Beast of Bladenboro

The **Beast of Bladenboro** is a large monster identified with vampiric qualities; that made several livestock and pet killings in Bladenboro, North Carolina in December of 1953. It lasted for ten days. In 2007, the beast returned, but in other regions such as Boliva, Greensboro, and Lexington.

On December 29, 1953 a local farmer 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. Residents reported seeing 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."

Police Chief Roy Fores organized a hunt for the beast in the swamps, but came up empty handed. It was when Mayor W.G. Fussell called the papers that things really took off. Fussell, who also owned the local theater, was later quoted in a 1958 edition of the Carolina Farmer magazine as saying "A little publicity never hurt a small town." Bladenboro certainly got its publicity.

Hitting the papers in the slow news week after Christmas, the Vampire Beast of Bladenboro gained an unusually large amount of attention. Hunters from as far way as Tennessee descended on the small town to see if they could get a shot at the beast. Newspapers from Arizona to New York ran coverage of the hunt for the creature. The town was engulfed in chaos, with men with guns walking through the forest shooting at anything that moved.

Deciding that things were getting too dangerous, Mayor Fussell and Chief Fores called an end to the hunt, taking an unusually large bobcat that had been killed by one of the hunters and running 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.

In 2008, the History Channel television series Monster Quest performed an analysis concerning these attacks, which were beginning to happen again, and concluded that the attacker might have been a cougar.

One local described the animal as "about four and a half feet 1.4 m long, bushy, and resembling either a bear or a panther", while another person described it as "small" and noted that there was "a little one just like it running beside it." Another local described hearing "a strange noise like a baby crying". Though he did not see the animal, he estimated it was "close to 150 pounds 70 kg, the way it went through the bushes." Another account detailed in a local newspaper contained the following physical description: It was bout 20 inches 50 cm high. It had a long tail, about 14 inches 35 cm. The color of it was dark. It had a face exactly like a cat. Only I ain't ever seen a cat that big. It was walking around stealthy, sneaky...

A group of hunters from Wilmington spent that night tracking the creature for three miles (4.8 km) around swampland. According to them, the tracks showed claws at least an inch (2.5 cm) long and indicated an 80-to-90-pound (35 to 40 kg) animal. The beast's circling movement suggested it might have had offspring or a mate nearby, the hunters said.

On January 5, the beast was witnessed attacking a dog which ran away and was not found. Tracks were seen along a creek bank near one of the attack sites; there were two sets of prints and one was smaller. Later that day, in the early evening, another resident described "a big mountain lion" near some dogs three houses down. The creature ran toward her, but turned and fled when she screamed. Outside her home, the tracks left in the dirt road were "bigger than a silver dollar" according to Police Chief Fores.

A young boy named Dalton Norton reported seeing what he called "a big cat" on January 6, which "made a noise like a baby crying" on his porch before leaving. On January 11, two cars stopped for an animal reported to be four feet (1.2 m) long. One of the men in the cars was quoted as saying the animal had "runty-looking ears" and was "brownish and tabby."