After the above picture recently went viral, the interwebs wondered if this picture was real or fabricated? The interesting thing about the picture above is that it does come from an actual urban legend. A man. A killer. One bunny suit. Yes, a killer bunnyman. Although I should mention upfront, the above image is a fake.

As per Snopes.com “The above-displayed photograph was taken around 2010 by photographer Eliot Lee Hazel as part of his Poppy Field Gang collection. The man in the bunny mask, as well as the woman in the chicken mask, can be seen in several other photos in this collection.”

What’s the Bunnyman Urban Legend?

The year is 1904. The skies are grey but the colors of the leaves brighten the streets with wonderful yellows and reds. The Asylum Prison in Crimson Virginia made their way from point A to point B. Their closure means they’re tasked with the duty of transporting all inmates to another facility. Trip after trip, everything goes well. During the last trip, the driver loses control of the vehicle and crashes. Most passengers including the driver die. However, ten inmates go missing.

They find all inmates but one. But, the worst part is yet to come. From here, locals walking in the nearby area report seeing skinned bunnies, half-eaten, hanging from trees. This caused the police to search the area again. They found the remains of Marcus Wallster near the bridge we now call the Bunny Man Bridge on Colchester Road in Virginia. The man was skinned alive and half-eaten. The culprit’s name was Douglas J Griffin. They nicknamed him “the bunny man.”

The police tracked him down, but not before a struggle where they lost him again. He ran across the nearby train tracks as the train was coming and was hit and killed. They say his maniacal laughter echoed as the train hit him. It turns out, the reason he was institutionalized was for killing his family during Easter Sunday.

Nowadays, people say they see a ghost of a man wearing a bunny suit. The scariest thing is, if you walk near Bunnyman Bridge, his ghost chases you with a hatchet.

But, is this story true or is it just an urban legend?

It turns out this story is false. To start with, there was never an asylum in Fairfax County Virginia. There’s no record of a Douglas J Griffin or an inmate with that name. There’s also no record of a Marcus Wallster, alive or dead. The interesting thing is that the “Bunnyman Bridge” wasn’t even built until two years after this story first originated.

So, What Did Happen?

It turns out the legend of the Killer Bunnyman comes from a couple of real events that happened near the Colchester Road bridge in Virginia. However, these stories are far different from the original urban legend.

The first incident occurred on October 19th, 1970. A US Air Force Cadet was coming from a family member’s home with his girlfriend. Parked near the bridge they spotted something moving in the distance. Moments later a man broke their window with a hatchet and screamed at them. He yelled and told them they were trespassing… The reports of both people in this party differ slightly. The cadet says the man was wearing a white suit with long bunny ears. However, when the police interviewed the girlfriend, she stated the man was wearing a white Klansman suit, which is long and pointy. They found a hatchet inside the car afterward.

Ten days later a construction worker came upon a man wearing a rabbit suit in the nearby area threatening to hurt him if he doesn’t get off his property, waving a hatchet in the air.

After this, phone calls poured into the police department of bunny man sightings near the bridge. The media got a hold of it and stories of the Bunny Man flew off the shelves.

I’m not sure which stories are worse though, the real one or the fake urban legend. Either way, it makes for a great story this Halloween. So, when someone asks you what you’re going to be for Halloween, just tell them you’re going to be a Bunny Man and see if they get the reference.

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