This may not be known to people who live outside of the DC tristate area, but growing up I had heard about the urban legend of the Bunny Man. This urban legend may have spread online after films like Donnie Darko and Bunnyman got people talking about creepy characters in bunny suits.
If you go to Clifton, Virginia, there’s a bridge on Colchester Road. You can find it on Google Maps listed as “Bunny Man Bridge”-- the tale is well known enough in the area for it to be widely known.
It doesn’t look much different from other overpasses in the area, as the northern areas of Virginia and surrounding states often have older structures mixed with newer ones. It’s not uncommon to see an old bridge with trees growing on it.
So, why is this bridge in particular so notable? Why are people in Fairfax County so interested in this specific bridge?
What is the legend of the Bunny Man Bridge?
Funnily enough, the story that I heard in school growing up seems to be far different than what others heard. It seems that over time, the story had naturally warped and changed. Details were forgotten or added as it was told to the children who spread the stories to new children, who only served to change it further.
The urban legend has many different versions, but generally speaking, it goes like this. The Bunny Man is said to be an escaped inmate who sulks near the bridge in a white bunny suit, carrying a hatchet and killing children and teenagers on the night of Halloween.
This is similar to what I heard, though I did not remember the inmate part. For me, I had never assumed the Bunny Man was supposed to be a human inside the suit to begin with. I had also thought that the bunny costume was pink, but this might be the fault of my own memory.
Brian A. Conley, an archivist and historian at the Fairfax County Public Library was interested in this story and decided to look into it. According to Conley, he had first heard about the legend in 1976 from other teenagers.
Conley had looked into violent crimes around the area that he thought could have related to this myth, but nothing he found fit exactly. The Bunny Man that I and other teenagers from the area had heard about did not exist, and it was likely not inspired by one particular gruesome crime.
However, with a bit of digging, Conley ended up finding something that sparked his interest. It was a crime that inspired the legend after all, though it was not a murder after all.
Apparently, in 1970, a man named Robert Bennett was threatened by a man who had called himself the “Axe Man.” There were also various newspaper reports at the time about other individuals being threatened by a man in a white bunny suit with an axe. Notably, this Bunny Man often talked about others ‘trespassing’ in the area when doing so.
As this incident happened many years ago, separating the real facts from the situation is tricky. It’s hard to know for certain which were genuine, and which were possibly reports made out of a frenzied fear going around at the time.
Many people are still fascinated by this myth to this day. Some people believe that the appearance of the iconic bunny suit in Donnie Darko is inspired by this legend. Regardless if this is true or not, it adds another level of eeriness to the film, as the film does take place in Virginia.