Tales of the Bunnyman of Northern Virginia
In Reston, Virginia, there used to be a dirt road leading off of Sunset Hills Road, just before it intersected with Reston Avenue. All the kids knew that that road led to the Bunnyman’s house. Supposedly, one Halloween night he dressed up in a bunny costume, shot his wife and kids, then opened the door to trick-or-treaters all night with the corpses of his family still in the house.
My sister went most of the way up the road on a dare, but I don’t think she made it to the house. I’ve talked to a few other Northern Virginians lately, and everyone had a different variation of what it was the Bunnyman did. The only things the stories have in common are:
1) He kills people, preferably children. 2) He wears either a bunny suit or rabbit skins and, 3) He scares the **** out of little kids.
I mentioned the Bunnyman to a grown adult friend and she reflexively clamped her hand over her ears. There’s been a lot of development in the area so the site may be gone. Too bad – it was a pretty freaky local legend.
– Ali Davis
He Ain't No Peter Cottontail!
I’m from Falls Church, Virginia, and we had a Bunnyman story too! The story my brother told me was really absurd and doesn’t make any sense, but it was something about a guy in a bunny costume standing at the bottom of a hill, in the middle of a road that turned sharply to the right. Apparently, as people drove down the hill, he would throw an ax at their car and somehow this would kill them. Of course it’s the dumbest story ever... now. But when I was a kid I was always on the lookout for the Bunnyman at that curve of the road.
– Katie Roberts
A Wascally Wabbit Guts Victims and Hangs Them From the Bunnyman Bridge
Hey Guys,
First and foremost, I just want to let you know that I love reading Weird NJ. Even though I am not from Jersey, I still greatly appreciate the unique stories that you guys publish as well as the work you guys put into your magazine and website. Anyways, I wanted to let you guys know about a local legend from my hometown in Northern Virginia. The legend comes from Fairfax County, Virginia and involves an old railroad bridge. I first heard about the legend of Bunnyman Bridge from my high school track coach about 5 or 6 years ago. There are mainly two versions of the legend surrounding the bridge. The first version involves a mental patient that escaped from a mental hospital near the bridge a long time ago before the area became highly populated.
Supposedly this mental patient escaped from a bus that was transporting patients when the bus crashed in the woods near the bridge. They searched for the man but he was never found. Later on, people started finding the carcasses of rabbits around the bridge and apparently the mental patient was living in the woods and surviving off of the meat of the rabbits. That’s pretty much the way it stayed until some teenagers were found gutted hanging from the bridge. The local authorities put out a manhunt for "the Bunnyman,” as the local children called him, and eventually caught up with him. The legend says that just as they were about to apprehend the Bunnyman, he jumped in front of a train that was coming down the tracks. Since then, it is said that the Bunnyman's spirit haunts the bridge and that on Halloween at midnight his spirit becomes visible right over the bridge that bears his name. You will usually find a good group of drunken teenagers at the base of the bridge at midnight on Halloween waiting to see if the spirit of Bunnyman will appear.
The second version of the legend that I have heard is that a local teenager killed his family on Easter Sunday while wearing a bunny costume. Apparently, after he did this, he hung himself from the bridge, still dressed in the bunny costume. This version seems the less likely of the two but I still think that it’s pretty interesting.
I have also heard and read reports of some recent activity regarding Bunnyman Bridge. By recent, I mean in the 1970s and 80s. Some stories report that a group of teenagers in the mid-70s traveled to the bridge one night and decided to hang out on the railroad tracks above the bridge and drink some beers. As the night went on, a couple that was part of the group decided to go down the tracks in order to find some privacy. They failed to return to the rest of the group. The next day they were found gutted and hanging from the bridge. Supposedly, a similar incident happened sometime in the 80s. Even though I cannot confirm these events, I still think that they qualify as some good old fashioned weird occurrences.
As for my personal experiences with Bunnyman Bridge, I have been out there about a dozen times. Since it’s about 15 minutes from my house, I don't get out there as much as I'd like to. Most of the times that my buddies and I go out there, we'll just hang out on the railroad tracks and wait for something to happen. Usually, not much happens but you still get a feeling that something or someone is watching you. Even though the bridge is located about 25 miles from Washington DC, it is still in the middle of nowhere with only a few houses within the woods that surround the bridge and railroad tracks. The last time that we went out there we actually ended up hearing voices coming from the woods. They weren't loud voices echoing from miles away but whispers that sounded like they were coming from 20 feet away. That was enough to send us running. Anyways, that’s the story surrounding the legend of Bunnyman Bridge in Fairfax County, Virginia.
The bridge is located on Colchester Road and is painted bright white. It truly is a weird sight because as you wind down the road through the woods, the bridge just suddenly appears out of nowhere. There is a sign posted on the bridge that states that the area is under video surveillance because of all the kids that flock there, but so far I've never had any run-ins with the local police. So, if you ever find yourself in Northern Virginia, go ahead and check out one of our most famous local legends at Bunnyman Bridge.
– Brad Byrnes