100 Dead Rabbits and a 'Village Gripped by Fear'

A French town is being terrorized by a serial killer—but humans aren't the target. The Telegraph reports that someone in the village of Minihy-Treguier has so far slaughtered more than 100 rabbits, slipping into residents' yards, yanking rabbits out of their hutches, and either stomping them to death by foot or murdering them with a sharp tool of some kind. "The cages are opened, then the animals are killed in cold blood and left at the scene," a police statement notes, per the Sunday Times. The town's mayor says there've been 15 attacks in all, starting in March, with some homes getting hit more than once. "He returned to one home four times, killing 20 rabbits there in all," the mayor notes.

One woman who lost six adult rabbits—as well as some of their babies, which died after the mothers were killed—tells local media she once surprised a man she though was the rabbit murderer, wearing a black hat and a long raincoat, one morning, "but he had the time to make his escape." Oddly left alone in these murderous rampages: chickens and geese that often cohabitate with the bunnies. (Authorities don't think foxes or other animals are killing the rabbits, as was the case with a slew of mysterious cat deaths in the UK.)