AMERICAN NIGHTMARES

The Bennington Triangle: Serial Killer or Coincidence?

After a series of disappearances and deaths around the Green Mountain National Forest, many have asked whether a serial killer at work in southwestern Vermont

There are some areas of the world that legend has made mysterious. One such area is the so-called “Bennington Triangle,” an area of land around southwestern Vermont but spilling over into other states around the Green Mountain National Forest. Author Joseph A. Vitro has popularised the triangle’s existence and its link to folklore and a large number of disappearances in the vicinity over a short period.

The first noted disappearance in the Bennington area was Middie Rivers, aged 74. On November 12, 1945, Rivers was guiding a group of four hunters while out in the mountains around the area of Hell Hollow, southwest of Glastonbury, when he got ahead of the group and vanished. Rivers was an experienced hunter and fisherman and familiar with the local area, leading rescuers to hope that he would be found safe and well. An extensive search was undertaken for Rivers, but the only trace ever recovered was a rifle cartridge in a stream, with investigators speculating that it had fallen from his pocket.