'Jaws' Was Inspired By The Matawan Man-Eater, And The True Story Is Even Scarier Than The Movie

Over a two week span, things along the New Jersey coast started to get pretty terrifying. It began on July first, 1916, at a resort town called Beach Haven. 25-year-old Charles Vansant was on vacation from Philadelphia, with his family when he decided to take a little swim in the ocean. People close by didn't see the shark attack, but heard him began shouting, and by the time anyone could reach him, his legs had been slashed open by massive bites. Even as they dragged him out of the water, one onlooker said they saw the ominous shape of a shark following Charles. They brought Vansant into a nearby hotel to try to save him, but the damage was far too great. He bled to death on the manager's desk before any further help could be called.

After this incident, the shark would reportedly go on to kill a total of four people (perhaps more — though that is unconfirmed). Only one of these attack victims would survive the ordeal, a young boy by the name of Joseph Dunn. The pre-teen was the final attack victim, and his leg was bitten off by the shark on July 12, less than two weeks after the first killing took place.

One really terrifying aspect of the killings has to do with the fact that this shark didn't just hunt out in the ocean. His first two victims, Charles Vansant and Charles Bruder, were both bitten in the legs while swimming in the ocean, and died of blood loss, with Bruder losing both legs completely to the shark.

However, the third victim, an eleven-year-old boy by the name of Lester Stillwell, wasn't even in the ocean when he was attacked. 

On July 13, 1916, sometime in the afternoon, a man walking back from fishing by Matawan Creek when he saw a strange shape in the water, coming up the creek with the incoming tide. He later said the thing was at least eight feet in length, and he recognized it as a shark. He ran to town to warn people, but he did not have the chance to cross paths with Lester and his young friends, who were going to go swimming in the creek. They may have heard about the shark being nearby, but thought it was a joke, and decided to go swimming. One of the children did note a strange thing brush by his leg, but by then it was too late to flee. The shark violently attacked Lester, pulling him under and killing him. Less than a day later, the shark would also attack Joseph Dunn nearby in the creek, biting off his leg

It became very obvious very quick that this shark wasn't afraid to kill anyone who messed with him. When he attacked his first victim, Charles Vansant, he followed the rescuers into the shallows, pulling against their efforts, and only stopped when his belly scraped the bottom. When he attacked Lester Stillwell, he was particularly violent, and was more aggressive than ever about stopping any rescue efforts.

The boys who managed to escape the creek and the shark attack went screaming about sharks to the local Main Street. At first, locals believed Lester was drowning due to a seizure, as he was prone to these all his life. They came to the banks of the creek, hoping to recover his body, and some of them waded in. Witnesses even say they saw the boy's body above the water briefly, and the men attempted to rescue the boy from the creek. Then, unexpectedly, the shark struck again. He dragged a man named Stanley Fisher under the water, and although the two struggled, the shark mauled him and bit off huge chunks of his flesh. It took another rescuer hitting the shark with a boat oar in order to get Stanley free. By that point it was too late, and Stanley later died of blood loss and shock, becoming the shark's fourth killing. Lester's body would not be recovered until some time later. 

Because of the killings being in the Matawan Creek, the shark soon became known as the Matawan Man-eater.

In response to these four deaths, nearly five deaths, there was a huge backlash against sharks. The town of Matawan itself was horrified by all that had happened, and began doing such things as trying to blast the creek with dynamite, an effort that obviously did not kill the offending shark. But the biggest hunting efforts were made all up and down the coast of New Jersey, with devastating results.

The New Jersey governor mandated that all swimming areas had to be enclosed with wire mesh, to keep swimmers safe. The local government then called for a shark hunt, to kill this man-eater, and fishermen from all over set out to kill any and every shark they could find. It didn't matter the type or the size, as long as the shark was dead. Even President Woodrow Wilson called a meeting of his cabient and decided to give federal aid in order to drive away all ferocious sharks in the area. Hundreds of sharks were killed in a matter of days as locals and hunters of all sorts tried to bring the killer shark to justice. 

Eventually, the massive shark hunt turned up a body, and this time it was that of a shark. Michael Slicer, a coastal fisherman, caught a nearly nine-foot shark, initially thought to be a great white, just outside a creek at Raritan Bay, near Matawan. The shark was huge, but scientists needed to confirm that this was actually the man-eater, and Dr. Frederick Lucas decided to dissect the shark to see its stomach contents. What he found inside the animal was gruesome.

Reports say that 15 pounds of human remains were removed from the shark. These included a shinbone of a young boy, and what could only be identified as something that appeared to be a human rib. Authorities declared that this was the shark that had killed four people, and the hunt was ended. Even then, hatred for sharks and the decline in resort towns along the New Jersey coast continued for some time longer.

Shockingly, sharks have not always struck fear into the hearts of the masses. For a long while, scientists believed that sharks not only would not, but most of the time were unable to kill humans. There were occasional attacks, but these were dismissed as merely fishermen's tall tales, and some people even went around trying to get sharks to attack in order to make the point that they couldn't. The sharks, fearful of people being so aggressive, would swim away, reinforcing the idea that there was no such thing as a man-eater shark. Some scientists disagreed,

Even when the New Jersey attacks first began, scientists did not believe it was a shark doing the killing. They suggested it may be an orca, or even a giant turtle. It was not until the body count began to climb, with witnesses, that scientists began to recognize that the culprit was definitely a shark.