Collection: Beast of Bladenboro

In North Carolina, surrounded by tall pine forests and murky swamps, is the small town of Bladenboro. It is here that in the 1950s a mysterious creature began to prowl through the community, terrorizing the locals and creating somewhat of a name for itself. The Beast of Bladenboro caused a whole town to keep the porch light on at night and stories of the many hunting parties forever looking for the giant furry monster are still told today. 

This story begins in Bladen County, on the southeastern edge of the North Carolina piedmont. On the night of December 29, 1953, a local woman heard the neighbors' dogs suddenly start barking and then begin whimpering. She went out to investigate, and in the dim moonlight saw a huge, cat-like creature stalking off into the darkness. This is believed to be the first sighing of the Beast of Bladenboro, even though no harm was done. However, two days later, the Beast would strike. 

On New Year's Eve, the Bladenboro police chief Roy Fores was called out to a local man, Woody Storm, farm. Woody was found in his field, completely distraught over finding two of his dogs viciously killed. Woody and Chief Fores could tell the dogs had been killed by something large and very powerful. The strangest part of the attack however was that the dog's bodies had been completely drained of blood, leaving Woody and the Chief to wonder what had attacked the dogs. 

It wasn't before long that more reports started coming into the police station. Locals reported seeing a furry creature, like a bear or a panther, that was at least three feet long and twenty inches high, with a cat-like face and a long tail. Others said they heard the creature's rawr, coming from the nearby swamps. The chief was soon faced with his own encounter with the Beast of Bladenboro. While at his service station, he looked on as a dog crossing the back field was attacked by a large creature, then dragged into the woods. The county was being flooded with more reports of dogs being attacked and completely drained of blood. 

Chief Fores decided it was time to recruit help. He called on a team of professional hunters from Wilmington, North Carolina to track down the animal. The chief accompanied the trackers on their searches and reported seeing large "silver dollar" sized footprints. The party had no real luck of finding the animal, and then on January 5, 1954 the Beast of Bladenboro attacked a human. 

Late that night, Mrs. C.E. Kinslaw woke to the sound of whimpering dogs. She decided to go outside to investigate the noise. When she opened the door, a huge cat-like creature rushed towards her. Mrs. Kinslaw screamed, which woke her husband who rushed outside. The sudden scramble was enough to spook the creature, and the Beast fled back into the woods. Mr. and Mrs. Kinslaw came away unscathed but very rattled from the encounter. Newspapers quickly picked up the Kinslaw's story of the Beast, and soon Bladenboro was overwhelmed with hunters, eager to bag themselves a beast. 

Over 600 men from as far away as Tennessee are documented as having descended on the small town. One famous group of men was a fully armed pack of fraternity brothers from UNC who came to the town hoping to find the Beast and hang its head in the den of their fraternity house. However because no one had ever gotten a good look at the Beast, nobody knew exactly what they were hunting. Speculation about what the creature could be began running rampant though the groups of hunters. Some thought it was a Carolina Panther, an extinct species of large cat that had lived in the area until the early 1940s. Others believed they were hunting a rogue coyote. It became the belief that the only way to know for sure what the Beast was, would be by killing it.

The locals continued to be terrified. The fear of the Beast of Bladenboro had a very real effect on the town, most feared the night time and decidedly wouldn't not come outside after dark unless absolutely necessary. Realizing that things were becoming too dangerous, the Bladenboro Mayor Bob Fussell and Chief Fores called an end to to the ongoing hunts for the Beast. On January 13th, the mayor and chief presented the town with an unusually large bobcat that had been trapped by a local farmer. They killed and then displayed the bobcat in the town with a sign underneath reading "This is the Beast of Bladenboro." 

After a few weeks, things in Bladenboro settled back down. With the bobcat caught, the town was satisfied, the hunters left and the reports of killings stopped being called in. However, no one was ever able to explain the lack of blood in the dead dogs found, which has continued to leave lingering questions about if the real Beast was caught. Attacks by a large creature have continued to be reported throughout the years, with the occasional sighting. Today, the Beast of Bladenboro continues to stalk the minds of some locals and curious skeptics, leaving them to wonder if the real Beast of Bladenboro got away all those years ago, disappearing back into the night, waiting in the wild of the North Carolina forest to strike again.