Who Was the Bunny Man?
As October 31 approaches, it seems appropriate to examine some of those pesky Virginia urban legends that surface during the Halloween season. From Fairfaxs ax-throwing bunny man to Richmonds vampire, these tales seem to have a life of their own, multiplying and mutating over the years. Brian Conley, a former historian with the Fairfax County Public Library, first became interested in the bunny man legend in 1992 when a library customer wanted to find information on a murder that supposedly took place near her home. The story was vague, involving an escaped inmate who allegedly murdered two children for trespassing and left their bodies hanging from a covered bridge. It sounded quite similar to a story Conley had heard many years earlier in 1976. When the woman mentioned the man supposedly had been dressed in a bunny suit, he knew that the legend had resurfaced yet another time. Conley decided to investigate the origins of the ubiquitous legend. He has documented his research in “The B
