
Most of us don’t consider rabbits all that scary. However, there is a very small portion of the population that suffers from leporiphobia (the fear of rabbits). If that describes you, then you’ll probably want to stop reading this article right now because the following story will probably deepen your fear of bunnies tenfold. In fact, even if you aren’t leporiphobic, the following story might scare you because pretty much everyone is scared of axe murderers.
The story of the Bunny Man, a local legend from the small town of Clifton, Virginia, has many different variations. Most variations of the story, though, incorporate a few common elements: Halloween, an insane asylum, a bridge, an axe, and a bunny suit. You can probably see where this is going. Every Halloween, youths in this Washington, D.C. suburb flock to a particular bridge in hopes of catching a horrifying glimpse at the Bunny Man. Some say he’s a ghost, some say he’s a murderer in a bunny suit, and some say that he’s an escaped patient from an insane asylum.

Regardless of what you believe about the Bunny Man, this legend draws so many people to a certain bridge in Clifton every Halloween that the police have had to post officers at the site to keep things under control. Let’s take a look at the legend that’s causing all this commotion and take a deep dive into the lore of the Bunny Man.
Variations of the Bunny Man Legend
As previously mentioned, the Bunny Man legend comes in many different variations. However, in every version of the legend, the locale is the same: a bridge tucked away in the woods between Manassas and Fairfax Station on Colchester Road.
In one version of the story, the Bunny Man has essentially taken on the lore of the Bloody Mary (or Candyman from the classic Clive Barker horror story). In this version, the Bunny Man will appear if you go to the bridge on Halloween night at the stroke of midnight and say his name three times. However, by doing so, according to legend, you’re guaranteeing that you won’t survive. The Bunny Man will slash your throat and leave you dangling from the top of the bridge.
Another version of the story claims that the Bunny Man is the ghost of a former patient that was held at a nearby mental hospital. As this version goes, the patient went crazy after the murder of his wife and child in the woods around Colchester Road. Determined to avenge the deaths of his family, he escaped the mental hospital and hid in the woods, waiting to encounter his family’s killer. To survive, the man would kill and eat rabbits, mutilating their bodies and leaving them hanging from the bridge. Eventually, the man graduated to doing the same to human passersby. Even after the man died, his ghost still haunts the same area and waits for victims to slash up and hang from the bridge.

Some also say that the Bunny Man is just a crazed serial killer that searches for victims under the bridge around Halloween. In most reported encounters of the Bunny Man, he’s wielding an axe, which he’ll throw at passing cars. Some have even reported finding axes in the woods around Colchester Road. Needless to say, the police have not attributed any murders in Clinton, Virginia, to the Bunny Man (or anyone dressed in a bunny suit).
Still, while these stories may sound pretty fantastical, a historian from the Fairfax County Public Library named Brian Conley set out to discover if there was any historical basis for this legend. And you might be surprised what he found…
The Origin of the Bunny Man
After extensive research into the origins of the Bunny Man legend, local historian Brian A. Conley was about to pinpoint two particular instances of a man in a rabbit suit attacking people with an axe. Both of these incidents occurred in the year 1970 and both were reported to police and remain a part of the public record.
The first incident occurred on the night of October 19, 1970. Air Force Academy Cadet Robert Bennett and his fiance were driving home from a football game when they decided to visit a relative who lived near Colchester Overpass (which is now known as “Bunny Man Bridge”). They parked their car near the overpass but kept the engine running. Not long after, they noticed a figure moving in the rearview mirror.

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Only seconds later, the front windshield of the car was smashed to bits. Cadet Bennett immediately began to drive away. And, as they departed, they noticed a man dressed in all white standing near their car. The couple reported that the man shouted at them, “You’re on private property, and I have your tag number!”
Cadet Bennett told the police that the man was wearing an all-white outfit with long bunny ears on his head. However, his fiance claimed that he was not wearing bunny ears, but rather a white capirote (which is the type of hat that Ku Klux KIan members would wear). The idea that the man would have been wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit makes far more sense than a pair of bunny ears, particularly for the location and time period. Nevertheless, this is believed to be the incident that spawned the Bunny Man legend.
The second incident that historian Brian Conley uncovered happened just 10 days later on October 29, 1970. This time, a construction site security guard named Paul Phillips was walking in Kings Park West, which is located just a few miles from the town of Clinton. Apparently, he saw a man standing near the front porch of an unfinished house and decided to get closer. As he approached he found a man dressed in a bunny suit using a hatchet to chop at one of the banisters of the porch.

According to what Phillips told the police, the man said, “You are trespassing. If you come any closer, I’ll chop off your head.” That was enough to scare Phillips off, and he left the woods and reported the incident to police.
Understandably, nothing ever came of these reports due to lack of evidence. So, there’s no way to substantiate these claims or prove if these incidents really occurred. Still, these two occurrences in 1970 seem to be what started the Bunny Man craze. In fact, it’s believed that in the weeks following these events, more than 50 people reported having seen the Bunny Man. Were these real sightings or a case of mass hysteria? The world may never know.
The Legacy of the Bunny Man
Since 1970, stories of the Bunny Man have circulated around Washington, D.C. suburbs and around the world. People today still report sightings of the Bunny man every once and a while. In 2011, a man by the name of Carl Lindbergh wrote, directed, and produced a slasher film called Bunnyman, which is based on the legend.

And, of course, every Halloween, teenagers from the Virginia suburbs pile into their cars just before midnight and cruise down to the Colchester Overpass in hopes of seeing the Bunny Man. If you’re in the area, you might want to check out the site. And, if you say his name three times, be prepared to face the consequences.