THE UNKNOWN: The Beast of Gévaudan

It's almost a rite of passage for a child to be afraid of the monster hiding under their bed.

But nobody knows what the monster actually is.

Some speculate that maybe it's an imaginary representation of separation anxiety or simply a fear of the dark.

But who's to say that just because we don't know what it is, that it isn't real and that we shouldn't be scared?

Because in the 18th century, a monster did attack in an ancient French region called Ge Vaudun.

And to this day, nobody knows exactly what it was.

This is Supernatural, and I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

This week, we're looking at the Beast of Gévaudun.

From 1764 to 1767, almost 300 people in the French region of Gévaudun were attacked by a mysterious creature simply known as the Beast.

This thing both terrorized and fascinated the likes of shepherders and peasants, the nobility, and even the king.

But despite the 250 years that have passed, we still don't know exactly what or who was causing all these attacks.

We'll have more about the beast coming up.

Stay with us.

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The story begins at the end of June in 1764, when 14-year-old Jean Boulet went out to tend her family sheep.

Now, this isn't abnormal.

Almost everyone in the area is a shepherd or farmer of some kind, and the kids are all expected to help with the work.

And the hills where the sheep graze outside of a small, isolated region called Vivore,

isn't exactly the most dangerous place in the world.

Cottages dot the hillside in a lush green area surrounded by mountains with massive granite and limestone rock formations.

Sure, the fog gives the landscape an eerie quality and makes the mountains look like giants.

And sure, there are wild animals, rabid dogs, coyotes, wolves, nothing that an experienced shepherd can't handle.

But when Jeanne doesn't return that night, people start to worry.

And when they go out to look for her, what they find is horrifying.

Her body is mangled so violently that the cause of death is listed as nothing but by a beast.

Now, to the villagers, it's a freak accident, nothing to be uniquely afraid of.

It was sad, but in the 18th century, death wasn't necessarily surprising.

But on August 6th, the body of a girl from a nearby village of Sely Selier is found choked and partially eaten, not unlike Jean Boulet.

Still, the villagers think this could be a coincidence.

But on August 8th, there's a third victim, a 15-year-old girl this time.

And at the end of the month, a fourth, a 16-year-old boy also working in the hills.

And in September, there are four more lethal attacks.

This is no longer a string of coincidences, but a lethal pattern.

The villagers of Jevodun begin to get pretty anxious.

This is eight recorded deaths in basically three months.

That might not seem like a lot, but this is a very low population region, unaccustomed to having their shepherds attacked in such quick succession.

Plus, sheep herding is the backbone of the local economy.

They can't afford not to do it.

So they announce the presence of a dangerous animal at the local parishes.

People are asked to stay home, but the beast starts attacking closer and closer to the villages themselves until an adult woman is killed just a few steps from her own door.

Now, some of these attacks are great distances from each other, but the people of the Ge Vaudon don't really consider the possibility that it's more than one beast.

They've been living with large animals in these hills for centuries.

There's really no reason to suspect that those animals might have turned into violent people eaters.

This is something completely completely different.

As word spreads through the local newspapers, sightings are more frequently reported and speculation starts to run rampant.

It's hard to pin the first time the creature is identified and described.

Some descriptions are vague.

People are maybe perhaps too terrified to describe what they are seeing or attacks happen so quickly that they don't get a good look.

But here's what we know.

It attacks both at night and during the day.

One account describes a sister so utterly terrified by watching her brother get eaten that she spent three days hidden in some rocks.

By the time she was found, she completely lost her grip on reality.

Some reports say the beast is like a wolf, yet not a wolf.

The size of a donkey, a leopard, or a small horse.

It's got massive claws, six talons, and pointy fangs.

The color of the fur is sometimes described as gray, sometimes reddish, but the most common descriptor is a unique black stripe down its back.

Then there are the eyes, described as sparkling, fiery, blood red in color, and the smell, a smell so rotten that survivors claim they could smell it coming from afar.

There's talk of it being able to bend its own body in half or walk on its hind legs or paddle through large bodies of water.

Some people are even finding the victim's clothing neatly folded next to their bodies.

As the stories get more and more bizarre, the villagers insist that this is no regular animal.

This is something beyond normal understanding, and it's getting worse.

The people of Gévodon need help.

So in steps the local government.

First, a delegate named Etienne Lafon is appointed to lead the hunt.

He soon recruits a military captain named Jean-Baptiste Duamel, the first officially endorsed hunter, and together they recruit over 100 volunteers to help.

This is a hunt on a pretty massive scale.

To them, there's no way they won't catch this thing.

So in October of 1764, they take that group to the forest where the beast was last spotted and surround the woods.

There's a pretty dense fog here.

Storms threaten to send them home at any time, and it's not easy to see more than a couple of feet ahead.

But despite the conditions, they move in slowly, guns at the ready.

After some time, a creature emerges, one only described as frightening.

A hunter steps up close and fires, knocking the beast over.

The hunter thinks he's gotten him.

A group closes in, but then the beast just gets up and takes off back into the depths of the forest.

This story is baffling to Lafon and Duamel.

They attempt to track it throughout the night, but find neither blood nor the beast's body.

And as the hunt continues, other volunteers report that when they shoot at the beast, the bullet doesn't even pierce its skin.

It just bounces off, defying death itself.

By the end of October, attacks are averaging four a week, a massive increase from the three that occurred in all of August.

Not all are deaths.

There are some survivors, but those that survive describe harrowing experiences.

Lafon and Duamel are convinced that this creature is something extraordinary.

And with the help of the local newspapers, speculation spreads that this is a creature with semi-magical qualities.

Then, the beast becomes not just a local phenomenon, but a national obsession.

Throughout the country, people are talking about it, joking about it, fighting about it.

Stories of the beast become so popular that word actually gets all the way up to Versailles and into the ear of King Louis XV.

Of course, Louis is determined to put an end to these killings.

So on January 27, 1765, he announces a 6,000 livre reward for the hunter who brings him the beast slain.

Now, 6,000 livres is a lot of money back then.

It's almost 30 years' salary for most of the peasants of Gevodon.

And for those that are already wealthy, there's the glory attached.

To slay the most fearsome beast in France would be the greatest prize of them all.

On top of that, by February of 1765, after five months of hunting, local leader Duomel's lack of success causes him to fall out of favor with the locals.

So the door is wide open for a new hero to emerge.

They just need someone really brave to walk through it.

The first guy to step up is Jean-Charles Denval, a professional wolf hunter from Normandy.

He registers with the local leader Lafon and heads to Gévodon along with his son and six hunting dogs, thinking that he's got this.

I mean, he's already killed 1,200 wolves in his career, and his son is a military captain.

Some shepherd-killing monster can't be too difficult to handle.

But of course, he runs into a few obstacles.

First, there's fighting between him and Duamal, who isn't particularly happy about being replaced.

Second, Denval is also absolutely shocked by the region's geography.

He hadn't expected it to be so mountainous or the weather to be so so brutally treacherous.

There were freak snowstorms, rolling blackness, wind tunnels, brutal conditions to spend days and nights tracking an animal.

Which again means this isn't just any animal or any wolf.

It has to be an animal that can survive in ridiculous conditions.

Eventually, it becomes apparent that Denval can't keep up.

So in July of 1765, just five months after starting, he's asked to step down.

We don't have exact numbers here, but it's been about a year since the first killing.

And Gé Vaudon's seen probably about 200 attacks.

If the French don't kill the beast soon, who's to say deaths won't end up in the thousands?

And so again, they amp up the hunt.

The next appointed hunters are the king's personal gun bearer, a man named François Antoine and his son, a cavalry officer.

Now, François has all of the equipment and skills, the guns, the impressive track record, even a nephew who's a gamekeeper.

And mostly, he surpasses a lot of the issues Denval had.

He waits out the storms, wins the hearts of the townspeople by setting off a fireworks display, and gives a rousing speech proclaiming that he will destroy the beast.

And in September of 1765, François does finally shoot down a wolf.

He and his son take the remains to Versailles to be examined, and the king is so excited that he declares victory.

François and the people of Gévodon are ecstatic.

With the beast finally proclaimed dead, everyone can sleep in peace.

Unfortunately, the announcement is premature.

The king's examiner reports that there's no actual evidence that the wolf brought to the palace by Francois had eaten any human flesh at all.

Then, in December of 1765, the beast strikes again, four before Christmas, including one girl who is consumed so thoroughly that her body is deemed insufficient for burial.

And over the next year, the beast keeps on his murderous rampage.

But under increased pressure from Versailles, the newspapers slow the reporting.

It becomes hard to tell exactly how many attacks occur over 1766, and the peasants of Gévou Don are left with hardly any further information.

All we know is that this creature continues continues killing in large numbers, covering great distances, evading bullets, and seemingly cheating death.

They don't know what it is, they don't know where it came from, but one man was determined to put a stop to its rampage, no matter what it took.

We'll dive into the end of the beast hair after this.

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Now let's get back to the story.

In November 1766, the beasts' attacks seem to almost disappear.

But in March of 1767, they start up again in full force, as many as 10 a month.

At this point, it's feeling pretty hopeless.

The beast's reign of terror has spanned three years, resulting in deaths or injury of hundreds of people.

So in June 1767, a local marquee decides that he's had enough and spontaneously organizes a group of men to hunt.

Among these is a man named Jean Chastel, who joins the group alongside two of of his sons.

Soon, they arrive at La Tenazaire, which is a big woodland area in Jevoudin with dense thickets, tall hills, limestone caverns.

The beast could be anywhere.

At some point, Chastel splits off from the group.

Now, he doesn't go far.

He can definitely still hear the other hunters, but he's sort of on his own for a bit, wandering, smelling the fir trees, looking for tracks.

According to one account, he's even praying.

And then he hears a rustle in the woods.

It's the beast.

It emerges from a dense thicket.

And according to Chastel's retelling, it's exactly as described.

Stripe down its fur, big glowing eyes, and that rotting smell.

And Chastel, a religious man, seems not to be afraid.

He even takes a moment to finish his prayers, like Lord, have mercy on us, Christ, have mercy on us, and so on.

And the beast waits.

But then, Chastel finishes speaking.

The beast runs, charging directly at him.

So Chastel calmly pulls out his gun, he aims, fires, and then just like that, the beast falls.

Chastel and his sons gather the body.

and like François Antoine before him, set off toward the French capital to show the king their kill.

After this, the attacks actually do stop.

People are celebrating, no longer afraid to go outside or head up into the hills or tend to their livestock.

Life in Gévodun goes back to normal.

But when Chostel's beast eventually makes its way to Versailles, it is so decomposed that nobody can confirm what exactly it was.

Over time, stories of the beast are passed down from generation to generation in Gébodon and prevailed for centuries to come.

But that leaves us to ask, what exactly was attacking that tiny French countryside?

Our first theory comes by going back towards the end of 1764, a few months after the initial killings, and looking at an announcement made by a local bishop.

Now, this is a guy of importance.

When he talks, people listen.

And when the bishop first gets word about this man-eating beast, he doesn't think it's just a beast.

He thinks it's some sort of bad omen.

In his notice to all the parishes under his jurisdiction, he basically blames the attacks on the people of Gevodon themselves.

He says, quote, divine justice does not permit innocence to suffer.

The punishment it inflicts always presupposes the air that attracts it.

It should be easy for you to see that your misfortunes arise from your own sins.

He goes on to reference Leviticus and Deuteronomy, saying that this is all a result of their spiritual failings.

To the bishop, the beast is nothing more than an act of God.

The bishop cites a few, quote, sins of the people, recent political wars, neglect of worship, a decline of sexual morals, all things that he believes warrant some sort of deathly punishment.

He even mandates a 40-hour period of prayer.

If the people renew their commitment to God, they might be spared.

But the bishop could have had an ulterior motive for giving this explanation.

At the time of the beast, the Catholic Church is being challenged by two things.

One, the rise of Protestantism, and two, a growing subset of members within the church known as Jesuits.

Both groups directly challenge more conservative Catholics like the bishop.

So in his eyes, the Catholic Church is losing a grip on their power over their citizens.

It's possible that consciously or subconsciously, when the bishop learned about the attacks, he saw an opportunity to regain control.

And despite the peasants' prayers, the killings only continued.

You could say that Chostel's prayers helped him kill the beast, but likely many before him prayed as well, and this was only a coincidence.

So that brings us to a host of explanations that developed in the years following the reign of the beast.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious, is that it has to be a normal, natural creature acting on its own volition.

And maybe the creature is natural to the world, but unnatural to the region.

Which brings us to theory two, that the beast is something exotic, possibly escaped from a local menagerie.

This theory started in the late 17th century.

Worldwide trade is exploding at this time.

And with the spices and jewels and exotic treats came stories and drawings of unusual animals, things the French had never seen before.

And well before the attacks by the beast, King Louis's great-grandfather starts collecting these animals.

And because everyone wants to feel like royalty, this becomes a popular hobby.

But like with most new activities, there's inherent risks.

In this case, the escape of a violent creature.

So basically, the theory is that the beast of Gevodon could have been someone's pet.

One day, the animal gets loose and kills people, but the owner doesn't want to come forward because, well, he or she doesn't want to be deemed responsible and thrown in jail.

So if the beast really is an exotic animal, which of them is deadly enough to cause all the killings?

Here, we turn to a book by S.

R.

Schwab and Gustavo Sanchez-Romero.

In it, Schwalb and Romero suggest all sorts of animals that could fit the beast.

Monkeys and snow leopards, and even some prehistoric type of creature called a bear dog.

Now, I don't want to get too bogged down with animal anatomy here, but of all these animals Schwalb and Romero mention, our best bet is probably an animal called the African striped hyena.

You might remember one specific detail about the beast's fur.

It had a distinctive dark stripe down its back, and this description remains pretty consistent throughout all the sightings.

A few other things seem to support the striped hyena theory.

First, in the 1990s, an employee at the National Museum of Natural History in France came across a pamphlet from 1819 describing the animals on display in one of the museum's past exhibits.

One of the animals is described as a striped hyena from the east brought to Paris by a menagerie keeper.

So it proves that hyenas did exist in France, but that's not all.

The pamphlet goes on to describe the animal as having eaten a large number of people in Gevodun, comparing it directly to the beast.

Now, it's probably not this exact animal that was doing the killing, but it means that the striped hyena theory was probably pretty widely accepted in the century after the attacks.

That, plus hyenas have the ability to crush bones and and chew up bits of flesh that others can't digest, and the beast was known for literally ripping apart its victims.

There's even contemporary accounts of similar attacks where the animal was known for sure to be a hyena.

In the 1880s, a hyena attacked in Turkey, prompting the government to offer a reward for the slaying of the animal, similar to King Louis's leaf.

In 1930s, Azerbaijan, a hyena was said to have entered courtyards, just like in Djevodun.

And in 1962, nine children were reportedly taken in a period of six weeks in India, a similar rate to the beast.

But here's the thing: the hyena theory doesn't explain something else we know, that most bullets were unable to pierce its skin.

So the question becomes, why on earth was only Jean-Chostel's bullets able to kill it?

Well, it turns out that Chostel didn't just use any bullets.

His were actually made from silver and not just any silver.

The bullets were supposedly made from melted down coins, coins with the image of the Virgin Mary, precious metal blessed by God.

It's very possible that we are in fact dealing with a wolf, but not just any wolf.

Now, I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but bear with me.

The beast could really be a werewolf.

This theory was first proposed by newspapers at the time of the killings, but it still holds true today.

We've already said that the French were kind of obsessed with exotic animals, but they were and still are also really interested in creatures that were mythical and spooky and romantic.

Now, you might be thinking, well, if we're going to talk about werewolves, werewolves only come alive during a full moon, and the attacks were all month long and even during the day, so it couldn't possibly be a werewolf.

But you'd be wrong.

The earliest known real-life werewolf, at least alleged werewolf, is a man named Peter Stuba who lived in 16th century Germany.

Now the legend is that Stuba makes a pact with the devil.

He gives up prosperity for the power to take the shape of some sort of beast and to more easily attack men, women, and children.

Satisfied with this exchange, the devil gives him a a girdle, one that would turn him into a wolf whenever he desired.

Werewolves don't have to only come out during a full moon, nor do they necessarily only attack at night.

But here's another thing to consider.

The true medical definition behind werewolves is a term called lycanthropy, which according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, means a mental disorder in which the patient believes that he is a wolf or some other non-human animal.

So basically, there's the mythical form of it, a person magically turns into a werewolf, but there's also the psychiatric version of it, where a person believes in the delusion that they are a werewolf and is basically pretending, which means that the werewolf in question wouldn't necessarily have to attack in wolf form.

And think of the accounts where the victim's clothes were found folded next to their dead bodies.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen any animal of any kind that was able to take clothes off of a small child and then fold them.

No matter which way you look at it, this act alone suggests that there was something human about the beast, which forces us to consider something else.

In the late 19th century, a different kind of beast starts appearing, something that is very capable of stripping down a child and folding clothes neatly.

And I'm talking about a serial killer.

Serial killers are notorious for being meticulous about what they do in a creepy, kind of artistically mad sort of way.

Even John Wayne Gacy would sometimes sneak into the funeral homes of his victims and fold their clothes.

And the sightings, the horrific descriptions, the fur, the things that make you think it's an animal could be explained by vivid imaginations under stress or by something else.

In the 18th century, the military often used boarskin to protect dogs in battle.

It's very possible that whoever was behind the beast was doing the same thing, covering himself in animal skin, kind of like a costume.

And this could also explain why some of the bullets completely bounced off its hide or why after a big blow, the beast was still able to stand up.

But if there really was a human behind the beast, then who?

And why when Chastell killed an unknown animal in June 1767, did the killings end?

It might be because Chastell was more closely connected to the beast than anyone could have imagined.

We'll dive into this more right after this.

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Now let's get back to the story.

It's hard to pin down a ton of information about Chostel.

Most records say that he was either a farmer or an innkeeper, basically a peasant.

And so it makes sense then that he would be penned as a sort of hero.

It's a classic David v.

Goliath story.

The lowly innkeeper taking on the town monster, the poor farmer getting all the riches, etc.

But in 2013, a researcher named Phil Barnson starts looking a little bit closer.

He always thought something was off about the story.

story.

For one, how was a poor peasant farmer able to afford silver bullets?

So he tracks down all the old signatures of Chastel's, and he notices something peculiar.

Chastell seems to have been signing off on burials, baptisms, marriages, all the things that would require someone of importance.

Not only that, but the style of Chastel's signature suggests a sort of bourgeois upbringing.

And when Barnson tracks down his family lineage, he figures out that Chostel might have actually descended from nobility, not a poor innkeeper or farmer at all, which would explain how he's able to afford those silver bullets.

But what's really curious about Chastel is his son Antoine.

Now, there's a lot of stories and myths around Antoine Chastel, but here's what we generally know.

At some point in his life, he travels through the Mediterranean.

We don't know why or how, presumably, there's some family money, but we do know that he eventually ends up on the island of Menorca, where he works as the keeper of a menagerie.

And here's where it gets really interesting.

Antoine supposedly returns to Gevodon with a hyena.

It's rumored that he even trained it to attack.

At some point before the killings begin, he sets himself up in a makeshift home somewhere way, way up in the forest.

Now, it's possible that Antoine could have set his hyena loose to do the killings.

But as it turns out, Antoine might have suffered from hypertrichosis, a disease that causes excessive wolf-like hair growth on the body and face.

Which brings us right back to our werewolf theory.

Antoine himself could have also been doing some of the killings.

And amongst the stories that have been passed down about the beast, we have an account by a local peasant named Begu that might just confirm this.

It's early morning before dawn, and Begu is taking a walk through the forest.

It's bright, a full moon, and he's enjoying the smell of the fir trees and the early morning peace and quiet when he sees something strange in the river up ahead, something moving.

So he walks towards it, and then he realizes that he isn't alone.

There's a bather in the river, a young, hairy man.

It's a bit strange.

Then suddenly, the bather spots him.

Begu freezes for a second.

He doesn't know whether to say hello or to turn around, so he simply stops.

And then the man jumps out of the water, turns fully into a beast, and lunges right at Begu.

Begu runs so fast back to his house that he doesn't even turn around.

He shuts himself inside terrified of what he thinks he's just seen.

Now he doesn't come out until the next day, but when he does, he says that the bather looked rather similar to none other than Antoine Chastel.

Believe what you will about werewolves and man beasts and packs with the devil, but the theory that Antoine Chastel was some sort of hairy serial killer looks pretty good if you assume that his father might have played a role in getting his son to stop killing.

Meaning, it could be that Jean learned of his son's wrongdoings and fearing his son's imprisonment got him to end his gruesome hobby and then killed some other animal just to refute any leads.

Unfortunately, we don't really have any proof for this theory.

All we know is that after Jean-Chostel shoots this animal with a silver bullet, the killings end.

And we don't really know what happened to Antoine after all of this, but some records do show that he might have been married and had a few children of his own.

The truth is that even today, it's hard to know exactly what the beast was.

But recent researchers have proposed what is probably the best explanation, or at least a theory for why the beast might have developed an appetite for humans and why those years were especially ripe for kills.

In the 18th century, an increase in hunting activity, deforestation, and the expansion of agriculture in the region all made space for humans, but it reduced space for the small wild animals on which wolves normally fed.

So it's possible that the wolves might have dug up corpses in the area, bodies left over from famine or disease or war, and all that human flesh helps them develop an appetite for small children, who are the primary shepherds in the area.

It makes total sense that the beast might have just been a pack of wolves in the area forced to eat whatever they could find in the hills, which again happens to be humans.

And as to why the beast might have eventually gone away, we turn again to the book Beast, Werewolves, Serial Killers, and Man-Eaters by S.R.

Schwab and Gustavo Sanchez-Romero.

Schwab and Romero suggest that some of the wolves could have been suffering from a disease called mange, which causes skin lesions and odd patches of hair loss and makes them horrific or even hyena looking.

Schwalb and Romero suggest that the distinct smell of the beast was the smell of oral infections, something associated with old age.

Plus, the beast seemed to have a preference for eating organs, indicating that they were sick and needed the protein specifically provided in livers and hearts and brains.

So if these wolves were sick and old, then after a few years, they would have just died and decayed away.

Now, there are still some things that can't be explained by the pack of wolves theory, the bulletproof quality of their hides, the folding of the clothes, the decapitations.

So there are still plenty of holes, even in this theory.

But regardless of what it actually was,

the beast became a dark romantic myth to the French.

The wolf population in France largely decreased, but the beast of Gé Voudun haunted the bedtime stories of children for centuries to come.

I'll leave you with this.

In 2017, it was reported that wolves have recently been migrating into France from the Italian Alps, and wolf sightings are increasing in the tiny pocket of the country now called Lozère.

It's very possible that for the people of the Gé Voudun, an old enemy has returned.

Thanks for listening.

I'll be back next week with another episode.

To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all other audio chuck originals.

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Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving?

Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights.

Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with Greenlight Infinity's driving reports.

Monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding, and more.

These reports provide real data for meaningful conversations about safety.

Plus, with weekly updates, you can track their progress over time.

Help keep your teens safe.

Sign up for Greenlight Infinity at greenlight.com/slash podcast.