{"id":3888,"date":"2026-05-22T20:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3888"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:40:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:40:54","slug":"the-varmint-of-burkes-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3888","title":{"rendered":"The Varmint of Burkes Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The highest mountain valley in Virginia is Burke\u2019s Garden, also referred to as \u201cGod\u2019s Thumbprint\u201d for its bowl-like shape.<\/p>\n<p>It was here that something began killing sheep in the winter of 1952.\u00a0 Night after night, farmers woke to fresh losses, and no one could agree on what was responsible. Was it a wolf, a panther, or something stranger and unexplainable?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This week we tell the story of Burke\u2019s Garden and the mysterious predator that became known as the \u201cVarmint of Burke\u2019s Garden\u201d and gripped an Appalachian community with fear for nearly a year.<\/p>\n<p>If you like our stories, be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast. You\u2019ll find us wherever you get your favorite podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_2783\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3888-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72097969\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72097969\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72097969\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72097969\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3888-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72097969\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The highest mountain valley in Virginia is Burke\u2019s Garden, also referred to as \u201cGod\u2019s Thumbprint\u201d for its bowl-like shape. It was here that something began killing sheep in the winter of 1952.\u00a0 Night after night, farmers woke to fresh losses, and no one could agree on what was responsible. Was it a wolf, a panther, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43,4,18,106],"tags":[479,104,1146,1710,1723,1717,1714,1722,1720,1716,1721,1713,1719,1715,1067,1718,1712,1711,1382,916],"class_list":["post-3888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","category-odds-and-ends","category-the-1950s","category-the-unexplained","tag-appalachian-folklore","tag-appalachian-history","tag-appalachian-podcast","tag-burkes-garden","tag-burkes-garden-varmint","tag-burkes-garden-virginia","tag-coyote-attack","tag-coyote-legend","tag-hidden-appalachia","tag-mountain-legends","tag-mountain-mysteries","tag-mysterious-predator","tag-rural-history","tag-sheep-killings","tag-stories-of-appalachia","tag-strange-appalachian-stories","tag-tazewell-county","tag-varmint-of-burkes-garden","tag-virginia-folklore","tag-virginia-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-10I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3890,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions\/3890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}