| Address |
| 5400 Guinea Rd, Fairfax, VA 22032, USA (Fairfax, Virginia)
|
| |
| Information |
The Legend of the Bunny Man
In Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. there is an urban legend about a Bunny Man who commits crimes ranging from vandalism to assault and murder. In some stories he is an escaped mental patient, in others he is local who snapped and went homicidal on his family one Easter Sunday. In these tales the psychopath runs around in a bloody bunny rabbit costume, armed with an ax or other weapon. In still other versions of the Bunny Man tale, the bunny man is dead and continues to haunt a bridge in Fairfax County in Virginia (see Bunny Man Bridge).
In researching the legend of the Bunny Man, historian Brian Conley (see Related Sites below) discovered what appears to be the earliest written account of the Bunny Man. While some versions of the tale extend all the way back to 1904 in their narrative, there appears to not be any record of the story dating prior to October of 1970. The articles in question appeared in the Washington Post at that time. According to the articles, this location on Guinea Road is the location of the first written encounter with the Bunny Man.
The First Encounter With the Bunny Man?
On October 22, 1970, The Washington Post ran an article titled Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax. According to the article and Air Force cadet and his fiance had their vehicle assaulted by a man in a rabbit suit on the night of Sunday October 18, 1970. The cadet, named Robert Bennett, and his fiance had gone to a football game played between the Air Force and Navy earlier that evening. Afterwards, they parked across the street from his uncle's house on what the first article describes as the "5400 block of Guinea Road." Allegedly, shortly after midnight, the couple witnessed a man "dressed in a white suit with long bunny ears" who sprang out from nearby shrubbery. The rabbit man yelled "You're on private property and I have your tag number", and then threw a hatchet at Bennett's vehicle.The assailant is then said to have "skipped off into the night" as the hatchet smashed through a front window of the car, showering glass on the occupants. The startled couple then reported the incident to the local police.
Less than two weeks later, the Bunny Man would once again be encountered at another location on Guinea Road (see Bunny Man: Second Encounter at Guinea Road). In the article about the second incident, the first one is mentioned as specifically having happened at 5400 Guinea Road. Whether this was the actual specific location of the Bunny Man assault or if it is just the general vicinity of the incident is unclear.
A paper written in 1973 by a University of Maryland student named Patricia Johnson for an Introduction to Folklore class contains 54 variations on the Bunny Man legend as related to her through interviews with locals. A high percentage of the tales told at that time match up with the Washington Post articles from 1970. The Bunny Man tale appears not to have evolved into a ghost story at that time, but centered on a living person in a bunny costume. Her paper is also notable for showing how far and quickly the legend had spread if indeed the incident on Guinea Road on October 18, 1970 is indeed the origin of the legend.
Visiting the First Guinea Road Location
Should anyone visit the location of the alleged first encounter with the Bunny Man, care should be taken not to disrupt the neighborhood or trespass on private property. Trespassers are more likely to have run-ins with the local police than to have an angry man in a rabbit suit throw a hatchet at their vehicle. |
| |
| GPS Interface |
Save Waypoint to Garmin Device.
|
|
| |
| User Trips |
| There are no user trips associated with this location. |
| |
| Related Sites |
The Bunny Man Unmasked
Historian Brian Conley's extensive article on the origins of the Bunny Man urban legend. |
Historic Clifton: Bunny Man
Historic Clifton's web page about the legend of the Bunny Man. |
Wikipedia: Bunny Man
Wikipedia entry for the Bunny Man urban legend. |
| |
| Similar Destinations |
| Hannifin's Cigar Store |
| Highway 365, Arkansas |
| Goodleberg Cemetery, Wales, New York |
| |
| See Also on TheCabinet.com |
| Blog: Attack of the Bunny Man (10/25/09) |
| |
| Available from Amazon.com |
Ghosthunting Virginia (America's Haunted Road Trip) |
Mondo DC: An Insider's Guide to Washington, DC's Most Unusual Tourist Attraction |
Stories from the Haunted South |
| |
