Transcript of The 1916 Jersey Shore Shark Attacks (Part 2)

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elaina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbed.

Morbedito.

And guess what? What's up, girl? You better keep your eyes pealed on Friday the 13th.

For various reasons.

Because it's a spooky day, one. And two, because if you're on our Instagram, which like, where are you? Where are you? Actually, to be honest, I understand if you're not on Instagram at all. Well, yeah, that is. If you're not on Instagram, maybe you don't need to go back on it. That is understandable. Good for you for getting off of it. But if you're on our Instagram or want to, we're going to be announcing something on Friday the 13th, which is tomorrow when this comes out. So it's going to be pretty cool, everybody.

And if you're not on Instagram, don't worry. We'll be announcing it on the pod, too. Just not on Friday the 13th because we don't have an episode of that day.

It'll be Monday.

Whatever date that is. What is it?

13th. 16th? Yep. Yep. Monday the 16th, we will announce it on the pod. So You know? You're going to hear it. You're going to hear it. You're going to see it. You're going to feel it. You're going to sense it. All the things. Yeah. It's going to be awesome.

It's going to be fucking awesome. I'm excited for this announcement. I am very excited for it as well. Can we put trumpets when we announced on the Pottie Otty? Announcement. Just put that. That's what we'll do. Perfect. Like you said, I won't be doing that.

He's just staring at us like, Are you two all right? Because Something got to ride.

We're silly today. I'm not sure why. Is it what's silly day? Is it Friday?

Oh, we have it. It's because we have a new setup in this room. Well, almost. Well, it's definitely new.

We're working on it. Everything is everywhere right now, and maybe that's why our energy is so cray-cray.

Yeah, we're moving everything around in the room.

That stack over there. There's just a stack of bins with a bag on top of it and half a couch. I'm like, damn, that's precarious as fuck.

We're just, you know.

Do we have workers insurance? I think we do. I don't know.

Who knows?

We could be sure. We could don't let that fall in your head.

It's going to be great. All right.

Are we back to talk about shark attacks?

We are. And this second one somehow gets even more wild. Okay.

Like, there's already been two shark attacks. I'm not sure how you how you outdo that.

I can definitely outdo it. But you do it. I can outdo it.

I believe in you. I'm not saying I don't.

So I said last time that we were going to be moving on to a crick.

Oh, yeah. A crick.

A shark is in a crick.

Isn't a crick a pretty shallow body? Wait, is it the same shark? Yeah. No. I think it is. What even is a crick at the end of the day?

It's like a shallow body of water.

But does it connect to the ocean? Well, obviously.

No, it doesn't. The shark Ubered real quick into the nearest crick.

I worked that out on my own, okay? Get out of here. This bitch has been making fun of me today.

I think you have been making fun of me. I've been making fun of you, too.

Actually. I have been making fun of you, too. But you didn't- Look at her trying to round up the listeners right now against- I'm not. I am absolutely not. I am absolutely not. She's been making What fun of me. She's hurting my feelings. I made fun of you for a tiny minute today. It wasn't that much. What was I going to Google? What is a crick?

What is a crick?

Leave me alone. What is a crick? Can I say something when people are- Well, say, Leave me alone. I fucking hate that.

Yeah. I mean, I don't like that. It's never a good thing when someone says that. Leave me alone.

It just has that energy.

Leave me alone.

No. Anyways, I don't really come across people saying that that often.

I was going to say, do you hear that in your everyday life?

Yeah. It just says a stream, brook or minor tributary of water. Yeah.

Which like a minor tributary? That tells you how little it is. Yeah. Like a stream or a brook.

An innlet. Yeah. This is little. A similar word as fjord.

A fjord. I love. I love a fjord.

I love the word fjord. I love the Konan song that he sings about fjords.

Well, this one is called the Madawan Creek attacks.

Okay.

Now, remember, they had gone into high gear after all those last attacks. People were patrolling, trying to stay out of the water. Now, with the shark problem seemingly under control for a minute, at least, visitors to the Jersey Shore, I just said Jersey Shore, Jersey Shore, flocked to the beaches in record numbers, all eager to get in the water, enjoy the summer. And for those who were still not entirely comfortable getting back into the ocean, there were plenty of local rivers and creeks. Creeks. Where the chances of an encounter with a shark were like, nonexistent.

Right? Yeah.

You're fine in a creek. Should be. I thought so. Yeah, you should be. I've never been in a creek. Now, in Mattawan, New Jersey, a small village about 30 miles from Spring Lake, the tourism industry was much smaller, and so was their capacity to serve a lot of people. But the village was happy for the business, and the visitors were happy for the opportunity to finally get into a body of water without a fear of a shark attack. In fact, there are only a handful of sharks that can travel between saltwater and fresh water, and only one of them, the bull shark, is large enough and suitably aggressive enough to attack and kill a human.

They're like some of the most aggressive. They're gnarly.

I remember learning about them on shark week. On shark week. That being said, other sharks, including the great white shark, can pass between fresh water in saltwater temporarily. But they can't linger very long without being significantly harmed. It's not good for them.

I didn't even know that they could temporarily do that.

Yeah, they can do that. But because of this, the bathers and residents in Madawan had every reason to believe that they were safe that summer where they were. Even now, so many years later, it's really not well understood how this shark came to find itself in the waters of Madawan Creek that year.

Because this is literally a great white. Like, what the fuck?

How did it even fit in the creek. That's the thing. The most likely theory is that it had been exploring the Coast and followed an outlet into the creek, like accidentally.

I literally just said outlet. Yeah.

But once it got into the eight-foot body of water, 8 feet.

Guys, That's just like a pool. Yeah.

It became confused and couldn't find its way back out. That's actually really sad. It is sad. That's the thing. This is sad. It is. Of course, people are dying here. It's horrific. That's also sad. There's sadness on both sides. But this is an animal. It's It doesn't have... This animal is not killing people because it's like, Fuck you. I'm going to eat you because I'm mad. It's just desperate. It's desperate, hungry, scared, and flipping out. Just doesn't know where it is, where it's supposed to go, doesn't have its family, doesn't have anything. It's crashing out. I have to say this great white is crashing out. One could say that this great white had the most massive crash out. And it's valid. The shark did have a crash out. To be clear, it's funny to say the shark is having a crash out. It's obviously not funny what happened.

No, I'm not laughing at what happened.

I think if there's neurons firing, you guys get it. Guys, we have to explain everything we say sometimes. The girlies who get it, get it. The girlies who have crashed out, get it.

I crashed out on weekly.

We've all been where the shark is at one part in our lives.

That was me earlier this week. Mikey was legit afraid of me.

We all were. You were afraid?

Here's something you didn't know. Mikey just ripped off his headphones. Can confirm. I don't even know what was wrong with me. I think it was the lunar eclipse.

She was scary.

I think at one point I was like, I'm going to kill you all.

No, you literally said that at one point. And then we were all just like, No, you said, I'm You said, I'm going to kill everybody. And we were like, not us, though, right? And you literally go, I said everybody. And we were all like, I don't feel safe here.

I'm not marked safe. I don't know. I was pissed. So see? Anyways, but I get it. You get it? Yeah, I was probably hungry.

We've all been there. Yeah. That's the thing.

Yeah, it was crashing out.

I need to be clear that it is when you look at this, obviously the sensational part of it and the horrifying part of it is that people, kids, human beings were terrorized, traumatized, murdered, not murdered, killed, eaten, harmed in irreparable ways. But also you have to look on the other side that this animal, it's really sad what happened. It was so turned around. Yeah, it just made me really sad.

It does make me really sad.

Because I don't think there's malicious intent on this animal's part. I think it was literal desperation and just evolution. That's just what it is. So again, he got confused. He couldn't find his way out. And under those circumstances, that shark wouldn't have just been hungry. It would have also been really frightened, really scared, extremely agitated. And all those things together makes for a dangerous situation. It does. And again, it's not eating. It doesn't have food. Animals have to eat. We all do. And it's like, to them, this is just meals arriving. That's all it is. It's not being like, wow, a human, I'm going to hurt it. So on the morning of July 11th, while bathers clogged the beaches of resorts in Asbury Park in Spring Lake, 14-year-old Rennie Cartan, a Madawan local, opted for the muddier waters of Madawan Creek. As they had done so many summers before that, Rennie and two friends ran down to the old swimming hole. They stripped off all their clothes, they reached the dock, and they dove into the cloudy waters. They were splashing, stirring up the water, doing all the things that you do when you're 14 jumping in a muddy creek.

14?

Yeah.

I'm like, Bitch, I would do that right now.

Yeah. Rennie had barely poked his head up from below the water when all of a sudden, the ordinarily cool waters of the creek felt warmer. There was considerable temperature difference. The sensation was not like anything that he had really experienced before, and he couldn't put his finger on it. But something was wrong.

Yeah.

Then the cloudy water suddenly looked crimson around him. And suddenly, Renny's nervous system went into overdrive, sending waves of burning pain through his torso. Oh, so he didn't even feel the initial bite. That's what happens. That's actually crazy. And that's what they talk about, that painless torture, that it's like you don't feel that initial bite the way that you think you probably would feel.

And that's the thing that's so fascinating here with these specific episodes is like, I said it when I came into work this morning. I couldn't stop thinking about that heartbeat thing from part one, how they hear your heartbeat and they're just designed to feel that way. It's also insane that our human bodies take such good care of us that when a shark rips through your fucking torso, you are designed not to feel it.

To go into shock.

Right. Like, it's nuts. Even when you break a bone, sometimes. Like, when I broke my pelvis, I don't remember what that felt like. Yeah.

And your body was like, no, you don't need to feel this.

I knew it was bad. And I literally couldn't move. But it didn't hurt. It's a very weird sensation.

That's why when I did autopsies, I remember every single day when we would do one, I was like, damn, our body These are crazy. They are. When you see how complex and wild and delicate but also crazy strong these systems are, you'll never stop thinking about it. No, it's crazy. You really won't. When I had my I lost a ton of blood. And my body was basically just shutting down. You went into shock. So my kidneys just shut off. They were just like, bye. And the doctor was explaining to us that, Oh, your brain thinks that you're dying? And so it's being like, Hey, let's conserve energy so that you die slower. So that you don't die right away. So that maybe we can get you help before you die. It's just those things. You're just like, Why does it know that? Like a perfectly run system. It's science, man.

Truly. Science is so cool.

Fucking love science. So it was only when he saw something large and dark moving in the water beneath him that Rennie started putting the pieces together and he swam as fast as he could to shore because he wasn't being held onto right now. Okay. He's scramble out of the water in a panic. Once he's out of the water, of course, he's like, What the fuck? He's looking around like, Are there pieces of me missing? What's going on? That's when Rennie and the other boys could see the large scrapes and cuts across his chest. Chest, and blood was streaming down his chest and stomach. But there were huge lacerations. Despite his panicked state, Rennie explained that something in the water had hit him and cut him. But his friends, who hadn't seen anything below the surface, they were not sure. They were like, What do you mean something just went by and cut you? Like, what? To them, it looked like he may have brushed up against something that was jagged, like a jagged branch or something. And his friends were like, Are you just exaggerating?

Like, are you messing with us.

Did you get a cut? Yeah. Now you're smearing it all over yourself. And given what happened the next day, it's more than likely that what Runny experienced was an exploratory bump by a shark.

So it just like, bumped its teeth into him?

Basically, it's something that a shark does to assess the size and threat level of potential prey. They don't do it with their mouth. That's an exploratory bite. But a bump is just with their skin. But their skin is so rough and abrasive, it can cut or tear her human skin. Wow. Which is why he was bleeding so much. It bumped across him because he saw the big shape. Like he saw the shark. Once they determined their friend was no longer in danger, the rest of the boys jumped back into the creek. Oh, fuck. And Renny is being like, no, like protesting, being like, you got to get back out of the water. In the end, the other boys went out and they stayed in the water while Renny went the fuck home. Yeah. He was like, no. Fortunately, everyone did make it out of the creek that day with all of their limbs intact.

Is the shark just lingering in the creek, though? Yeah.

But in others, we're not going to be so fortunate in that creek. So the next morning, retired sea captain, Thomas Cattrell, set out for his usual walk along the creek. He had done this every morning for years. Yeah. And he had heard the story about Rennie's brush with some unknown sea creature the day before. And that morning, he stopped and he just lingered on the edge of the creek. He's looking at the water, and he's like, I just wanted to see if anything on Unusual was in there. There was a storm that we had talked about in our one the previous days that had stirred up the sea and the water a little bit. And it was still hazy in there, but then he could see what appeared to be a large gray shape moving under the surface. And having been out to sea more times than he could count, he's a retired sea captain, he immediately recognized that shape as a shark. And he said, A big one.

And he said, How the fuck is it in the creek?

Exactly. By his estimation, he said it looked to be about nine or 10 feet long. Damn. And it was just swimming casually in the creek. It belonged in the creek.

That's so sad because you know it was like, What the fuck am I doing here?

How do I get out of here? Yeah. Now, once the surprise had passed, Thomas turned and head back towards town walking as fast as he could because he wanted to beat the shark into town because it was traveling in the same direction.

Oh, damn. They're just like walking. They're just having a walk together.

Yeah, a walk-off. It's a walk-off. It's a walk. David Bowie showed up and said, It's a walk-off. Now, unfortunately, when he reached the town constable, who also served as the town's barber because it's 1916. Iconic. The normally very respected Thomas Cattrell was quickly dismissed by people. And his story about a shark the creek, which is a crazy story.

Yeah, but maybe go check.

It was laughed off by all the men who had gathered around town that day. Right. After all, everyone knew sharks swam in the open ocean, and no one could think of any having ever gone into a freshwater of a creek, much less one that was barely eight feet deep. Despite their dismissal, Cattrell persisted and moved all around the town, telling everyone he could, warning them away from the creek. He was like, I don't give a fuck if you don't believe me. I'm letting you all know because I can't have this on my head. That afternoon, Bill Stillwell and his sons, 16-year-old Russell and 11-year-old Lester, were hard at work at the local Basket Factory, which was one of Madawan's biggest employers. When the factory boss rang the bell signaling that it was the end of the shift for the afternoon, Russell and Lester, the two boys, both made a break to the door, and they wanted to run right to the creek because it was an intense summer. It was really hot that time. Now, the boys or their father Neither of them had heard any of the warnings from Thomas that day because they were at work.

Even if they had, they might have dismissed him, too, as like, what the fuck? Right. Now, at the center of town, Lester joined up with a group of other boys, and they all walked together down Rock Road towards the creek. They all did the same thing. They all ripped off all their factory uniforms and just jumped into the creek. And by the time they had jumped in the creek, Captain Cattrell had already made his way through town and was now heading further down the waterway to warn others, which Thomas Cattrell did.

Just the fact that everyone's lolling at him. He's like, I'm going to keep spreading my word.

He's still going. He's like, I don't want people in this water. So with no idea of the danger that was lurking near literal feet from them. The boys were wrestling. They're playing in the water, jumping, diving, jumping off that dock at the end of the water. And the water is murky, remember. And they're getting out and repeatedly jumping in, which is churning the water up, creating a huge commotion. They had only been in the water for 15 or 20 minutes when one of them, Charlie Van Brunt, saw what he described as, quote, the biggest blackest fish I had ever seen. That's not a fish, baby. It was swimming swiftly below the surface in Lester's direction. Just seconds later, they all heard Lester's shriek as the shark grabbed him as it burst from beneath the surface. Its teeth and underside, they said they could see its belly because it rolled after it got him. Because sharks will do that. They'll literally, like a crocodile almost, will roll to trap you and to drown you, essentially. Yeah. Now, and so he's pulling Lester under. Lester resurfaces a second or two later. But the shark still had him by the arm and was whipping its head back and forth, jerking this 11-year-old back and forth.

The shark went under a second time, taking Lester with it. And this time it's huge tail. They said it was huge. It whacked one of the other boys in the face, and it knocked him several feet back into some pylons. Oh, wow. Like, literally sent him flying. Then, just as suddenly as it all started, it was over. But Lester was gone. Nowhere to be seen. A large bloom of blood on the surface of the water was the only thing left. And they freak the fuck out. And all five of them scramble out of the water, and they just ran screaming into town for help. None of them even got dressed. That's how scared they were. They are literally naked, running into town, covered in their friend's blood, screaming. Can you imagine this? No. That's like a horror movie. So they're smeared with mud, grass, streaks of blood. They're running into town, screaming shark to anyone who will listen. And when Rene Cartan had told his story about being cut by something big in the water, most people didn't really believe him. Just like Thomas. And when When Thomas raved about this shark in the creek, everyone was like, Yeah, I don't know about that.

But this time it was different. This was clearly not a prank. These boys were genuinely terrified, genuinely traumatized, and screaming about how a shark had not just bit their friend, but had eaten Lester Stillwell. Oh, my God. So the constable gathered up a group of able-bodied men of the day, and they all hurried down to the creek hoping they would reach him, maybe find him and help him. But at this point, They figured that the boy had just drowned. Now, back in town, all the boys continued telling their story, though at this time it's weird because some of the town was believing of them and obviously ran down to the creek. But some people are still like, Are you sure that's what you saw? Are you sure he didn't just drown? Did something bad happen? But finally, when they reach the business of Stanley Fisher, who is a fucking real one.

Oh, thank goodness.

They found an adult who was willing to listen to them.

The fact that it took them minute is crazy.

Fisher had grown up the son of a sea captain, and he had spent more than a little time on the water.

This episode is brought to you by sea captains.

Sea captains, you know? Men of the Sea, which my father is, and my grandfather. So Men of the Sea. Hell, yeah. Let's go. But yeah, so he had spent a lot of time in the water. He knew what sharks were capable of. Operating under the assumption that the boys were telling the truth, he followed them. And he ended up closing his shop for the day and changed into a bathing suit to rush down to the creek because he was like, I'm getting this kid.

I'm like, Don't get in that water, brother.

So as the most experienced on the water, Stanley Fisher took command immediately when he got to the creek. He started assigning each of the men tasks to do. He was just like, Let's go, girls. For his part, he climbed into a row boat with another man, and after crafting a net out of chicken wire and stones, they started dragging the water for Lester's body. Oh, wow. By then, many other locals had gathered at the shore, and they were all calling for Lester. It was like a whole scene. After an hour of searching the shoreline and dragging the water, the men still didn't find anything. Fisher suggested the boy's body may have sunk to the bottom where the nets weren't reaching. The only way they would know for sure was to dive down and look.

Why would you get in the water and do that?

Obviously, it's super muddy, it's super silty in there, so it's like you're not going to see anything. But having accepted that there was no other Stanley Fisher and a few other men left the boats and started diving to the bottom of the creek, just trying to find Lester's body. Oh my God.

Which like, wow. Just of their own volition, too. Yeah.

And they just wanted to bring this boy's body out of the water. They didn't want to leave him. Now, for the next half hour or so, Stanley Fisher repeatedly dove and resurface, determined to find Lester's body. As one by one, other men gave up the search and begged him to abandon it, too. Yeah. Finally, in the late afternoon, he resurfished and shouted, I've got it. Wow. And the whole shore applauded and cheered. So intending to help, two men rode out to where he was while another man, George Berlou, dove into the water and began swimming towards Stanley. Now, George hadn't made it more than 10 or so feet when he suddenly stopped swimming. Oh, God. The water around him started churning and swirling, and he was like, something big was moving under the surface. And it just stunned him. He just stopped where he was. George then looked up towards Stanley Fisher, just in time to hear him cry out, he's got me.

Oh, my God.

He's literally- In the middle of search and rescue. And he's got Lester's body. Like, he's got Lester's body, and now he's being.

Which you wonder if the shark was going to go back to. And that's why he ended up going after Fisher.

Now, though it was hard to see from their position on the shore, it looked like the shark had grabbed Stanley by the leg and was dragging him back and forth in the water as he was trying to pull himself out of its mouth. George later said, I never saw the entire fish, but from the tremendous upheaval of the huge tail that thrashed above the water, it had to be a big one. From the shore, everyone watched in horror as Stanley Fisher fought this large shark, beating it in the head, kicking it as hard as he could as this great white shark dragged him under at least four more times. He resurface Four times. Just beating the shark. The men in the row boat made it out to Stanley just in time to see him get dragged under a fourth time. They said this is when they could also see the shark's white belly again because it was rolling, trying to pull him deeper. I remember it can't even go that deep. Right. Because, yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, George was paralyzed with fear. I mean, this was his friend. Stanley's his friend, and he's just standing there staring at him being mangled by a wild animal.

He said later, I I don't know how I ever even got to the shore, but I remember the awful fear that the shark was right behind me and had slated me for his next victim. When the men in the boat saw Fisher go down for the fourth time, they assumed that was it. But to everyone's incredible surprise, Stanley managed to free himself from the shark's jaws, resurface a few seconds later, and he was still carrying the remains of Lester Stillwell under his arm. Holy shit. Stanley swam him while holding Lester's body towards the shore. But it was clear to everyone he was clearly exhausted and mortally wounded. On the shore, several men grabbed ores and started slapping the water to make as much noise as possible to try to distract the shark.

Well, and at least they're doing it from different places.

They're trying to pull the shark towards them. Right. To get him to the shore. He had managed to get within about 10 feet of the shore. When his body was violently yanked back, causing him to cry out, this time, the shark had grabbed Lester's body, not Stanley's, and had pulled it from Stanley's grasp, and then he just disappeared with it.

Because the shark fully thought, like you were coming That's mine. He went after my thing. Yeah, he was like, That's mine. That's why I'm fighting you.

And in an incredible display of courage, Stanley Fisher did not hesitate to dive back at the shark to try to get Lester's body out of its mouth.

Stanley.

Unfortunately, when he resurface a few moments later, Lester's remains were nowhere to be seen. And Stanley had to get that. I mean, thankfully, Stanley's getting onto the shore, but he didn't have Lester's body, which must have been so infuriating. And what happened to him? So so much emphasis had been placed on the retrieval of Lester's body, obviously, that no one was thinking like you. They, and they were watching his incredible battle with the shark. That initially, no one really thought like, Oh, wait, we should look at how Stanley is. So he's fully out of the creek. And the Mattowan Journal reported that there was a crowd of 200 or 300 people present at the time. The sight of Mr. Fisher being brought ashore was sickening, to state it mildly. In fact, it was only when Fisher attempted to climb up the embankment that he and everyone else saw that half of his thigh was missing. When he lifted his leg to inspect it, he quietly said, Oh, my God, before falling back into the water. Now, a group of men managed to carry him from the creek to the home of Dr. George Reynolds. They had tied a rope tightly above the wound to try to slow the bleeding.

Smart. Unfortunately, like the doctors on the beaches in Spring Lake and Asbury Park, though, Reynolds hadn't seen any wound like this before. He said it stretched 18 inches from just below his hip to just above his knee. The flush around the edge of the wound was ragged It was shredded.

It's not like you're going to stitch that back up.

And the femur had been scratched by the teeth of the shark. There was a deep gouge in the femur bone. Holy shit, dude. Dr. Reynolds did his best to dress it while Fisher Still fully conscious. Still fully conscious. Yeah, let that sink in. Told the man about how he'd seen the shark feeding on Lester's body, and he had tried to retrieve the remains, and it dropped the boy and grabbed his leg when he He tried to do that. Oh, wow. Now, as a small town doctor, Reynolds didn't have even a fraction of the supplies that they would have needed to treat Stanley's wounds.

He did legit surgery at this point.

But he did the best he could with what he had. While he worked, he instructed the men to fashion a stretcher from whatever they could find in the house. If Stanley Fisher was going to make it, he needed to get to a hospital now, and the closest one was about 10 miles away. Oh, fuck. With Fisher's wound packed and wrapped, they carefully put him on a stretcher and brought him down to the train station, where all they do was sit and wait for the train. Oh, my God. Which was scheduled to arrive at 5: 06. Oh, my God. If everything went according to plan, they would make it to the hospital by 7: 45.

Wait, so this was literally, you have to think of this. This was literally before ambulances.

When was the first ambulance? Yeah, when was the first ambulance? That's inconceivable. Like, they had to get on a train. They'd wait for the train.

The first civilian ambulance service started in 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

That's essentially what this is.

But modern equipped ambulances weren't until the 1960s. Damn. That's actually crazy to think about.

That is nuts. Wow. And especially here, it's like a seaside town A little resort town. It's like...

And also, when I'm saying the first civilian ambulance, that was Horström. Yeah. And then they moved in 1899. So not too long.

Not that far off from where we are.

From where we are. That was the first motorized Ambulance. And then 1960s, finally, like modern ambulance.

That's wild. So they're waiting for the train to get Stanley to the hospital. We're not done with this afternoon, just so you know. Okay. We're not done. Like that craziness that just happened. Take a quick little breath in. We're not done.

Okay.

While several of the townspeople waited with Stanley Fisher at the train station, words started spreading about these attacks, but not fast enough. Less than a mile down the creek from the Wycoff dock where the attacks on Stillwell and Fisher occurred, 12-year-old Joseph Dunn and his 14-year-old brother Michael were swimming in the creek by the brick yards with a friend, Jerry Hauerhan. During the year, they lived in New York City, but that summer, they were staying at the Jersey shore with their mother in Cliffwood, just outside of Madawn. Now, that afternoon was so hot, like I had said, and they were all eager to get into the creek. None had heard about Rennie Carton's encounter with the shark the day before, and they hadn't heard about the attacks that had happened a fucking mile down the creek a half hour earlier yet. Oh my God. Because it just hadn't got to them yet. So they were just looking for a place to cool off. Right. Hadn't heard about anything. Now, they raced through town down to the brick docks where, again, they jump right into the creek. Had they looked up the creek aways, they might have seen a large dark shape moving slowly in that direction.

Or maybe they would have caught sight of a fin break the surface of the water, maybe giving them some warning. But you're not looking for it. They're not going out to the creek expecting a great white shark.

No.

But again, their minds are just, it's summer. I'm having fun, I'm cooling off. Later, it would seem strange to everyone that the boys would willingly jumped in the water right after a vicious attack, less than a mile away. But Captain Cattrell and the group of small boats still hadn't made it that far down the creek, so there was just no way for them to know. Now, they had been in the water about a half hour, splashing, wrestling, When a man comes racing towards the shore, shouting a warning about sharks and urging them, Get out of the water. Now, Jerry and Michael were the first to hear the warning, and they were like, fuck that. They swam right to the ladder, pulled themselves out of the creek. Joseph If had gone swimming to the middle of the creek and couldn't hear what they were shouting. Still, he could tell that something was wrong. So he started swimming towards the dock. He later recalled, he later recalled, I was about 10 feet from shore and looked down and saw something dark. I did not see him the first time he hit me. Then he turned around and got my leg.

Now, this is a half hour. This is about an hour out of what happened down the creek, by the way. We're already on another one.

I'm like, 'So listen, sharky, you're not hungry anymore.

As Joseph desperately tried to pull himself in the direction of the shore, the shark pulled in the opposite direction, determined to drag him under. Had it not been for the shallowness of the water, it's pretty likely that he would have met the same fate as Luster. But because of the shallowness, the shark was not able to move quickly and swiftly, and it struggled to turn around. That's how shallow this was. Wow. He said later, suddenly I felt a tug, like a big pair of scissors, pulling out my leg and bringing me under. At that point, Joseph began screaming in terror. He said, not from pain, just terror. And he said, Honestly, the biggest thing on my mind was I'm going to be dragged underwater and drowned. He said, It seemed the fish was trying to get my whole leg inside its mouth. I thought he would kill me. I thought he was going to swallow me. Now, as luck would have it, just as Joseph was struggling with the shark, a local man named Jacob Leverts was motoring slowly towards them in his boat. Without hesitation, this man dove into the water fully clothed and started swimming towards the shark and Joseph.

What? I'm like, who are all these people?

Yeah, heroes.

This is wild. From the other direction, Michael Dunn had dove back into the creek and was swimming towards his brother to help as well. Wow. That's a sibling right there. Yeah, it is. Like, damn. They both reached him around the same time and together began pulling Joseph and kicking the shark's head. Unfortunately, the shark was determined to hold onto its prey, though, and its jaws remained clamped around Joseph's leg. Finally, after a long tug of war, the shark let go enough for Michael and Jacob to get Joseph out of his mouth and to shore. But not before the shark grabbed a hold of his leg one last time. By then, they were able to stand up in the water. And the shark was putting itself honestly at great risk of drowning at this point. He was literally coming onto the shore with them. Holy shit. That's how scary this is. Yeah, it's terrifying. By that time, Captain Cattrell had arrived in his own motorboat, and after doing their best to slow the bleeding from Joseph's mangled leg, they lowered him into the boat and quickly made their way back up the creek in the direction of the hospital.

Now, in the end, luck was on Joseph Dunn's side. The men managed to get the boy to St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, and he was rushed into surgery, and the surgeons did manage to save his life. But he had considerable mangling and scarring on his leg, and he had a permanent disability because of it. Now, unfortunately, That same luck was not on the side of Stanley Fisher. No. Which breaks me. Fuck. That man- He's a hero. Gave everything. Although the men in Madawan managed to get him onto the train, he blood to death a short time later on the train. That's a lot of blood loss. Yeah. Long before he was able to get proper medical care. That's so sad. Now, in the span of an afternoon, the shark in Madawan Creek had killed two people. And attacked another. And had gravely injured another, all in full view of hundreds of people.

And within a couple Of course. Yeah.

In the wake of the attacks, two things happened. First, there were several people around town, likely seeking attention in their time in the spotlight, who claimed to have had interactions with the shark. Thirteen-year-old Ernest Dunham, for example, claimed that he had also jumped into the creek to search for Lester's body when the shark, quote, unquote, nipped him. Yeah, where's your bite, bud? Considering that brushing up against the shark had caused severe abrasions on Rennie Cartan's chest, a nip or exploratory bite would have been devastating. You would have seen it. Yeah, 100 %. Now, the second and more important outcome was that the entire town and surrounding areas became consumed in a panic over the, quote, unquote, man-eating shark that had invaded the Jersey shore and was picking off residents at an alarming rate at this point. In an effort to find the animal and kill it, hundreds of people descended on Mattawan Creek, dragging the water with large nets and using dynamite to kill whatever was in the creek.

That's terrible because there's other things It's like most of the story you're like, wow, the humanity here.

People are diving into the water, saving each other, doing what they can, going all out. And then they do things like throw dynamite in a creek. And I said, wow, we can't We really can't. We can't always get the bat a thousand. We can't.

I'm also like, damn, don't go swimming in that creek.

Yeah, damn. And throughout the night, armed men patrolled the creek in boats, periodically tossing in sticks of dynamite. Okay. We could just get him out of the creek.

You don't have to dynamite about it.

Now, at the same time, New Jersey governor James Fielder put out a statement urging the towns along the Coast to adopt the same safety measures taken in Asbury Park.

That's the other thing. I'm like, how about safety measures?

Yeah, maybe do that.

You go to the Cape now and there's a ton of sign. It's like, Don't go in the water. High shark time.

Now, the state could not afford to mount a serious effort to keep the sharks away from the Coast, so that would have made more sense. Fielder's statement also makes the natural assumption that the attacks were not the actions of a single shark, but simply the behavior of sharks in general. The governor said, It is very evident from the widely scattered points at which attacks are being made that the entire coastline is being frequented by schools of sharks. Yeah. In simple terms, as far as the governor and the public were concerned, it was inconceivable that so much carnage could have been caused by one single shark.

But he was there.

Now, by the following day, the search efforts started paying off. On the morning of July 14th, two local men were patrolling the banks of the creek when they saw the remains of Lester Stillwell rise to the surface.

It makes me happy that at least he was found.

According to the press, Great jagged wounds in the abdomen and breast showed where the shark's teeth had closed over the 12-year-old boy's body. The recovery of his remains renewed the efforts of locals to catch the shark, which was by then being described as somewhere between 12 and 15 feet. Within a few hours, the creek was once again packed with men and boats carrying rifles, harpoons, and dynamite. Despite how unlikely it was for a shark to have made its way into the creek in the first place, the panic in Madawan was so much that people were starting to see sharks everywhere. According to an article in the New York Times, there was well-corroborated testimony indicating that there was at least four in the stream within two miles of where it enters Raritan Bay. To that point, it was generally understood that sharks couldn't live in fresh water, but the experts had also informed the public that sharks didn't attack people. So the growing consensus was that the experts were wrong about sharks, basically.

There's more to learn about sharks.

Yeah. In fact, in Manhattan, several people reported seeing two large sharks in the Hudson River. Evidence that the panic had clearly reached beyond the borders of New Jersey and was stretching out into other places. Can you imagine? In reality, the dramatic increase in sightings could be explained. It was a combination of hysteria, mistaken identity, and fabrication. But at least some of the sightings things were definitely genuine. And simply the result, and I don't think we think of it like this, the result of people having gone looking for something that had always been there. But they just didn't notice it before. The northeastern Coast of the United States, we know this now has a large and diverse population of sharks that if you were to go looking for it, it really wouldn't be that difficult to find. You can find sharks around. You can. Especially now. So the fact that people were seeing them in that moment only came as a surprise because most people had no idea they were there in the first place. More importantly than their mere presence were the assumed implications of their discovery, mainly that the sharks possessed an immediate and extreme danger to humans.

Only if you get in the water, though. Right. Like, it's one of those things that I'm like, Yeah, sure. Don't go in the water. Right. Like, as Jaws says. I mean, stay out of the water. Now, the story of the man-eating shark finally came to an end on the evening of July 14th, after countless sharks had been pulled from the waters around the shores of New York and New Jersey. But they were just keeping them out? Yeah. Among them was a seven and a half foot great white caught near Raritan Bay, about five miles from Madawan, by New York taxidermist Michael Slicer. According to Slicer, which is a hard name to say, Michael, he had been dragging his net behind the boat when he turned and saw, a big bifurcated tail flash out of the water. Michael attempted to haul the shark on board, but the weight of it and its constant thrashing caused the stern of the boat to sink and raise the bow into the air.

Well, maybe you're not supposed to catch that shark.

Yeah, you're not supposed to put this giant shark on your boat. No. Now, by the time he made it to the rear of the boat, he saw, quote, the shark rising out of the net and onto the stern, snapping its great jaws. With all the weight on the back of the boat, gravity went to work, pulling everything towards the shark, not only putting Michael in danger of being bitten, but also threatening to sink the entire ship. In fact, it seemed that Michael to Michael that the shark was actually doing everything it could to reach him and his sailing partner at the time.

I mean, I think it's probably just protecting it.

Yeah, I think so. Thinking quickly, he grabbed one of the now broken ores of the boat and began beating the shark in the head. Striking it on its snout, its gills, and anywhere else he thought could damage it. All while- How about you just let it go? Exactly. All while the shark is continuing to snap its teeth. Finally, the shark took one last leap onto the boat, trying to grab them both, but missed, giving both the opportunity to strike the final blows and ultimately killing him.

The fuck are you doing? Killing a shark that's in the water? Yeah, just leave alone. You're not supposed to be in there. If they're there, that's where they live. And we don't even know. That's like somebody walking into your house and beating you over the head or something. Just don't go. You live there. You're allowed to be there.

Exactly. That's how I feel. I'm sorry. I really do feel it's not my... The water is not my home.

It's obviously tragic and the shark shouldn't have been in the creek. And that's awful that that happened. But sometimes those things happen in nature.

Well, it's like when a bear will attack or something, when somebody's out in the woods and they'll euthanize the bear. It's not the bear's fault. You can see that this shit happened. Somebody died. And it's tragic. It's tragic. But It's hard to swallow that we're just going to kill a wild thing for acting like a wild thing. For acting like a wild thing in their habitat. In their habitat. That's the thing.

That pisses me off.

And water, especially, is the thing that I'm like, that is theirs, man. That's theirs. I can't sit here. By no means did anyone deserve to lose their life.

Absolutely not.

Do something that they should have lost their life. You should. Obviously, I want everybody to be able to go swim in the water, but it's not ours. Right. It's just wrong. And I just can't. It's a double-edged sword. It really is. Because obviously you want to keep people safe. And this was horrific and tragic. But to go looking for it and yank it onto the boat and beat the shit out of it. That just doesn't feel right to me.

It's supposed to be where it is.

But again, we're also in 1916. We didn't have all the knowledge we do now. We're much less educated. We don't know how enough about sharks at this time. But really sad.

But from this point of view, I'm like, you guys are really being assholes. Yeah.

It's all sad. The whole thing is sad. Now, after resting and regaining their composure, they managed to push the shark and the net back into the water, riding the boat and allowing them to haul it back to the docks. When asked about this experience, he said it was, The hardest fight for life I've ever had. Now, by the time, and again, I should say, too, if I'm on a boat and a shark is trying to get on the boat and eat me, yeah, I'm probably going to beat it with an oar to get it out of my boat.

But he was trying to catch the shark, so you wouldn't be in that position. That's the thing.

It's not like it just jumped on your boat.

Sharks don't just jump on boats. Yeah.

You're going to defend yourself, obviously. I'm not telling anyone, Well, well, accept your fate and go into this.

No, of course not. But the likelihood of the shark just jumping on the boat being like, I'm going to eat you. No.

It's like you pulled them onto the boat.

There's plenty of food in where you are for the shark to eat.

Now that by the time Michael and his partner had made it back to shore, many others had returned with various kinds of sharks. That makes me so sad. All convinced they'd caught the so-called man-eater. As a result, everyone seemed pretty skeptical that this New York taxidermist, an amateur hunter, had caught the shark that was responsible for the deaths of Van Zandt, Brooder Stillwell and Fisher. But when they cut the shark open and revealed the contents of its stomach, They discovered, quote, two bones, one 11 inches long and the other a small fragment. When they were examined by the medical examiner, it was determined that, quote, the long bone appears to be the shinbone of a boy. By the time they finished the examination, they also discovered roughly 15 pounds of suspicious, fleshy material that was later determined to be human remains. So this was the shark that had done it. After the remains were removed from the shark's stomach and sent to a pathologist, Michael Schleischer, took the shark's body back to his shop in Harlem, New York, where it was stuffed and mounted. Now, although they could never say for sure whether his shark was the one shark that was responsible for all the attacks, there was evidence to support that it was.

Yeah.

And aside from the human remains found in its stomach, it had been caught roughly in the same area where the attacks had occurred, and it matched the descriptions of the shark in the attacks. And more importantly, after he had caught the shark off of Rareitan Bay, the attack stopped. Yes. And there was no other additional sightings in Mattawan Creek. Now, prior to the 1916 attacks, it was widely believed that, with a few notable exceptions, sharks were pretty shy creatures that didn't attack humans. Maybe that's why in the wake of the attack, so many people still refused to believe it was a shark at all and insisted still that it was like sea turtles or orca whales, which like, valid. These stories aside, Inside the 1916 attacks prompted experts to reconsider what they thought they knew, and they emerged with a new theory about sharks that suggested while they do generally stay not interested in humans as a source of food, they're not out here trying to eat us.

They're not hunting us.

They still pose a danger, and even their curiosity can result in harm, like with Renny. Even just bumping against you to see what you are, that can still hurt you. In the case of the Jersey Shore attacks, John Nichols, a curator of the Museum of Natural History, offered what was the most plausible explanation. He said, It is very certain that they do not ordinarily attack bathers. But if one of them got lost his way and got out of the Gulf stream where he could no longer find the green turtles to which he was accustomed, he would forget about or he would forge about and might seek to make man his staple diet. Yeah. Although he may have been wrong about some of the specifics, his theory is more or less accurate, at least by standards now. Having been thrown off course, this animal would have gone looking for food and not found what it's used to eating. So it's turning to mammals, of course. If something's moving in the water, by the time it had found itself trapped in Matowan Creek, it was not only hungry, but it was terrified. That's so sad. That would have explained the extremely aggressive and territorial behavior.

Add to all of that the facts we now know about shark behavior, including its feeding patterns and the distress behaviors it associates with food and all the attacks in New Jersey He suddenly have a very rational, still terrifying, explanation. Still terrifying. But at least a rational explanation of he was hungry and lost.

I mean, it makes perfect sense.

Without a food source. Right. Like, eating tiny fish is not going to do it for a giant great white shark.

He's hearing the heartbeat, so he knows that it's something that he's.

Yeah. He knows it's a mammal.

He knows he's experienced at least something similar to.

So he's like, well, this will work.

Oh, but that's a really, really terrible case.

That's the summer of blood. Wow. And it is indeed.

Yeah, that's a horrific summer.

A horrific summer and a fascinating and very tragic case on all ends. Yeah. Yeah.

Damn. All right. Well, let me find a- A fun fact. Here's a good animal fact for you. Oh, here we go. A group of bunnies is called a fluffle. Yeah. It's called a fluffle. Yeah, it is. A lot of people call them a herd, but parts of Canada. Kids of Northern Canada call them a fluffle.

No, they are a fluffle.

And that's from Good Housekeeping.

Yeah. They're a fluffle. Fluffle forever. A fluffy.

One thing about Dolores is she bullies bunnies.

Yeah, I think that's like dogs, right? It is. They're right. We have bunnies. So did Blanche and Sydney.

Yeah. We have bunnies that live under our porch, and she will not leave them alone. I'm like, they just love a bunny moment. That's a fluffle.

They love it.

All right, guys. Well, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But that's so weird that you kill a shark.

I don't like that.

I understand that this was a tragic story, but you don't have to go and kill a shark.

Don't go kill a shark. It's really sad.

Come on. Keep it so weird that you have a fluffle.

Yeah.