Original subtitles

[train whistle blowing]

[insects chirping]

[twigs snapping]

[soft music]

* *

- Jimmy!

Jimmy!

You out here?

Boys!

[owl hooting]

[tense music]

* *

[train whistle blowing]

* *

[rustling]

- [gasps]

[dramatic music]

* *

[dripping]

- [breathing shakily]

Jimmy?

- [gasps]

[dramatic music]

[both screaming]

* *

- Jimmy?

* *

- [breathing heavily]

[screaming]

- In our suburbs,

evil lurks behind closed doors--

true stories so terrifying because the horror is real.

You will never look at your neighbors the same way again.

I'm John Carpenter,

and this is "Suburban Screams."

[person screaming]

[tense music]

* *

- People'd say, "Do you know about the Bunny Man?"

And I'd say, yeah, I know about the Bunny Man,

but not because I read about the Bunny Man.

It was like he was right behind us,

breathing down our necks.

[dramatic music]

* *

[tense music]

My name is Ed Kidwell.

Moved to Fairfax, Virginia, in 1970,

about age nine years old.

* *

My dad was military,

and he was stationed at the Pentagon.

So that's where my dad bought a house, was in Fairfax.

* *

We lived in the Burke section.

* *

Our neighborhood was just being built,

so there was still a lot of dirt roads,

a lot of construction going on.

[hammer pounding]

On the maps that they gave you of the neighborhood,

it was gonna be a good 20, 25 streets...

* *

But when we moved there,

there was only maybe three streets,

four streets completed.

* *

[engine rumbling]

- I was born in Fairfax Hospital,

so I'm a legit native.

[laughs]

Not a lot of people are from Fairfax.

They moved there for a job,

or their parents moved there for a job.

[light upbeat music]

- Here is Fairfax, Virginia, a city in progress.

* *

Just a hop, skip, and a jump

from our nation's capital,

we're building the houses for tomorrow today...

* *

And turning this sleepy rural landscape

into a vibrant community

ready for your growing family to move in and call home.

[soft music]

- Fairfax is a suburb of Washington, D.C.

So the more that the government grew,

the more that the rural areas around there were expanding.

* *

But it was absolutely a good place to grow up,

a safe place to grow up.

* *

- You know, you didn't think there was crime.

You--we'd stay out till the sun went down.

* *

You know, you'd play tag at night,

hide and seek.

There was a lot to do.

There was--you know,

it just wasn't that feeling of,

you're in danger all the time,

that you've gotta watch for strangers.

* *

At the time, I didn't--

I didn't think about some guy

running around dressed like a bunny.

[eerie music]

* *

- One of our neighbors

invited us to a Boy Scout campout.

They have a big bonfire,

and everyone sits around and tells stories.

And one kid starts with,

"Have you heard the legend of the Bunny Man?"

And one of the other leaders interrupted him and said,

"Hey, hey, these-- they're too young.

"We don't want-- we don't need this.

This story is not--just stop."

You know?

And, of course, that made all us little kids go,

"What? What's that?

What's the Bunny Man story?"

[ominous music]

- I don't remember the first time

I heard the story of the Bunny Man.

I just remember it always being around.

I think it was probably a little bit more

about the urban legend at that point,

the idea of a guy in a bunny suit with an axe

terrorizing, you know, this area

that's being developed, you know,

figuring they're trying to scare us and--

or people trying to scare me.

* *

- Most urban legends have a kernel of truth in them.

And the kernel of truth in this one, I think,

really terrified people at some visceral level.

* *

[thunder rumbling]

* *

I have always been a history buff,

and I am a trained genealogist.

So in about 2011, I joined the Burke Historical Society,

which is a small group of people

who are interested in preserving and sharing

the fascinating history of Burke, Virginia.

I decided to write a book called "Wicked Fairfax County"

and knew there had to be a chapter on the Bunny Man.

So I started researching and found that

there were many different legends about the Bunny Man.

But the commonality in all of them is

there was a farmer that lived in Fairfax County, Virginia,

100 years ago.

* *

[insects chirping]

The farmer kind of kept to himself.

He wasn't married, had no family.

And one night, the local pastor thought

he would go pay him a visit.

[animals howling]

[cow mooing]

[muffled speech]

As the pastor approached the house,

he heard strange babbling in a language

that he did not understand.

- [non-English speech]

[non-English speech]

[ominous music]

* *

- Mother of God.

[squelching]

* *

- Oh!

[dramatic music]

* *

- [non-English speech]

[train whistle blowing]

* *

[animals howling]

- So the pastor hightailed it out of there,

went and got the police, and found out that

the cow had been reported as stolen.

So they arrested the farmer.

He said he had stolen the cow

because a demon had told him to do it.

- [non-English speech]

- So the farmer was sentenced to time

and vowed that he was gonna get revenge on the town.

- [sobbing]

- But then supposedly, it was a bus

that wrecked with prisoners on it,

and he--he escaped, and they never caught him.

And so then he was running around through Burke.

He kept himself alive on eating rabbits.

* *

And then he would take the carcasses

and hang it on the bridge like a warning

to tell people to stay away.

- And then children reported seeing him

near the bridge, dressed in either

rabbit skins or a bunny costume,

and they started calling this escapee the Bunny Man.

Eventually, they chased him onto the train tracks,

where he was hit by a train and killed.

And the next morning, three children were missing.

So the police went out to the bridge,

and they found the three children hanging

off the bridge by their necks.

And they had been gutted like rabbits.

[eerie music]

So now it is said that

if you go to that bridge at midnight on Halloween,

the Bunny Man's ghost will come and murder you.

And the next morning, people will find you

hung off the bridge just like those three children were

100 years ago.

* *

- But yeah, that was a big deal,

the Bunny Man story.

And other people said, "No, that's not the truth."

But it--it was real.

The whole neighborhood talked about the Bunny Man.

They'd--it wasn't like, "Ah, you're a fool.

You're listening to the Bunny Man story."

It'd be weird.

You'd go three or four blocks over,

those kids had the same stories.

It was not a legend to us.

It was--it was the truth.

* *

- But yeah, in elementary school,

we'd hear the stories of the escaped person

in the woods.

* *

Everybody's got their own version of that.

And then in the 1970s, it got very real.

[insects chirping]

[laughter]

[soft music playing]

- * I know what's in my heart *

* I know that's where heaven starts *

[foreboding music]

- Yeah. - [laughs]

That's just what I was thinking.

- * Waiting my whole life *

- [breathing heavily]

* *

- * I know what's in my heart *

* I know that's where heaven starts *

* It's with you, babe *

* It's with you, babe *

[laughter]

* *

* Waiting my whole life for this *

* No way I will let it slip *

* But with you, babe, but with you *

* I've never felt like this *

* And I say sha, la, la, la, la, la *

* *

[footsteps approaching]

- [non-English speech]

- What?

- Shh.

Listen.

- [non-English speech]

[tense music]

* *

- * Sha, la, la, la, la, la, la *

* I feel good, I feel good *

* *

* I know I'm gonna *

- [breathing shakily]

- [non-English speech]

[both screaming]

* *

- [screaming]

- * I feel good, I feel good *

* I feel... *

- [screaming] No!

No! No!

No!

[screaming]

* *

[birds chirping]

[flies buzzing]

- No.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[tense music]

* *

- Tsst!

[quietly] Let's go!

Let's go!

[eerie whooshing]

- [panting]

[dramatic music]

* *

[engine grinding]

* *

- [sniffs]

[whimpering]

[engine grinding]

[whimpering]

Come on.

[engine grinding]

Come on, come on, Robert.

Start the car!

- [non-English speech]

* *

- [panting]

[engine grinding]

[shrieks]

[engine starting]

- [non-English speech]

- [whimpering]

[engine revving]

[tires squealing]

- Please, please, please.

[whimpering]

Just go.

Just go, just go.

[engine revving]

[dramatic music]

* *

[gravel crunching]

- Well, the young couple took off.

Fortunately, they were not injured.

They called the police,

so a police report was made.

[dark music]

- Honestly, it's hard to say if I believed in the Bunny Man

or not as a kid.

But as I learned more when I got older, you know,

there--I believe there really was a Bunny Man.

* *

Because there's actual evidence now.

So it doesn't get to that level

without there being truth, right?

There is truth to it.

And I was in the rural area that this all happened in.

I was within miles of it,

so definitely thought about it more.

* *

And then a couple weeks after that,

a security guard saw something

within a mile of where the first story took place.

- Okay, it's D-R--

truckster.

Truck--truckster.

No, that's not a word.

Um, trackster?

Trackster?

[radio static buzzes]

- 81, clear.

80-14, clear.

- Trickster. It's trickster!

Ha! Oh, man.

That's good.

[chopping]

[tense music]

* *

What the hell?

[chopping continues]

* *

Hey!

What the hell are you doing?

Hey!

* *

[birds chirping]

[foreboding music]

* *

[bird screeches]

[dog barking in distance]

- [non-English speech]

[tense music]

* *

[non-English speech]

* *

- [breathing heavily]

[truck engine starts]

[engine revving]

[dramatic music]

* *

Hold it!

Hold it right there!

[tires squealing]

* *

- The Bunny Man, he got away.

And both the original incident

on Guinea Road in October 1970

with the couple in the car

and the incident at Kings Park West

with the security guard

were reported in "The Washington Post."

[dark music]

* *

- So my dad, he's sitting at the dining room table,

reading "The Post," like he normally does.

And here's a story in there about the Bunny Man,

probably 10 houses away from our house,

where this happened.

* *

- Now it's much more serious

because there's police reports.

There's eyewitnesses.

And your parents became fearful of it.

You know, now being a parent myself,

I can understand that.

* *

I do remember in the '70s,

there was a lot of news about kids that would go missing,

these kidnapping stories that were going on.

And then you hear a local story about a guy

in a bunny suit with an axe.

And I think that just sent this mentality of,

you could be taken.

[tense music]

* *

- So my dad, when we were going

to the store that Saturday,

when we drive by, he slows down.

He goes, "That's the house right there

that the Bunny Man hacked on."

* *

And so all us kids are staring out the window.

We see hack marks.

Obviously, someone had taken

tons of target practice out there.

* *

You know, this is true.

This happened right by my house.

* *

And so when you went to bed, you thought about that.

You thought about the Bunny Man and where's he gonna attack?

And it wasn't just a story

that they were trying to keep from us.

You had to be careful.

He was where we were.

* *

[tense music]

- You start thinking, the Bunny Man.

The Bunny Man's coming after you.

* *

He could have been anywhere in the county, you know?

We gotta watch out for this guy.

Keep your eyes open for this guy.

* *

Then all the sudden, my mom was worried

about what we were doing.

And you know, the streetlights come on, you better be home.

It was creepy.

* *

I mean, that's just-- that's just--

it heightened your fear

of what's in the dark, you know?

What's--what's going on?

[thunder rumbling]

[siren wailing]

The Bunny Man was real.

He was running around.

He was one of those people the police never catch.

[thunder rumbling]

[siren wailing]

You don't want to be cornered.

You don't want to become his victim.

[thunder rumbling]

[siren wailing]

Is it possible the Bunny Man's watching us?

* *

But then you'd hear stories pop up every once in a while

of a Bunny Man incident.

You know, the Bunny Man was here.

Supposedly, they saw the Bunny Man here.

- I know at least three people who had eyewitness accounts

of seeing him.

I didn't, at first, always--

like, I'm like--I didn't always believe these stories.

But I heard enough of them that I do believe it.

You know, I had a paper boy for "The Washington Post."

He was 16.

And in 1972,

he said that he was delivering papers,

and he claims to have seen a guy

in a bunny suit skipping down the street,

dragging an axe behind him.

He said he had nightmares about it for years.

It was like a--it was actually

a fairly traumatic event for him as a kid.

I believed him.

There was no question, from my perspective,

that he was-- he was telling the truth.

* *

And then in junior high,

I started hearing about the bridge stories.

- It is an active railroad bridge,

although seriously looking at it,

you would not believe that.

If you were gonna have a haunted bridge,

it would be that bridge.

Ever since the Bunny Man legend became viral, if you will,

kids have flocked to Bunny Man bridge on Halloween.

[indistinct chatter]

Teenagers being teenagers,

kids from as far away as Pennsylvania

come down to the bridge on Halloween.

Because, of course, that's when the Bunny Man

is supposed to appear.

[indistinct chatter] [upbeat music playing]

- I was surprised how many people were bringing

new stories about that bridge.

And the fact that there are still stories out there

that haven't been documented, you know, it tells me

that there's a lot more to it that we don't know.

* *

- Holy shit.

Look at Nick Larson.

- Wasn't he the Bunny Man for Halloween last year too?

- Uh-huh.

- Who even invited him?

He's such a freak.

* *

Hey, Nick.

Show us your moves!

* *

[laughing]

- [breathing heavily]

* *

- Hey. Nice costume.

* *

- What the fuck?

Nick Larson?

- Uh, hi, Stephanie.

- [laughing]

* *

- Yeah! [people cheering]

- * You may run and you may hide *

* But you can always find me on the sunny side *

[upbeat music playing]

- [non-English speech]

- * It don't matter what you can't see *

[tense music]

- [gasps]

- * And I'll tell you what to do *

[people screaming]

* *

* Go on and run *

[people screaming]

* *

- Run!

[dramatic music]

[all breathing heavily]

* *

[trap clanks shut]

- [screams]

* *

- We need to go! - Wait!

- Hey, help!

Help!

Help me!

[groaning]

Ow!

Hey, help! Help!

* *

- Hurry!

- Ahh! - Here!

Help!

Help, help!

- Ow!

- Hurry!

Help! - Help!

- Please!

- Somebody help us, please!

- Let's go!

[squelching] - [screaming]

* *

- [screams] - Ah!

- Come on!

I need your help!

- Help!

[car door closes]

[engine revving] [tires squealing]

- That was probably the most ominous

of any of the stories I heard.

This is, like, something

that you could tell still stuck with them.

Somebody comes out of the woods

and tries to grab a friend of yours in a bunny suit,

and you grew up with the urban legend of the Bunny Man,

you're gonna remember.

- Well, after that, it seems the Bunny Man was everywhere.

In one night, police fielded 50 calls

about a man in a rabbit suit with a hatchet.

Was it possible it was the same Bunny Man

from the 100 years ago incident?

I don't know the answer to that.

I honestly don't.

But now you have some sort of hysteria going on.

[tense music]

* *

- Kids would talk about it

in the lunchroom and on the playground.

Everything seemed like there was somewhere

that the Bunny Man could be hiding.

And it seemed like every noise you heard

was the Bunny Man attacking people.

You'd hear a rooster or even a fox scream.

I don't have you ever heard a fox scream at night.

It sounds almost like a person screaming, the fox.

I mean, I would just--

all the kids would be so scared.

One time, we were all playing,

you know, doing our--

whatever we do around the neighborhood.

And one of the kids came running around,

tearing around the corner.

And, I mean, he had fear in his eyes.

He just--and he's yelling, "It's the Bunny Man!

He's coming! He's coming! He's coming!"

[dramatic music]

You know, our parents, they asked questions.

"Did you see him?"

And if you didn't see him,

they would just say, "Well, you're safe.

You're home."

But then you were curious, you know?

And so we were always out looking to see

if we could find the Bunny Man.

* *

So I remember when we went camping

in that area by ourselves.

* *

That was brave of us

to go out there without adults.

* *

A couple pals that I hung out a lot with--

it was Mike that lived down the street from me,

and then a guy across the street named Richard.

He was the one that would--

would get you to do things.

Richard came up with the crazy idea to go over to this house

where the Bunny Man supposedly lived.

* *

- Come on, Mike!

Don't pussy out!

We've come this far.

We're doing it! - Fine.

* *

- Get that thing ready, Eddie.

- Don't touch it!

I said the only one who touches it is me.

If my dad knew I took it, he'd kill me!

- Shh!

What if he's in there?

- Huh? That's the point, dickhead!

I'm gonna distract him, and you're gonna snap a photo.

And we're out!

- I'm not so sure about this, Rich.

I mean, what if he tries to, I don't know,

like, hack us for going on his property or whatever?

- Ladies, stop!

It's just a weirdo in a costume.

If he tries to do anything,

I'll kick him right in his little bunny balls.

[owl hooting]

One snapshot is all we need.

Now man the fuck up and come on!

[insects chirping]

[wind howling]

[branch snapping]

- Go up to the window.

- Yeah.

[animals howling]

* *

- There's no one in there.

We're going in!

[clattering]

- Shh!

[ominous music]

* *

[door creaking]

[train whistle blowing]

[door creaking, slams]

[tense music]

* *

[all breathing shakily]

- [gasps]

Snap some photos!

Ed, come on!

[camera shutter clicking]

[all panting]

* *

Turn it off!

[clattering]

- [moaning]

[all panting]

- It was probably just a deer or something.

[electricity buzzing]

Don't move.

- [screams]

- Shh!

- Relax! It's just--

[dramatic music]

[all screaming]

* *

- [non-English speech]

[all screaming]

[insects chirping]

- I think about how scared we were.

We just couldn't believe it.

It was--it was the Bunny Man.

We just--and all of us turned around

and just--it was like someone lit a fire.

We just started running.

* *

But he was never caught.

And so when I see an axe, it brings me back

to the Bunny Man, you know?

This is his weapon.

This is what he had.

It just--that really gets me.

That's--you know, that's where it hits home.

* *

- Most people don't expect to find out that

the Bunny Man was actually real,

that there actually was a young man

in a rabbit suit with a hatchet

running around threatening people.

But he was.

There actually was a Bunny Man.

[eerie music]

* *

My theory is that the Bunny Man

could not deal with the fact

that the rural area that he was living in

was becoming more suburban.

He was very upset by all of this.

He could see it coming.

He could see the westward march of suburbia

into that formerly rural area of Fairfax County.

He just grew a lot spookier and a lot more violent,

and he just lashed out.

* *

- You know, in Fairfax, everywhere there's

something green, they're putting a house.

It's just progress.

So maybe he's trying to slow progress.

Maybe that's his attempt, you know.

* *

- I've always kind of had a theory that--

that whoever owned those farms

that had sold to those developers,

it's probably a son or something

of one of those people.

[flies buzzing]

- But why he chose to wear a bunny suit, I don't know.

We'll never know the answer to that.

- There's so many theories.

I have my own.

You know, there were a lot of rabbits in that--that area.

Maybe it was just a statement of, hey,

you're tearing up the home that these--

that this wildlife lives in.

[train screeching]

[ominous music]

* *

- In 2018, a man's body was found near the bridge.

* *

So it is possible that the Bunny Man

is still alive today and watching all of this.

* *

- You know, we still hear the stories.

* *

So, yeah, it's very plausible he's still alive.

* *

- So yeah, you gotta be concerned about

who's creeping up on you,

because the Bunny Man's running around there.

* *

[footsteps]

* *

He's still running around.

* *

You gotta be scared of that axe.

[blade scrapes, resonates]

* *

- [non-English speech]

- * I say sha, la, la, la, la, la, la *

* I feel good, I feel good *

* I feel sha, la, la, la, la, la, la, la *

* Oh, oh *

* Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh *

* La, ah, ah *

* Ooh, ooh, ooh *