The Beast of Bladenboro

Hey guys! Long time no post, huh? Sorry about that but things have been crazy on my end. Hope everyone had a great holiday and New Years!

This is the article I did for my school’s newspaper. Please go HERE to check out our newspaper and to like my article and share it! It’d be really awesome to get some likes and shares on my article! Thank you to everyone who checks it out and a HUGE  thank you and hug to everyone who likes and shares!

Okay, now onto my article. Hope you guys like it!

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Cryptozoology (from Greek κρυπτός, kryptos, “hidden” + zoology; literally, “study of hidden animals”) is a pseudoscience involving the search for animals whose existence has not been proven. This includes looking for living examples of animals that are considered extinct, such as dinosaurs or the thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger); animals whose existence lacks physical evidence but appears in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Chupacabra; and wild animals dramatically outside their normal geographic ranges, such as a kangaroo on the beaches of the Caribbean. The animals cryptozoologists study are often referred to as cryptids, a term coined by John Wall in 1983.

Cryptozoology is not a recognized branch of zoology or a discipline of science. It is an example of pseudoscience because it relies heavily upon anecdotal evidence, stories, and alleged sightings.

After reading that, would you be surprised to hear that North Carolina has it’s own cryptid? The cryptid that calls North Carolina home is the Beast of Bladenboro – sounds like a late night horror movie, huh? But the beast is real, according to those who have witnessed it.

The Beast of Bladenboro is the name of  the creature responsible for a string of animal deaths across Bladenboro in 1953-1954 and then again 2007, when the creature returned after forty-three years. Though when the beast returned, he was attacking animals in Boliva, Greensboro, and Lexington. There is also speculation that the creature may have returned earlier this year.

The animals that have been linked to this beast all have one thing in common; their blood has been drained. Most have had their skulls crushed, some obviously struggled with their attacker while others seem to have been killed before they realized they were being attacked. A few even had a limb or two ripped from their bodies.

But what is this beast? According to eyewitnesses accounts the beast is an animal about four and half to five feet long, furry, resembling a panther, but with canine and bear like characteristics as well. The tracks of the beast were rather strange and unusual, but generally seemed to resemble something from the feline family. However, no one could identify the beast for sure. It wasn’t a dog, bear nor a cat. So what was it?

The Beast of Bladenboro was first reported on the 9th of December in 1953 by a local farmer who reported a large, cat-like creature had attacked one of his dogs and dragged it into the underbrush.On New Year’s Eve two more dog carcasses, reportedly completely drained of blood, were found. The next day, two more dogs were attacked. Something was attacking animals and whatever it was, it was striking fear into the hearts of the townspeople.

Women and children stayed locked up in doors, especially after dark, while men dared not walk outside without firearms. Big game hunters from around the country traveled to Bladenboro in hopes of catching the beast.

Everything came to a stop when a bobcat had been caught in a trap before being put out of it’s misery by a hunter. The mayor W.G. Fussell proclaimed the hunt for the beast was over. They had caught the killer. But had they really? The bobcat was a nice size (when held up by it’s front paws, it barely came to the mayor’s waist) but could a forty pound bobcat kill a hundred-twenty pound dog with no struggle and crush it’s jaw?

Either way, it seemed the beast had the last laugh. The bobcat wasn’t even cold in the ground before a hog was attacked and linked with the beast.

That was the last beast attack for forty-three years (at least, the last one reported). Some speculated that it was all a hoax. Some became sure of that fact because Mayor Woodrow Fussell, who operated the town theater, went to Charlotte, North Carolina on January 6 to book the film “The Big Cat” for a day. Leaflets published by the theater proclaimed “Now you can see the ‘Cat.’ We’ve got him on our screen! And in Technicolor too! ‘The Big Cat.’ All day Saturday, Jan 9.” Could it all have been a hoax? Well, in an interview Fussell said that he believed the creature to be a hoax, even though he was the one who called the Wilmington newspapers about the dead dogs. He found the manner of their deaths strange, and said that “a little publicity never hurts a town.” What he didn’t anticipate however, was how far the Wilmington Morning Star, The Wilmington News, and other newspapers would take the story.

So was it a hoax? Many seemed to think so or at least wanted to believe that. Forty-three years went by with the thought of it all being a hoax or that if it had been real, then surely the creature had to be dead by then. Whatever creature that had went around killing dogs, goats, hogs and small cows in the most unusual way – breaking their jaws, crushing their heads flat and sucking the blood from their bodies, according to local newspaper reports, had to be dead.

Except the creature returned in 2007.

Over a six month period beginning in September of 2007, more than fifty pets and livestock animals were killed in a similar manner along a 200 mile path from Bolivia, NC to Greensboro, NC. Similar attacks on dogs and goats had been reported in North Carolina along a 200 mile track including the towns of Greensboro, Lexington, Bladenboro, and Bolivia.

In Lexington, sixty goats were found with their blood drained and their heads crushed. Thirty miles away in Greensboro, another farmer lost his goats in the same way. The creature was back, bringing fear with it.

In Bolivia, a man named William Robinson lost his pit bull, RayRay to the creature. RayRay was one of ten dogs slaughtered in a two week period in this area. Because he had small children, Robinson took his dog down a dirt road to bury it away from his house. The next morning, Robinson found that the carcass of RayRay had been dug up and dragged back to the backyard of his house, right back to the spot where RayRay had been killed. Robinson also found unidentified tracks in his backyard. These tracks were about 4 ½ inches in diameter and did not display prominent claw marks.

Another Bolivia resident, Leon Williams, lost his two year old pit bull in a similar attack. Four days after the attack on Robinson’s dog, Williams found his 120 pound pit bull named Coco had been slaughtered. Coco was found savaged with a large part of her shoulder missing and with little signs of defending itself in an attack.

In Lexington, North Carolina, there have been similar attacks on goats that remain unexplained. The goats all appear to have been killed quickly and silently with the carcasses uneaten for some unexplained reason.  Bolivia resident, Glenda Floyd, reports finding several of her goat killed with their throats ripped open. In Greensboro, Billy Yow found four of his goats killed in a similar manner without the bodies being eaten.

The History channel’s show, MonsterQuest investigated the beast in 2008. They went over pictures of tracks, they set up trap cameras in the woods, exhumed Leon Williams’s dog for an autopsy, and they also did a beast vocalization investigation (people that had reported hearing the beast, listened to animal sounds without knowing what animals they were to see if they recognized any of the sounds). But nothing certain was determined, though the show concluded that a cougar was behind the attacks. The problem is that cougars have been extinct throughout North Carolina for at one-hundred years and the closet cougar population is in Florida. But it is worthy to note that during the beast vocalization investigation, that out of all the creatures Leon Williams listened to, he recognizes a tiger as the sound he heard when his dog, Coco, had been killed. Glenda Floyd didn’t recognize any of the sounds but was sure that it had been a feline that she had heard when her goats had been killed.

What was this creature? The explanation from the 53-54 killings, that has been used for the 2007 killings was that it was a bobcat, which are the only large wildcats in North Carolina. But could a forty or so pound bobcat kill dogs that were hundred-twenty pounds and more? Another explanation could be that someone bought a wild animal and it escaped or it was released into the wild. If that’s the case, it’s easy to figure out why no one would come forward with this information, but then why haven’t we found anything? Could someone have had a wild animal in 53-54 or could a wild cat have bred with a local animal? While possible, it seems a bit unlikely. The most popular explanation is that cougars have made their return to North Carolina. If they have, then they are a likely candidate for the being the beast.

Whatever it was, it seems to have returned yet again, earlier this year. On June 15th, Bladenboro, NC resident Misty Turner and her son Tyler contacted local police after something visited their farm in the dead of night, killing three of their horses and a large Bull Mastiff dog. Misty’s son, Tyler, found the horses after the barking dog had alerted the family to the fact that something was skulking around the property. The dog continued to bark for quite some time, obsessed with the dense wooded area alongside the farm.

Arriving police and veterinarians were shocked to discover that the horses had died from very deep puncture wounds to the neck. Even more shocking was that it seemed that the purpose of the marks was to allow the blood to be drained from the animals. The horses were also reported to have been wet with sweat, almost as if they had been running hard to avoid whatever was chasing them down.

The following evening, much to the Turner’s dismay, their dog was also killed in the exact same fashion, with two puncture marks to the neck, found with its blood drained. Misty claims to have seen the thing that had killed her animals as it was running from the lifeless body of her pet. Her description of the creature matched the same eyewitness reports of the beast reported in 1953.

The Beast of Bladenboro has certainly left it’s mark. According to witnesses and trackers it was (or is) likely a wildcat, but the uncertain nature of its identity lends itself to cryptozoology. The beast may be a mystery that will never be solved.