The Scary, Weird, Somewhat True Story of the Fairfax "Bunny Man"

[FSogol]

Often with urban legends, there’s the story and there’s the truth. That’s what makes the tale of Fairfax County’s Bunny Man so eerie, so bizarre and so downright creepy. While there are several variations of the urban legend splashed across the furthest reaches of the Internet, the true story of the Bunny Man may actually be even weirder. “A creepy guy, on Halloween, dressed oddly, throwing hatchets at people…it’s just too bizarre to possibly be true,” says Fairfax County Archivist Brian Conley, “But it is.”

For four decades, the legend of the Bunny Man has captivated Northern Virginia fear-seekers. Conley first heard the tale when he was an area youngster in the 1970s. It showed up in a 1973 University of Maryland undergrad’s class paper. It has been told and retold by local teens for years. While the legend has evolved and changed through the years, it follows these lines: In the early 20th century, deep in the woods that divided the town of Clifton from Fairfax Station, there was an asylum for the insane. At some point, the asylum closed and the residents were piled into a bus bound for Lorton Prison. On the way there, the bus swerved and crashed. Many of the convicts escaped, but were caught–save one, Douglas Grifon. While searching for him, authorities found a trail of half-eaten, gutted bunnies with many hanging from what was then-called Fairfax Station Bridge. For months, the police searched for Grifon, but he was never found. Then, on Halloween night, several teens were hanging out under the bridge. At the stroke of midnight, they were attacked. The next morning, they were found hanging from the bridge, gutted like bunnies. To this day, it’s said that if you are at Bunny Man Bridge at midnight on Halloween night, you too will meet the fate of those teens and rabbits.

“It is a helluva good piece of creative writing,” Conley says about what he thinks is the most widely known version of the story—an account that follows this narrative from “Timothy Forbes” on castleofspirits.com. He specifically cites historical inaccuracies for why the account is false–like that Lorton Prison wasn’t open until 1916, there’s no Fairfax court record of Douglas Grifon and the “old Clifton Library” (where the article’s author tells skeptics evidence exists) never even existed.

A constant trickle of Bunny Man questions re-engaged Conley’s interest in the story. “I got tired of saying I don’t know,” he explains. It took nearly a decade of research, but in 2002, he published what has to be considered the foremost paper on the subject. What he discovered is that the real story is even more bizarre than the legend.

Rest of the story by Matt Blitz at:

https://www.washingtonian.com/2015/10/23/the-scary-weird-somewhat-true-story-of-the-fairfax-bunny-man/

[skypilot]

1. I remember...

...being told about the Bunny Man when I was a kid living in Washington, D.C. This was in the early 70s. The version I was told was that the Bunny Man had the body of a man and the head of a rabbit and only came out at night during thunderstorms. He also carried a handkerchief that could cut your head off if he swiped it at you.

[FSogol]

2. We heard the story every year and when we started driving we would always go over there

and hang out (drink beer). Nowadays on Halloween, the police close off that road except for residents. In the 70s, we knew him as an escaped mental patient in a bunny suit with a hatchet.