Have you heard of the Bunny Man?
It’s one of Northern Virginia’s scariest and most haunting urban legends, with a horrifying character at its core. In today’s special Halloween episode of “Matt About Town,” WTOP’s Matt Kaufax risked life and limb to find out the truth behind this horror story, nestled in the small town of Clifton, Virginia.
Making his first appearance in 1904, the legend goes that “the Bunny Man” was an escaped patient from an asylum that existed near Clifton. Spooked by the presence of the nearby asylum, the story says, residents successfully got the building shut down.
That’s where things went wrong.
According to legend, there was an accident, where the bus transporting dangerous asylum patients, including the future Bunny Man, to a Lorton prison crashed near a rural railroad overpass on Colchester Road. In the aftermath, police were allegedly able to account for all patients — all but one.
It’s a myth Matt found has been passed down from generation to generation in Clifton, and reported sightings over the years keep the story alive — to the point where it’s still thought that the Bunny Man makes an appearance at midnight every Halloween.
But beware if you seek him out, you may not live to tell the tale (pun intended).
Come along with Matt on one of his wildest adventures yet, where everyone has their own theory, and things aren’t quite what they seem.
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