked their car in a field on Guinea Road to “visit an Uncle who lived across the street from where the car was parked”. As they sat with the motor running, they noticed something moving outside the rear window. Then out of nowhere, the front passenger window was smashed by a figure in white. As they pulled away and continued to drive down the road, the couple discovered a hatchet on the car floor, which is what had broken the window. They quickly reported the event to the police and when asked for a description of the man, Bennett insisted he was wearing a white suit with long bunny ears.
The next reported sighting happened on October 29, 1970, when a security guard, Paul Phillips, approached a man standing on the porch of an unfinished home, in Kings Park West on Guinea Road. Phillips said the man was wearing a gray, black, and white bunny costume and began chopping at a porch post with a long-handled ax, saying: “You are trespassing. If you come any closer, I’ll chop off your head.”
The Fairfax County Police opened investigations into both incidents, but the investigations quickly came to a dead-end thanks to the lack of evidence. In the following weeks, over 50 people reported having seen the Bunny Man, including several witnesses that reported that the Bunny Man had killed and eaten a man’s cat. The mystery man often threw axes at the vehicles of passersby and made threats. There were even rumors that he killed kill hitchhikers. Back in 1982, a grainy black and white photo surfaced of the Bunny Man dragging a girl into an abandoned house. If it’s real, we’ll never know.
Many reports stated that the Bunny Man was often seen at the Colchester Overpass, now known as “The Bunny Man Bridge,” which has since become a dark tourist attraction after the legend evolved into many forms, including a ghost story, drawing paranormal investigators from all over the U.S.
At one point, Douglas J. Grifon, who was sentenced for killing his family on Easter Sunday, became the prime ghostly suspect. Back in 1904 inmates were being transferred from a prison asylum to a new building, but the bus crashed. All of the prisoners were recovered except for one, Mr. Grifon. After the crash, many locals claimed to have found hundreds of skinned, half-eaten rabbit corpses hanging in the trees. While searching the area, the police found the body of a murdered man, Marcus Walter, who was hanging from Bunny Man Bridge. Reportedly, the police finally located Douglas but as they were attempting to arrest him, he was hit by a train, and his spirit has since haunted the area.
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Since Bunny Man’s first appearance in news headlines across the U.S., several films and series have featured the frightening character. He even briefly appeared in an episode of “Family Guy” in October of 2020 and was featured on an episode of Prime Video’s series “Lore.” Feature films about the man include The Bunny Man (2021), The Bunnyman Massacre, The Man in the Rabbit Mask, and Bunnyman, which is currently streaming on Prime Video.
What do you think? Is there a floppy-eared killer out there? Could it be the spirit of a murder? Or was it just some teen getting their kicks by harassing and scaring people?
