Beast of Gévaudan | The Unknown Creature That Left a Bloody Trail in France for Years

It's 1764 and France is reeling from a devastating war when suddenly the southern countryside finds itself terrorized by an unknown predator. Even after the royal army seemingly hunts the creature down and presents a carcass to the king, a second wave of headless bodies begins to appear soon thereafter. This then, the creature has sparked many conspiracies as to the true nature of these killings. Was this a prehistoric monster, a serial killer hiding amidst the chaos or something else? Today, we uncover the grizzly history of the beast of Javadon. This is Red Web. Welcome back to Ask For Us to another episode of Red Web The Podcast, all about unsolved mysteries, true crime and the unknown. I'm your resident mystery enthusiast Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time Alfredo Diaz. Okay. We're talking about beast creature of such, I mean, I've expressed many times here and on Patreon on our movie club, and I love a creature feature, so I want to know all about it. You know me. I'm asking you, I want to know the usual stuff of the lore, it's weaknesses, how to find you. Yeah. Yeah. What does it do? All that. Okay. Oh, I love that. You know what? I didn't even think about that. I know how much you and Christian love creature features, and this is essentially that. And I don't want to get this mixed up either because we've talked about cryptids, anything we're big foot to moth man, the juiced up moth man, to the Chupacabra, to the Jersey devil. This is somewhere in between, this is a real creature. People were actually dying, heads were rolling almost literally, and they were countless witnesses to this creature. And so it's like, it is a really interesting, like, okay, what is what is going on here? If it isn't just like, so is a real thing. Yeah. This is a real thing that went down. There are birth certificates that reference this creature that you can go see scans of to this day. It is a wild one. I feel like then I said, a creature that's being mistaken for another animal. I think that's possible. That's very much on the table. Yeah. I got thoughts. Yeah. But like I said, there's so many rumors and conspiracies. And we'll go from the grounded all the way to, like I said, people talked about, is there a serial killer here? Is this a curse? Is this just a normal animal doing its normal animal things or is there something even prehistoric here? You know, we talked about that with the Loch Ness monster. Is this a monster kind of from the paediatric era? We'll talk about all of it because it is all very, very fascinating. Before we dive in, some quick promotional elements because we got a lot cooking in the oven right now, Fredo. This Wednesday, we have another poll at redwebpod.com. Choose your own adventure with us, anything from redweb episode topics like this one to movie clubs, scary stories that you want us to do recently. We did a ghost hunt location where we had the task force choose where you or I were going to do a solo challenge or what have you. Yeah. This Friday, we have a movie club that we just covered. It's called moon from 2009. Fredo, I don't know if you want to talk about that one. It's just a space thriller and it stars Sam Rockwell. It's not what you think. So it's a good time and most people I haven't seen it too. It's a sleeper movie for sure. And both Christian and I were on this wild ride of like every act. It was like, oh, I thought this was the big part. It's even deeper. There's even more to come. So fun ride. It's even on YouTube. So go watch the movie then come hang out with us. Get this on your calendars. Now we're getting way in advance because two weeks from now, we have our next ghost hunt coming up. This is the travel location as voted on by you guys. We finally went out to West Virginia. I'll be ambiguous right now, but it's a great one. So come check that out in two weeks and then on July 10th, which is a Friday. We are celebrating our six year anniversary. We have a big stream in the works very similar to last year's five year stream. So all those details are to come support the podcast, get all these exclusives like all the behind the scenes stuff of the ghost hunt at redweb pod dot com. All right. So I want to also shout out community member Haste, who is a buff scientist for submitting this topic. Thank you very much. Haste. Okay. The beast of Jevoudon is the name associated with a creature that was terrorizing the region of Jevoudon France. This was from the years 1764 to 1767. Now right out of the gate, I want to give you an illustration coming from the London magazine of this creature, so you know kind of what we're talking about. Take a look at this. Oh. Like a serpent dog. Oh, okay. Yeah. It is kind of serpenty. What stands out to you that's kind of unique about this thing? The teeth. They're more like shark teeth that are so it's the shape of a dog. The tail seems to be extremely long. It reaches the ground and then then it curls up some. Not super fluffy. It's almost like a cat-like tail. It's like long and looks very flexible, kind of like fur-it-esque, in no sense. But it's also like a dog though. That's how it reads initially more dog. And again, the teeth are like shark teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even think about ferret. That's a great call. And then the snout is like very pointy. Like even pointier, like you see your dogs and then you see like the wolves and they have like narrow snouts. It just looks even narrower than that. And then it's got those like human comehither eyes. I was going to say it's human like eyes, man. I don't know. The artists have some liberties on that one. Yeah. So it looks like a slithery dog if I was just to give it a slithery dog, dude. A slithery dog. Yeah, dude. This dog looks like he would pull her out of a bucket like water, you know? And this is a very common depiction of it. I don't know. Again, if it's an artistic interpretation, but very commonly depicted to look like this. And task force just to catch you up. If you want to watch the video version of this podcast, you can do so at Spotify or on YouTube. That's how you can see these images or on Instagram at red web pod. Okay. So let's get you located here. Juvoudon was located in central south France near the Marjorie mountains. This was a historic province that is now a different modern province. I believe it's in modern day Lausierre. So the area itself was quiet. It was known for being quite secluded. In fact, historian and author Jay Smith wrote this quote, "It had the reputation for being a remote, isolated backwater where the forces of nature had not been fully tamed, where the forests were indeed enchanted." End quote. Okay. We like an enchanted forest. Yeah. A little red riding hood action, maybe, I don't know. But already I'm thinking everyone's mind is primed to, you know, just as primed to things, anything mythical or abstract, but you're different. Right. You're secluded. The woods are dark. You have a lot of folklore that surrounds this. And I didn't know where I wanted to drop this in, but I do know, you know, it's the 1760s now. So the European witch trials were in recent memory kind of ending almost a give or take a hundred years before this. So I want you to think about that too as we kind of step into this arena. Now, for further context for this location, there were thick, vast forests surrounding this mountainous region. And since it was too rocky to grow crops, many locals instead kept livestock. So there's sheep and all sorts of things like that. And 1764 France was tired and defeated. And I'm going to give you this kind of crash course historical context. I think this will help us understand as you're kind of getting into the psychology of the people impacted by today's story, today's creature. So very briefly, a year had passed since the end of the seven years war when France suffered from several defeats by the British and the Prussians, you know, the economy is in shambles. They just had a lot of territory shifts. The monarchy is in disarray. And again, that is until this kind of common enemy, this, this beast, so to speak, enters the fray. And it almost creates kind of an opportunity for the king to create a, just a unified front on this otherwise terrible moment, a continued terrible moment for France right now. Okay, interesting as I'll say, yeah, like a ceasefire type of situation, enemy of my enemies, my friend type thing. Oh no, not that situation, but like the, you know, which is like, hey, we got bigger problems to deal with. Right, right. Like everything's terrible. Let's all focus on this one terrible, maybe. I don't know. Like we could fix a bull's say, not knowing the dimensions of this creature. It doesn't give me like, you know, it doesn't give me like, I'm such a menace that these, these, the war needs to stop, the fine needs to stop and all the focus needs to be on me. It's certainly not like that. I mean, the war ended on its own terms, right. That just kind of ended a year prior. So it's fresh in the memory. It's certainly leaving France. reeling in a lot of different ways, and I think that honestly lays the groundwork. I mean, obviously wolves aren't like, now's the time to strike. The stocks are down. I think it's just, it kind of paints a better picture of the psychology of the people's at the time, and, you know, I think that helps carry some of the conspiracies, right? -Yeah. -Um, but otherwise, yeah, this is a pretty sinister time. So this beast, or, as it was called, "la bet" was terrorizing this region, and witnesses describe this beast using phrases like "like a wolf, yet not a wolf," and "quote." And so you talked about the size. Let me get you the color real quick. It was brown. It was kind of like a russet color. It had sharp canines and fiery eyes. These are commonly seen amongst people, and it was about the size of a calf, with a dark tuft of hair running along the length of its spine that led all the way down to its bushy tail. And so this is where I'll kind of get into a tangent, because I'm like, listen, growing up in Indiana, I know a little bit about crops and animals, and so I'm thinking a calf, and its first year is a calf, like a bovine. -Right. -But a calf ranges quite a bit in size over the course of its life, or over the course of its one year. So, there could be a normal wolf, or it could be a pretty massive creature, just depending on what age of a calf you're looking at. Also, in 1760s, a French calf would be way different than a modern, like, bread calf that's breaded for certain things milk, or meat, or have you. -Oh, it's probably even smaller. -Yeah, it is, yeah. So, with all of that in mind, newborns would weigh between 45 and 65 pounds, or 20 to 30 kilograms at birth, and their height at birth would be 23 to 28 inches, or 60 to 70 centimeters. So, nothing crazy. However, at 12 months, when they're kind of no longer considered a calf, this is like the oldest a calf could be, they would weigh a few hundred pounds, and would now stand closer to, I think, what the descriptions are after. 40 to 45 inches tall, or, like, 101 to 114 centimeters. Yeah, I mean, like, 40 to 60 pounds, like, a wrangle that, hundreds, mm-hmm. It'll sit on me and I can't move. -Yeah, I know what a dog could sit on me and I'm out. -Yeah, so, okay, it gets scary, yeah. So, immediately this gives you, I'll give you a more colloquially, it's kind of like an average wolf size, or height, I should focus on, or a surprisingly large, candid creature, but more on that later. So, okay, with that hopefully vivid image in your head, plus the picture we showed earlier, let's discuss the beast's reign of terror which lasted for three years and claimed many victims. Now, the reports on the total death do vary by source, of course, as we always see on this show, but the numbers range dramatically. Anywhere from 30 to 100, and sometimes upwards of 300 deaths have been reported during this three-year span of this beast. So, it's pretty aggro, to say the least. Yeah, this reminds me, there's a movie that's based on a real-life lion, it's called The Ghosts in the Darkness. It's about a lion that is just this very feral lion that goes on a tear and terrorizes this whole entire village in Africa, and the foreigners that are trying to build a railroad there, so they send in a hunter trying to take care of it. So, this just seems like it's, I'm getting those vibes. Yeah, absolutely. Or it's just like, this is a creature, it might be a creature that everyone knows, but then this one just happens to be on a tear. Right. And it's just completely terrorizing, and so, I don't know, maybe they'll hire a professional to come into take care of it, because what else do you do, or I guess, you know, just send arms to go trying to find it and take care of it? You're on to something, man, because, you know, I'll play my cards a little earlier, that does end up being a huge part of what happens. Yeah, I mean, if it's killing tens of hundreds of people, you gotta get it out of there. You know, then, you know, the politics is coming to play, or it's like, we don't feel safe, can you not keep us safe, etc. Yes. And also, if you're in office, or, you know, you're ruling during that time, then from there, it's like, oh, easy crowd pleaser, you know, it spends, it spends people to slay the beast. Look what I've done for you. Right. Right, especially during this very tumultuous time, a very sensitive time for the crown, in fact, and so, yeah, dude, it's great pull with that movie, you know, because I've heard stories like that with tigers. All sorts of creatures, you know, there are stories like this, and so I don't doubt this, but I think also what really heightens the fear here is kind of the nature of these attacks. This episode of Red Web is sponsored by First Leaf. Task Force, do you like to look at a good glass of wine at the end of the day, but never really know what to buy? Enter First Leaf. It makes the whole thing pretty easy. They match wines to your taste and send them right to your door. First Leaf delivers premium wines straight to your door every single month, no need to jaunt out into society to figure out what bottles to fumble around with. You just answer a quick quiz about your preferences, and they'll send you personalized selections. 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That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F. So, let's walk through the first one, and you'll start to pick up a pattern I'm sure pretty quickly. So, the first attack was an attempt, so not a successful one, as the young woman lived to tell this tale. In 1764, a 14-year-old girl was shepherding her cattle. Her farm was in the Merquard Forest in the eastern area of this region, and as she recounts, the beast emerged from the woods, and instead of attacking her cattle, it seemed almost immediately to focus in on her. It charged her, but interestingly enough, almost in her defense, the herd of bulls saw what was happening, turned them to charge the beast and kind of stave it off, scare it away. However, this was not enough to deter it, this beast seemed locked in, focused on getting this young girl, and the beast charges her once more, the bulls then once again charge back, and this time they're successful. They run the beast off, but the girl reported this incident, and it was kind of dismissed. Everyone simply thought this was a large wolf, yes, dangerous, yes, concerning, but otherwise nothing really out of the ordinary. Again, we talked about in the werewolf episode that we covered ages back, that this was sometimes happening in rural areas, where wildlife might get bold, but I find it so interesting, that it didn't go after the easy cattle or any of the younger cattle, it turned to her, which is interesting, and then stayed locked in on her. Yeah, so this one's different, I mean, you know, easy assumption, rabies, yeah, absolutely, or starvation, sort of Asian things like that, but I mean, even with starvation, it's like go after the baby cows, I don't know, I guess I'd be easier to take out a human that it is a bull. Maybe, yeah, you know, maybe she's a small 14 year old, I mean, most 14 year olds are, but particularly small and so for whatever reason, this predator then says, you, you're the weak link, that's where I'm going, you know. So two months go by without any other documented incidents until June 30th, 1764, it seemed the beast would return this time, it would result in its first killing. So the first death here was another 14 year old girl, this time by the name of Jean Boulet, and cementing this animal's reputation, her death certificate, like I said, is listed online, you can find scanning of this historic document, and it even points to a ferocious beast, or I should say the ferocious beast. And because of this phrasing here, historians have speculated that by this time, even though we don't have documented reports that maybe other deaths might have happened, or maybe other attacks had happened, or at least the community knew about this creature by now, because they're calling it this is that beast, right? The ferocious beast. Right, when you're saying the beast or the beast, not just beast, then yeah, you're talking about a specific one. I mean, right now the pattern is young women, and so I wonder if like, again, you know, all these fanciful tales of the force and everything like that, it's like, people think it's some kind of curse upon like the young women. - Or witchcraft the Ken. - 'Cause I'm sure thoughts are running rampant. - Right, absolutely. And a bit of levity here, but I'm genuinely curious here. Do you think in Christian maybe you can do a bit of side-searching if you don't mind helping me out? I'm very curious since Beauty and the Beast bear with me. Took place in historic France in a province. I'm curious if this tale had any bearing even slightly, like the brother's grim, those stories are quite dark. And I don't know if Beauty and the Beast is a brother's grim tale to be fair, but I'm wondering if this tale had any inspiration on that tale, which then became the Disney one. - Yeah, I mean, everyone draws inspiration from something. I wouldn't be surprised. - You know, I don't know how old Belle was, but she certainly wasn't that old, you know, the teenager of some level. And then you got a beast and then you got the town that says, "Kill the Beast," and then it's France. So I'll let Christian do a little bit of searching and he'll chime in if he sees anything about that, but-- - I already did, actually. - Oh, snap. - Oh, okay. Yeah, Beauty and the Beast actually predates this story by a couple of decades. Beauty and the Beast was first published in 1740. - 1738? - 1740. - 1740. - That's it. - 1730. - 1738, is that what you just did? (laughing) - Hey, what's up? Hello, I'm the Beast. - Oh man, I forget how old some of these stories are. - Dude, I forget the world used to exist before 1990 when I was born and everything that the simulation began. That's, thank you, Christian. That's actually mind-blowing. I thought we were in that realm, but I thought we were ahead of it. That's, that's why. - Yeah, I like this thing. It's all, it had to inspire. Okay, I know, so long. So it was a story that Disney picked up there. - Oh yeah, it's way pre-copyright. And so they sucked up all these tales and threw 'em back at us. And slightly more fanciful ways, people aren't dying left right in the center. - Yeah, sure, all these tales back there are a lot more mature-rated. - You don't want to know the true story of Sleeping Beauty. Maybe I'll take that to scary stories someday. - Wait, is it really like Fero? - Yeah, yeah. It's sinister. - Yeah, man. Okay, well that's wild, you know, okay. Well maybe an errant page of this story made its way into the wood and a literate beast read this tale and was inspired, I don't know what I'm talking about. Okay, so let's, let's bring us back to center. This is the second documented case, the first documented case of somebody dying to this creature. And now, because of that, word travels fast. While they were in denial before, they couldn't deny that someone had died. And the people of Jevoudon were rightfully terrified. And during the first year of these attacks, it was reported that the beast mainly attacked young girls and sometimes lone men. As they were tending to their livestock, maybe they weren't paying attention. This pattern continues for a little bit. But if you take a look at this next image that comes from 1765, thanks to the Gallic-A-Digital Library, you'll see that the trend kind of starts to change, but this shows some of the encounters across several depictions. - The primary image in the middle is yeah, attacking a young woman. Then there's got, it's got a little like comic-esque, like a newspaper comic. - Yeah, like little panels. - Little panels and then attacking some lone individuals. And now it's just being a medicine attacking groups, even groups with weapons. There's pikes of the house. - Yeah, the woman in the middle will actually talk about her in a little bit. She's got a stick with a bayonet at the end of it and she's hoisting this thing, she's attacking it. But yeah, man, and I'll actually read you, I wanted to translate the caption here. Knowing that this comes from the next year, so we're a little out of the timeline, but I wanna read you what this says at the bottom in English. Quote, depiction of the beast called the hyena is wreaking terrible havoc along the borders of Javudon and Ovan. It attacks primarily women and children tearing off their breasts, devouring their hearts and livers and severing their heads. On April 18th, last in the parish of Potalk, it devoured a child aged between 12 and 13. On the 22nd, it attacked a young boy and a girl, the latter of whom was rescued in time. End quote. So as you can see, these gruesome details continue to build and they're, you wanna almost worry that it's the rumor mill just going away with you. But these are actual deaths, bodies that are found in these conditions. And so it really starts to tell you how, how almost aggressive, how vicious these attacks are. - Well, yeah, just the fact that like, you know, what it eats, it's like tearing through your body and everything like that. And so you think it would just go for any organ, right? But specifically going for, we say the heart. - Hearts and livers. - And then it also talked about the breasts, which is a more fatty tissue. What stands out to me, and maybe I'm off on the wrong trail here, but I do know that, I think orcas, when they hunt, I think it's orcas. There are animals that they kinda leave alive and they'll bite out the liver. They know where the liver is and so they'll bite that. Almost like they know that that particular organ is more tasty for whatever reason. And so I'm curious, if that's what's happening with this creature, if it's attacked enough people to know where it's like, well, I like this area of the body because it tastes better. And we just happen to know what those organs are. - Ooh, yeah. - You know, like. - It would be that. - Otherwise, without knowing that or thinking about that, it's pretty specific and pretty sinister, especially the decapitation part. - It's taking people's heads off? - Yeah, this thing is vicious, man. And I see why everyone's alarmed like, it's not just like I'm gonna bite your arm. It's like, this is what I'm going for and this is the piece of you that I want. - Like, that seems very intentional. So that's kind of what this image says. I wanted to show you kind of all these different depictions of it, but also kind of coming back to 1764. Many of these early reports began to notice these same things. They were saying that these attacks were largely focused on the head and the neck regions at these early phases. In some cases, even decapitating the victims as outlined in this previous image's caption. And soon enough, the story made its way to the press as any terrifying tale is going to do. And eventually, all of France knew about this so-called beast of Javoudon. And by the time December of that year rolled around, the killings were so frequent that people began to speculate that there was more than one beast involved in these murders. 'Cause otherwise, why would one individual, let's say, Wolf, continue to hound and hunt and get away with it, but stay hidden and all of these things? Like, why would it kill so often? - Right. And then also, again, this isn't like a overly massive menacing beast, right? Especially when you're depicting it, like, jumping into groups of people, it's that brave. - Mm-hmm. - So you gotta think like over the various amount of encounters, eventually it's taken enough of a beating to succumb to its injuries or something like that. And so these attacks are still happening. And yeah, that's what I would think there's more than one. - Yeah, absolutely. You stab one a few times, maybe it goes and dies, but something else rolls up. Okay, that, that stands to reason for me. But also, I don't know if he's only eating a liver every now and then or a heart every now and then. Maybe he just stays hungry and so he just stays attacking. - True. - Now on December 31st, 1764, the Bishop of Mont, Gabrielle, Florent, des Chois-Sûl, Beau-Pœil, called for the prayers and penance for victims. The message was written and all the priests and the diocese had to announce it at the beginning of their mass. This is essentially them ringing the bells. This is how fervent the entire community began to be that they're seeking divine intervention from this beast. They're basically calling for all the priests to talk about this at the top of all of their masses. And in the message, the Bishop wrote that the beast was sent from God to punish men for their sins. In fact, he references threats that Moses once spoke, saying this, quote, "I will arm the teeth of wild beasts against them," end quote. And then for three straight Sundays, prayers of the 40 hours devotion were made. 40 hours devotions is an act where the prayer is made for 40 hours in front of the blessed sacrament or the body of Christ. And as you can imagine, despite these efforts from the church, the attacks continued. Then on January 12th, a young boy named Jacques Portefé, along with seven other children were attacked near Valeré, which was a small village in the Marjorie Mountains. Portefé was only 10, and his counterparts, the other seven or so boys, were between 8 and 12. After several attempts during the attack, the children were finally able to drive the beast off. Portefé seemed to lead this counterattack and the boys used pikes to fend the creature off. This incident was alarming enough to catch the attention finally now of the upper brass. King Louis XV finds out about this, And he actually sends Porta Faye 300 Livres, which my understanding of French, that would be books, but that's actually, before they used euros, they used Franks, and before they used Franks, they used Livres. It's essentially an older form of currency based entirely on the, I believe, the weight of silver, like a pound of silver, so that's where this term comes from. I don't know what this would translate to in modern American currency, but 300 Livres for Porta Faye, and then 350 Livres were split amongst the seven other boys as a reward for their bravery. Okay, they got paid out interesting, weren't expecting that, but now the information's gone to the tippy top. Very tippy top. So Porta Faye was also given a free education paid for by the crown, again, as this continued reward for the bravery. And this, this next part might give context as to the value of Alivra. So the latest attack spurred the king to send out royal hunters to kill the beast. And he announces a 6000 Livro reward for whoever could defeat the animal. Fun fact, by the way, when I was looking up what Alivra was, aside from being a book, this was the very last year that that was used. I think in April of 1765 is when they did switch to the Frank, so I had just never heard it this before. Yeah, same. Okay. So now the tables are turned, the hunter becomes the hunted. But then this is where like people would just start killing any beast and showing up with them. Like, this is it. I've killed it. It's a great point. And it's like, no, this isn't for going for yourself or before this is a bear. No, this is not the beast that was described, and so this could be a movie. It really could. Yeah. It really could. Someone phoned up Walt Disney's Frozen Head and tell him we got a story for him. So as you can imagine, news continues to travel fast of this of this beast. It's going even further to the point where some historians believe that this might be one of the first true media sensations. Oh, like a viral story. Interesting. What years is it going? 1765 now. Pretty far back. Hundreds of years. It's tough for an entire nation to be very aware of one specific thing going on at that point in time. Yeah. Today, you get information at the speed of light. Truly. Back then, what was it? Is it like mainstream popular and widespread because hundreds of pigeons are flying through the air and the messages are being sent out? Yeah. Like, man, like, to get that out there without any, oh, goodness, there's a lot of letters. The Paul Revere style ride through the dark to the next town and the beast, the beast was here. You know, and it's a fear just spreads, man. It does. Yeah. It's contagious. It spreads like wildfire. But another little fun fact, historically, I don't know about King Louis the 15th in particular. But us doing this podcast right now, our voices are probably hearing more people than some historic kings and queens voices ever heard. It's a mind-blowing fact, but like most people have been heard by more people than royalty at this time because like, like, to hear the king's actual voice, you know, is what I'm saying. Right. It's just the king declared, you know, what about a scroll and like this? Yeah. Right. The Royal. It's got the Royal seal. Yeah. So I declare the king has said, you know, whatever, you know, but I didn't even think about that. That's wild. Yeah. Okay. So the Royal Army is kicking it now. They're coming after this beast. And even the King's men, they truly did take several attempts at tracking, let alone killing this creature. And so that's another interesting part of this tale is how did this thing continue to evade capture or like, when it was seen and attacking so many, how are they not able to track it down and get it so readily, right? Yeah. I'm like, I'm sure it's leaving paw prints as it scurries off. Yeah. Right. Something. So the first men on the front lines were the army of first Captain Duamel of the Clermont Prince Dragunz. The order was sent to Javadon by the king and Captain Duamel was certain that he and his 57 men would succeed in their efforts. After all, their trained soldiers, why would they think that they couldn't track down a wolf and put it to its end? There is no way this wolf cares through them. They're trained. They're armed. They've got weapons with distance and like it, the creature would attack one and they get obliterated from, you know, blind side and. Right. Just two people attacking it once this creature's done for, right? This isn't some sort of like the 300 where all the, what was it? Spartans. Spartans. I almost just said Greeks, but the Spartans are like their numbers mean nothing in our wolf dead. Yeah. They're not narrowing them into a wolf dead and then, you know, they have 300 style like you're saying. So I'm very, very, very curious to see what's going on here. So what's mind blowing, Fredo, is that progress almost immediately stalled with this army of 57 men because for whatever reason that I can't totally understand, local farmers and shepherds were reportedly uncooperative. It's unclear why they wouldn't help him or I don't know if they're actually hindering them, but people are dying. Have you seen a wolf or not? Yeah. So the fact that they're not cooperating, like there is no reason at this point as to why they wouldn't. And ultimately, we do know also in these reports that he claims he nearly shot the beast several times, but ultimately his guards, it seemed, were not equipped enough to so-called tame this monster. So frustrated, Duamel calls upon the king for more help and the king then agrees and he sends over two wolf hunters. You've got Jean-Charles Mark Antoine, Vomel Deneval, and his son, Jean-Fuensois, who got the memo that a long French name is difficult for a modern American to say. That's a very long French name, but now we got to get this right. That's right. That's right. Yes, a father and son specialist, Antoine and Jean-Fuensois. So Deneval or Antoine here and Duamel reportedly differed too much in their hunting strategies, resulting in the first captain and his men retreating back to their headquarters. And so now we're just talking about the father and son and they officially arrive for the hunt on February 17th, 1765. I believe this is somewhere in the land of 10 months after this all really kicked off. And so with them, they brought eight bloodhounds who had been trained specifically in wolf hunting. The pair then searched for four months. They were hunting derasian wolves, but when the attacks continued, it was clear that they were simply just unsuccessful. And these seem to be the guys, like experts in this field and just for the record, Eurasian wolves are kind of just another term for the common wolf. So ultimately, the pair is then replaced in June of 1765 with François Antoine. So Antoine was 71 years old, but he's the official and only King's gun bearer. For the first few months, Antoine too was unsuccessful. It's just mind blowing to me, Frato, that these guys are, well, you hope that it's not nepotism hires, but it seems like these guys should be well equipped at ending lives. I'm like, what are these super beast super creatures? This is where I, like, I'm sure at this point, people are starting to fancify the story. These mythical beasts, you know what I mean? It does all these different things and that's why you can't find it because it wasn't what I'd be found in. Yes, he's even avoided the royal army and the experts and the gun bearer, you know, and it just makes it more terrifying. But suffice to say, I mean, history tells the tale whether these are a fancified or not, the killings continue. The attacks continue August 11th is the next one we're going to talk about. And so whether he was being hunted or not or this creature, I said he, but this entity, this thing, you know, it's still out there. And so this beast attacks again. This time it targets a person named Mary Jean Valet. So Valet was around 19 or 20 years old and she was crossing a shallow stream with her sister when this wolf appeared and attempted to attack her, but she was armed with a bayonet attached to a pole. And this is the image we were talking about. The one in the very center of the kind of many panelled image B, if you want to take a look at it. Yep. I don't know. That's her in the middle depicted as she's stabbing the beast in the chest. And ultimately the beast gets away, but doing this, attacking the beast saves her and her sister. And this kind of brings me back to your initial reaction, which is, are there multiple because if any of them are sustaining injury, maybe succumbing to these injuries, maybe that's why another one fills its place or what have you or maybe that's why they're everywhere but nowhere. But after this attack, she becomes known as the maid of Javoudon. And in 1995, here's another image for you, Frado. A statue was erected in her honor. This image comes from the proper degenerate, but you can see that three dimensional depiction of that 2D sketch we had earlier. Oh yeah, that beast is massive. It's almost like. like the size of all, like you could write it. - Yeah, that's a small horse for sure. A mule, maybe? - Yeah, it's like a dog. It's a small horse with a very long tail. It's still that thing's terrifying, but oh, that's gonna leave some tracks. You should be able to track that thing. - That's what I'm saying. Where are these muddy tracks? We're at a stream right now. - Yeah. - You know? Okay, so amidst the fanfare of Valet's success, Antoine the gun bearer is continuing this hunt in around September 20th, 1765, Antoine killed a large gray wolf. The beast measured 80 centimeters or 31 inches tall, 1.7 meters or five foot seven inches long, and it reportedly weighed 60 kilograms, or which would be like a large wolf, 130 pounds. - Chief. - So this wolf was slain near the Abiyah des Shahs and was thus named Lelou des Shahs, or the wolf of Shahs, it's just the name of the Abiyah there. And in his official statement, Antoine said this, "We declare by the present report, "sign from our hand, we never saw a big wolf "that could be compared to this one. "Hence we believe this could be the fearsome beast "that caused so much damage." End quote. - I saw a sign by earlier. - Bringing in different beasting creatures claim that is the one. - Right, right, he could be doing that, especially since he's like, this is the biggest wolf I've ever seen. Could you doubt it? No, it's the beast. - But also you gotta think that like, you know, you've had a handful eyewitnesses at this point. - Yeah, you absolutely do. There were witnesses that saw this whole thing go down, saw the capturing and killing of this creature, and even saw the defensive scars on the body of this wolf, which would line up with some of the previous injuries it would have sustained before this. So maybe, you know, maybe Mary Jean Vallet kind of began opening the peanut butter jar and Antoine came along here and finished cracking it open. So after the killing was documented, Antoine's son, who had been with him on this entire journey, then traveled back to Paris with the body of this wolf. And there is a depiction of this moment, where he's there with the carcass of this wolf, presenting it to onlookers. And some sources say it was his son, some say it was his nephew, but either way, the body traveled back to Paris. - Oh, is it tacky debris? It's like standing upright in the image. - Yeah, I think the artist took some liberties of like, so it could look clear as being upright as opposed to kind of laying down on the couch. - Yeah, a lump. - But he's presenting it and he's like, look, my father or my uncle has done it and supposedly while this was all going down, Antoine actually stayed behind. And he continued to hunt down a female wolf and two pups that eyewitnesses had reported seeing with the beast saying that maybe this was his family. And so Antoine's like, okay, well, if we got a beast passing on these large genetic aggressive traits or what have you, I'm just gonna wipe out the whole line. And so he succeeds in killing the rest of the family and then finally himself, he returns to Paris on November 3rd. He was met with fame and titles and awards for all these efforts. Yep, there it is. So he's mode of July there. And the rest of November was quite calm. It was quiet. You know, many neighborhoods were breathing easy, knowing that the beast had been slain. The great beast, no more deaths were all good. Oops, it's December and the beast is back. This is a movie, man, it's a movie in itself. The beast is back that didn't say the proper beast. No rear just took out a whole family for no reason. Yep, yep, or I don't know, maybe outsourced the purchase of a wolf carcass or what have you. True, that's very, very true. What was it troll that they were putting like fake carcass? True, true. And then they used doing little fake barefoot prints and stuff like that. Yes, yes. He had two like walking sticks with bare feet at the bottom of him, like bare paws. And he's like, I'm leaving tracks to make it look like they had killed a bear, but instead it was a troll. Goofy, goofy movie, what a good time. So like I said, November seems quite calm 'cause everyone's like, cool, let's let our guard down. But the first sighting of this second wave, this next beast or the existing beast, whatever it was. It was December 2nd, and it seems that this beast, whether the same or a new one, attacked two boys, ages six and 12, so the pattern continues. And from there, the attacks continue. More fatalities are reported. However, the beast seemed different this time. Previously, the beast could be scared away by cattle or maybe kind of somebody fronting it with a pike and stabbing at it. But this beast seemed to show no fear whatsoever. And fear then seemed to rise among the community that this new beast was evidently harder to tame. However, the crown was moving on. They're seeking refuge, they're seeking another kill because there is at least, whether it's again, another beast or the same beast, it's back, and it's a sequel, and the king's like, whatever. We've had our PR, we've paid out our people. I've got my beast, and the king kind of leaves a voodone for themselves. And throughout 1766, these attacks seem to continue, although they are a little sporadic, and locals then try different tactics themselves to kill this so-called new beast throughout the year. But its behavior, once again, seemed to respond to these tactics and it changed. Almost responding, like I said, these attacks become less frequent. And it seemed as though it had settled into a more specific area because the sightings were spanning as wide. So the attacks are not as consistent or as frequent, but they are localized a lot more. - Maybe makes it easier to track and kill? - Maybe. But it seems that these attacks never fully stopped. And on June 17th, 1967, the beast killed 19-year-old Jean Bastide. And then fed up, a young nobleman named Marquis Dapache organized a hunt to look for the beast. This is where it feels very much like beating the beast. Just two days later, okay, this guy is cooking with his efforts. As opposed to everyone before, he sets out this nobleman and two days later on on June 19th, a local hunter, Jean Chestelle, shot a large wolf near Mount Moshe. This was near the heart of the Marjorie Mountains, where a lot of these attacks had been happening for years now. And an autopsy performed on this particular wolf found that there were human remains inside the body. - Oh. - Yeah, dude. And so this seems to be the end of the attacks. No more attacks happened after this. And because there's human remains inside this wolf, they're like, all right, we got 'em. Now we're done. - I don't think so. You got a beast. It's in the area that it's supposed to be. It's got human bodies. What else could you want? Although I still have the theory that there's multiple out there though. - I think that stands to reason. You know what I mean? I really think that's what's going on. And now this next point is kind of speculative. It remains so anyway. And some have said though that a servant named Giber was ordered to take the beast to Versailles and show it to the king. The king reportedly rejected this carcass, this creature, as the remains gave off such a foul odor in the summer heat that they were simply not welcome. Again, the king could also just simply be in denial of the ego brews that like I just paid all this money sent all my guys out. I thought I had it. I announced I did. And then you bring me this like, I don't wanna look at this. But in the end, this is wild. Chastel, who was the one that hunter that shot it two days after the no-moment kind of began this new effort. He was given 72 leaveless on September 9th, 1767 for his contributions, which is a far cry from the original bounty of 6,000 and even less than those young boys who staved this thing off. It's 72. Yeah, I think it's like an ego hit type of situation. Yeah, he goes, you know what? Get this guy out of here and just give him whatever you got in your pocket right now. Just like, just get him out, just get him out of here. That's what this, this is what this sounds like. Okay, well, this leads us to the theories. We will definitely talk about this being a pack of wolves or like a unique type of wolf. I think that's where we're gonna end. But I really wanted to start in the more interesting arena, the idea that maybe this was a serial killer in some way. Yeah, you didn't mention that in the beginning that that's one of the theories and so. Yeah, there's a lot of things I think you have to ignore, but the serial killer theory does lean into a few nooks and crannies. Okay. So some have speculated that the murders were committed by a serial killer. And I think they're talking about all of them, wave one and two. Now this has been suggested kind of specifically because of the full decapitation that was seen in a few of these attacks. Right. Which some believe would have been very difficult for any sort of animal to complete or for an animal to want to complete. And so maybe it was human. Some also think that this explains the victims being more often than not, young girls. Again, I can't help but see that a lot of them We're just young. young people, young kids, and so I'm like a predator would go for a weak link. So I don't know, my questions here are like, were body parts fed to a wolf in order to hide them? Like, did the second wave of attacks actually feature a person who kind of hid in the shuffle? And maybe that's why the second wave of attacks were more focused on a specific area or seem to be more aggressive? Like were they trying to hide behind the idea of a beast to get away with otherwise just slaughter, you know? Dude, that, yeah, it very well could be because again, you know, this beast had like an MO. I can definitely see the serial killer thing and that's a beast smart, feed it to a beast. Yeah, like what if I was a hunter who was killing, and again, I'm adding in my own kind of thinking, because otherwise the serial killer theory just kind of says that the decapitations, the targets, that's all we got. I'm just trying to layer in some more thoughts. I don't fully subscribe to it, but I could see it the first wave being an animal. It actually gets killed and taken to the king, it bada, bada, bada. And then somebody goes like, well, I've got some wolves and I hate people. It kills some people. And then like, maybe if they want to then get away with it, they go, look, look, I found a wolf. Let's open it up. Oh, yeah, there's hands in there. You know, I, it feels like too much, but like there's a lot of series of events that need to happen for this to be pulled off, but I can see it. Yeah, it also again ignores a lot of the, I saw a wolf. That's true. There's a lot of eyewitnesses. Right. Now, hold on a second. I might have blown this case wide open. Here we go. I went back into the laboratories of my mind, and I thought for about five milliseconds. And I thought, what if a man who was really good at prancer sizing, you know, I'm talking about, yeah, people move like horses. What if he put on a wolf suit? Okay. And he was able to, you know, efficiently run around on all four limbs. And he looked then like a man sized wolf because he was a man in a wolf suit. And he was attacking people and biting at him and then actually stab him a little bit. But like, so what if it's a killer disguise? That's a wolf. How embarrassing would it be to get caught? Oh, yeah, you can't get caught in that way. Maybe that's why you can get guys. I'm a guy that's okay with human being. Right. Pranked you. Yeah. Oh man. And yeah. And if it began on the second wave, you know, it starts with a wolf. And it begins the second wave. And that's just to do dressed as a wolf disguised as another wolf. And then he can round a corner and he could pop up, throw it back. And maybe it just like collapses on the ground. And the inside is maybe layered with some nice embroidery. So it looks like he's just standing next to a nice shack rug. You know what? It's, you can see that you can agree with it 100%. Not necessarily. Can I see it or agree with it? But you know, it's a path that your mind went down. Not necessarily. Can I agree with it in any faction of a way? But I understand you said words. Yeah. I understand that you had an imagination. Okay. Well, that's kind of an interesting segue into the next one, which is the idea of a werewolf. Okay. We did a whole episode. Like I said, if you're curious about it, go take a look because the werewolf episode went way deeper than I could have impossibly envisioned. It goes all the way back to the epic of Gilgamesh, the European witch trials. But the idea here is that again, it's a little bit more metaphysical here. But due to its size and ferocity, some do believe that this could have been evidence of a mythical werewolf, a person transforming into a wolf, hence why you have the motive of a person with the veracity and witnesses of a wolf. I mean, again, I mentioned a couple times, you know, it's like, oh, there's some mythical tales being told on the side. I'm sure. And this is this. Yes. And if you think about the whole man turned into wolf and then does the thing, and that would line up with not being able to find this creature or this line up. Yeah. Another interesting element this, this honestly makes more sense than the serial killer angle, I think, because a lot of people are like, hold on a second. If it's been shot stabbed and otherwise should be mortally wounded, if it's a werewolf looking at the lore and the fact that, you know, in modern times, it takes a silver bullet. But in our episode, we talk a little bit more about the lore behind trying to kill an immortal or witchcraft oriented shapeshifting werewolf. Some are thinking, okay, well, maybe that's why it was able to survive being shot or stabbed was because it was some sort of mythical beast. It would be immune to these bullets otherwise. But in the line of this, in the realm of cryptids and things, there's kind of a sub theory here, which is to say that an otherwise long extinct creature might have been present. We talked about this with the Loch Ness monster. That may be a creature from historical times somehow survived to this day. And so some people theorize that it could have been a bear dog, which I believe went extinct somewhere between six and 10 million years ago, but don't quote me. It could be a dire wolf, which I believe went extinct about 11,000 years ago. So it's a little bit more believable, but man, if you look at any modern estimates of the size of a dire wolf, those things would have been terrifying. Yeah, a wolf standing at your shoulder as an upright six foot man is crazy, not terrifying. But the interesting one that I think taps into something pretty real is the long extinct hyenodon. Take a look at this image of what the hyenodon looked like. And let me hear your thoughts. Oh, I mean, that looks just like the creature. Doesn't it look exactly like the creature? Yeah, exactly like it 100%. Big, deep chest, you know, slim waist, long, snout, ratty tail. Damn, was it just a tail end of like a creature that was going extinct? Well, the hyenodon went extinct over 10 million years ago if I recall correctly. It's certainly by millions of years at least. And this image comes from Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm not necessarily like the hyenodon itself, but like, you know, just a creature that existed and then. Right, like we thought it was gone, but maybe, I mean, the dire wolf, that's kind of the thinking here, is like, was this a dire wolf and maybe one of a rare one that just happened to make it to modern times? I don't know if it's impossible, but it might, it might be impossible. I don't, I don't know. Yeah. You know, there's corners of the world, especially at this time, that might be lesser explored, maybe not fully unexplored in this arena. It's the same thing that Chase has any cryptid. Is this a creature that we thought was long gone and we just haven't seen it for a while? You know, we didn't see the giant squid until we did. So true. What's interesting about the hyenodon is the translation that I mentioned earlier under image B. It mentions hyena. And this kind of segues into the next theory. Before I segway, I do want to say a creature of this size, a dire wolf, a hyena don, a bear dog. These would be hard to hide. These were large animals and would certainly cause attention. You know, they wouldn't be able to escape detection for this long. You know, there would at least be, you know, historical records or at least like bone records or what have you or people seeing the thing. That's a thing. Like again, it's a big creature too, right? It doesn't, it doesn't have this like hyperintelligence. And so it's not going to be like, I'm hiding from the people like, right. But if we have all these eyewitnesses, it's like, well, they saw something and I wish we could just hold up. There's like, is this what you saw? Like is this exactly what you saw? Yeah, exactly. Go back in time and solve this. What happened was real to what extent is kind of like what we're trying to line up. And that's where I think these next couple of theories really start to dial it in. So like I was saying, you know, we're talking about hyenas. Some people think it might have just been another wolf-like animal, something that looked similar. And if you hadn't understood what a hyena or even like a smaller lion would have looked like, you might have attributed it to a wolf because that's something you're more familiar with. Again, looking at some of the captions historically of this creature, it does translate to hyena in a few ways. Now this raises the question, how would a hyena or a lion? Honestly, you talked about ghosts in the darkness. You're talking about a lion. You might be on a something because maybe it was, but how did it get here, right? That's the question. And some hypothesized that maybe a lion cub was picked up by a soldier while they were in Africa during the Seven Years War, which ended a year before these attacks. And then when it got too big, maybe dumped it, just dumped it into the wild. The like-placid situation. A little like-placid situation, huh? And so it's young enough to not have a big bushy mane, assuming it's a male, if it's a female, it wouldn't have that in general. But oh, don't like young teenage lions have a bit of a mohawk going on? But then also like a lion does lion things, right? And they've been hunted for hundreds of years. And it wouldn't be a creature that'd be that hard to find. That's the thing, right? If all these professionals, professional trackers, or like the royal guards, or whatever going after this thing, I don't think it would have been that hard to find. I'm just chucking you a a random image of an adolescent line. We're not gonna include this in the podcast specifically because this one's watermarked to heck, but you can see that this line's got a little bit of a moha going on in it. - Yeah. - Yeah, I wish to fit the profile for sure, but in the whole-- - Yeah, but I'm with you. - It's hard to track, they couldn't track the creature. I think that's like a big thing. - Yeah, well, hey, maybe this thing's up in a tree and they never looked up, you know, I don't know how they couldn't get this thing because in my mind, I think that's just maybe some of the exaggeration made it through into the historical record and that's why it's a little murky, but I don't know. So others think it's possible, right, continuing with this theory that a hyena or some other animal might have escaped in transport. Maybe there was an accident of some kind during an exotic animal trade in Marseille. This would have been about 161 or 260 kilometers away from this area. There's not a documented reference to an accident like this. It's all hypothetical, but it's all hypopossible as well. - Yeah. - You know, it's gonna be impossible for us to know. We don't really have the records here of any sort of bones or what have you. But what we do know on the record is that A wolf was killed twice and these are the creatures that were brought to the king and that leads us to the final theory. So some historians believe that the most likely answer is that there was simply an abundance of wolves in the area at the time of the attacks. I think this is something that you were pretty much kind of like chasing down the whole time is that it just felt like multiple aggressive wolves, right? Wolves are known to be abundant in this area during this time period, but what made Javadon stand out was the particularly violent nature of these attacks. I think that's the curiosity we're chasing down here. And while wolves have been known to attack people, they do not commonly murder their victims in such a gruesome manner and such a specific manner. Some have speculated that these wolves or maybe A wolf involved in this incident might have been a hybrid between a wolf and another large animal, again hypothetical here, but this could explain why the beast appeared similar to but not quite exactly a wolf. Maybe why it was so large or maybe, you know, 'cause there are people out there that are well over seven foot tall. That doesn't mean that your bog standard average humans gonna be over seven foot tall, right? But maybe this wolf was just a big wolf. You think I'm gonna say it was pose enough for the NBA? Like, it's just like, yeah. What was that dog that played basketball? Air butt, air butt. Air butt. You're still making those movies. They are? How many buds have we gone through? He's gone to space. He's done all kinds of things. Oh, no space, bud. (laughing) Well, maybe we just got a large wolf. Okay, sometimes some wolves are gonna be big boys, okay? I'm normally large, yeah. I have normally large. Maybe we just had a large mama and she was out there and she had some big cubs that followed in her footsteps, hence, wave two, I don't know. But within this, whether it was a group or individual, we may never know. A group does make sense, but some have speculated that these beasts might have just been wolves that were solitary. You know, if they didn't travel with a pack, or maybe they were injured or sick, they might have become habituated to hunting humans. And as we talked about earlier, if it was rabid or if it was starving, this could have also turned it towards humans. And maybe just the size of a human next to cattle just seemed to be a little bit easier of a target for some of these wolves. But typically it is worth mentioning, typically wolves fear humans. If they were experiencing any sort of stress, maybe that's why they strayed from their ways. Who's to say? But in closing, we may never know. Truly, at least in 100% confident ways, what the creature behind the beast of Javoudon was, and to this day, the tale lives on as a prominent story in French folklore. - And it just, you know, I think it was a beast of its time. And I do like the fact that just off the rip, it was like, oh no, this is a real thing. People have seen it. There's eyewitnesses like, oh, we're talking about some possibly made up creature. Yeah, 'cause when, like I said, haste, thank you, Task Force member haste for submitting this one when I first heard of it. I thought, ooh, a cryptid. But it's not. - It's not, no. - It really is a true crime tale. - Yeah, it really is a true crime tale with an animal-centric answer. And of course, people snuck in a little bit of like Jack the Ripper style stuff. But a fascinating one. I had no idea how much depth there would be to this story. - No clue. No clue. - Here we are. - I'm lucked on this show episode at that episode. It just, my brains are so massive now, we're next, they're gonna step. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, massive brains. And with those massive brains, the laboratory of the mind crafts very brilliant ideas as you saw in the theories that everyone understands, subscribes and believes in now. - Yep, we're all just like, looking at you, we're going, uh-huh. - Uh-huh, uh-huh. - Well, I'm seeing all the pens move and it's going right into the historical records and this will outlive me, I'm sure. - Yes. Well, Task Force, as always, thank you, thank you, thank you. So much for supporting us. We are approaching six years old. We just celebrated our anniversary here at the beginning of June, like I said at the top of the show. Friday, July 10th, Mark your calendars. Fredo is cooking up a heck of a streaming show. We're gonna be doing all sorts of things, but stay tuned for those details in the weeks to come. We'll let you know what those things are and how else you can help us celebrate our six year anniversary. But some shout outs to Task Force members. The newest elite member is Nolan Roberts. So thank you for joining just moments ago. And also shout out to our mod and buff scientist of the week, Nubia, you're awesome. You've been in our community for as long as this podcast has existed and the times before it. So thank you very much. And then our buff scientist for the week, we got Tucker did it, Gavin Day, and appropriately, Wolf, 472. Oh, hi. Maybe it was them, but they'll never tell. But with that said, Fredo, I'll see you right back here next Monday, but yet another mystery. (upbeat music)