The blood sucking beast

Bladenboro is a small community surrounded by pine forests and swamps
 at the southeastern edge of the North Carolina piedmont. It was also
the setting for the greatest monster flap North carolina has ever seen.

The story begins in Bladen County in the town of Clarkton. On
Decmeber 29, 1953 a local woman heard her neighbors' dogs barking and
whimpering. When she went out to investigate, she saw a large, cat-like
creature skulk off into the darkness. That was the first sighting of The
 Beast of Bladenboro. Two days later, the creature would strike.

On New Year's Eve, Bladenboro Police Chief Roy Fores was called out
to the farm of Woody Storm. Two of Storm's dogs had been killed by
something large and powerful. The poor dog's bodies had been completely
drained of blood.

More reports started coming in. D.G. Pait said he watched from his
service station as a dog was attacked by a large creature and dragged
into the woods. Chief Fores was inundated with reports of dogs being
attacked from across the county. People said they saw an animal "like a
bear or a panther" that was "three feet long, twenty inches high, with a
 long tail and a cat's face." Others reported hearing the creature's
scream coming from the swamps near the town, saying it sounded "like a
woman with a knife stuck in her back."

On January 1, the bodies of two more dogs were discovered. These,
too, had been drained of blood. Chief Fores decided it was time to call
for help.

A team of professional hunters was brought in from Wilmington to
track down the animal. Chief Fores accompanied the tracking party and
said he saw footprints "the size of a silver dollar."

Then, on January 5, the Beast of Bladenboro attacked a human.

That evening, Mrs. C.E. Kinslaw heard the sound of whimpering dogs
outside of her house. She went outside to investigate. She saw a large,
cat-like creature rush towards her. Mrs. Kinslaw screamed and her
husband rushed outside. The beast was frightened off and fled back into
the woods.

Newspapers picked up the story, and soon Bladenboro was overwhelmed
with a flurry of hunters coming in, eager to bag the beast. Over 600 men
 from as far away as Tennessee descended on the town. A fully armed pack
 of fraternity brothers from UNC Chapel Hill made its way down to the
town to see about putting the beast's head on their wall.

But nobody knew exactly what they were hunting. Speculation began
running rampant. Some thought that it was a Carolina Panther, a species
of large cat that had lived in the area until the early 20th Century,
but was now thought to be extinct. Others said they were dealing with a
coyote or stray dog. Most of those who had descended on Bladen County
thought that the only way to find out for sure what the beast was would
be by by killing it.

The town was terrified. Ev Butler, who was a young man in Bladeboro
at the time, recalled "Night time was the feared time around these
parts. As the sun set, the entire community on the west side of town
went indoors and didn't come out unless necessary."

The fear of the beast had a very real effect on Mr. Butler and his
family, "We didn't live in the town limits at that time and almost
everyone had an outdoor privy... To supplement the outside convenience,
most houses had a 'thunder jug', a big jug that could be used at night
and emptied into the privy during the day. That jug got plenty of use
during the scare."

Deciding that things were getting too dangerous, Bladenboro Mayor Bob
 Fussell and Chief Fores called an end to the hunt. On January 13th,
taking an unusually large bobcat that had been trapped by a local
farmer, the two men hung it up a flagpole in the center of town. They
posted a sign underneath stating "This is the Beast of Bladenboro."

After a week or so, things settled back to normal. The hunters left
town, and the reports of killings stopped coming in. Whatever the Beast
of Bladenboro was, it had vanished back into the night and the swamps
from where it had first emerged.