Society & Culture
It started with a shark attack at Beach Haven, New Jersey on July 1, 1916, that killed Charles E. Van Sant. Five days later a shark would claim the life of another victim, Charles Bruder, at Spring Lake, just up the shore. Nerves were rattled but the terror really set in when two more victims, Lester Stilwell and Stanley Fisher, were killed the following week in Matawan Creek by a shark...11 miles inland! Another boy, Joseph Dunn was also bitten that same day (but survived). Was it one rogue shark? Or several? Was the killer shark (or sharks) among the hundreds that were hunted and killed that July? Or was it the 7 1/2 foot adolescent great white shark that Michael Schleisser and his friend John Murphy unintentionally caught on July 14, 1916, that was the culprit? When they slit open its belly, human flesh and bones were found inside. No one knows. But just as suddenly as the shark attacks started that summer, they stopped. But there was also one more unsolved mystery that summer: the disappearance of George Campbell. He'd been swimming in the same creek where Stilwell and Fisher lost their lives just a day before. Did he drown, or was he actually a sixth shark attack causality...and could it have been his flesh and bones found inside the shark? We'll never know. All we do know is that those awful shark attacks of 1916 griped the nation then, and would go on to inspire Jaws, one of the most iconic horror movies ever. Want more Haunt Jaunts? Jaunt with us online anytime at HauntJaunts.net. Read more blog posts, find Paracons and Horror Fests, or shop the Skareporium. Jaunt with us socially at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HauntJaunts Twitter: https://twitter.com/HauntJaunts Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hauntjaunts/?hl=en And if you liked what you heard, remember to subscribe too. (Reviews are also always appreciated!) Host & Guide: Courtney Mroch Intro Music: Pumpkin Demon by WinnieTheMoog Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6866-pumpkin-demon License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Outro Music: From https://filmmusic.io "Some Amount of Evil" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Episode Music: Tale by Rafael Krux Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5331-tale- License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license