Nothing like a good frightening local legend to both titillate and traumatize. Let’s look at a few from around the country…
Fairfax County, VA — The Bunny Man is the legend of a man in a bunny suit who traipses around with an axe. He was first reported around Halloween 1970 when a newly-engaged couple parked in a dark field off Guinea Road in Burke when the spotted movement from the rear window. Seconds later, their side window was smashed and they glimpsed a figure all in white screaming at them about trespassing. As they sped off, the couple discovered a small axe on the floor of the car. The couple’s statements conflict: he insisted the man was in a rabbit suit, she insisted he was in a Klan robe. Some believe the Bunny Man was the ghost of Timothy C. Forbes, an escaped mental patient who fled his asylum in 1904. He may have been responsible for killing and skinning dozens of rabbits and hanging their carcasses from trees. However, Forbes was struck and killed by a train while eluding capture. Legend has it he was in the asylum to begin with because he killed and ate his family—on Easter Sunday!
Ojai, CA’s “Char Man” stalks the Camp Comfort County Park. Legend has it, the man burned to death and now, inexplicably, runs out to frighten motorists and campers, leaving the linger stench of burnt flesh in the air.
Pittsburgh, PA’s Green Man/Charlie No-Face is the creepy (somewhat true) tale of a deformed man that could be seen lurking in the roadside shadows at night. Some say he was a power company worker who had been struck by lightning or a downed power line; others claim he was doused with acid. Either way, his disfigured countenance turned to a greenish conglomeration of facial features. Some say the accident killed him, others that he lived on in isolation. One of these haunts is known as Green Man’s tunnel, the site of many claimed mysterious accidents. Truth is Raymond Robinson was a regular walker along the roadside between Koppel and New Galilee and really could be spotted by locals. He did his perambulations under cover of darkness because of what happened when he was 8. On a dare, he climbed a power line and was electrocuted for his efforts. He lost both eyes and nearly his life. He subsequently wore a prosthetic nose, affixed like a novelty to a pair of dark glasses that covered his empty eye sockets. From there cruel teen taunts arose and soon legends were born, including attendant ones. The Green Man tunnel, which seemingly has nothing to do with the Green Man himself, has its own legends involving a man that killed his family and then threw himself in front of an oncoming train. The place is supposedly haunted.
