Monsters have been told of in ghost stories and fairy tales for countless years.
Vampires, werewolves, and other such creatures have captivated thousands.
What most fail to realize is that the common man can be just as much of a monster. Those men can
in turn create new monsters, made by cruelty. One such unfortunate soul was Waylon Jones.
Some speculate that he was born to a mother who was appalled at the sight of him,
and others say he was the byproduct of black magic. No one knows for sure when he was born,
though it is assumed sometime in the 1870s. Whatever the case, Waylon was born with the rare
conditions of ichthyosis vulgaris and atavism. One gave him a scaly appearance and almost red eyes,
while the other gave him a tail. Jones looked reptilian in appearance, even as an infant.
Presumably, his mother abandoned him at Haley's Circus where the owner, Taylor Haley,
was more than happy to take the boy in. Take him in as a sideshow attraction, that is.
Waylon grew up knowing no other life than being jeered at through iron bars
by numerous patrons to the circus. He was advertised as “The Killer Croc,” and was
treated like an animal by passers by as well as the circus owner. People came from far and wide
to see the alleged “half-crocodile-half-man” that Taylor Haley claimed to have. Haley was
extremely cruel to the boy, treating him like an animal and feeding him raw meat.
He even went as far as to file Waylon’s teeth and fingernails into points for dramatic effect.
The poor boy had only one friend. She was another person in the sideshow.
Mary Louise Dahl, or, as she was known at the circus, “Baby Doll,” was of German heritage.
She had been born with proportionate dwarfism, resulting in a very short stature despite her age.
She saw in Waylon a kindred spirit, and the boy took a liking to her.
She was one of the only people to show him kindness in his cruel existence at the circus.
Their friendship helped Waylon to feel human, and was the only thing that kept him sane during his
time there. After years of living at the circus, something terrible happened. The police report
of an incident that took place in 1882 documents a truly horrendous turn of events at Haley’s Circus.
One patron, while attending the sideshow, was boisterously jeering at Waylon.
The man was quite possibly drunk. He began calling the unfortunate boy a variety of
horrid and deplorable names. Mary Louise Dahl saw how much Waylon was afraid of the hateful man,
and started imploring the man to stop. A crowd began to gather, to watch the events,
and Waylon watched in horror as the angry man turned his attention to Mary. Waylon’s fear
turned to anger, even hatred. He grabbed the man through the bars of his cage and violently
bit into his neck, killing him. The crowd erupted into a panic, frantically running away.
Mary Louise was tragically caught in a stampede of terrified people, and she was trampled underfoot.
Waylon was utterly distraught at his friend’s death. Knowing he would be arrested by police,
he broke out of his cage and ran. The “Killer Croc” was now truly a killer. The police had
little to work with other than witness accounts of the night, and the two bodies left behind.
Based on his previous experiences, Waylon Jones knew that his appearance would terrify people.
He fled towards the city nearby, Gotham. On the city’s outskirts, he found the Gotham Marshes. He
found a drainage pipe that led to the city’s sewer system, and finally saw a way to live unobserved.
He would traverse the sewers into the city proper, and would only come above ground
when night had fallen to steal food. For years, he managed to live this way quite comfortably.
Jones was occasionally sighted, but it was chalked up to mere urban legend.
No one believed wild tales of a crocodile man roaming Gotham’s streets at night.
Waylon successfully avoided confrontation of any sort for a long time, but in 1890,
he was surprised by a posse of drunken men on one of his late-night errands. Waylon found himself
reliving all the cruelty and hatefulness he had experienced years ago at the circus.
The five men chased after him and cornered him, throwing objects at Jones. They began to beat
on him relentlessly. Unfortunately for them, Waylon’s fear again gave way to visceral anger.
He lashed out at the men, biting and slashing his way through them.
His teeth and veritable claws were still razor sharp. The inebriated offenders stood
no chance against Waylon, and he left a trail of corpses and blood in his wake.
There were also a few witnesses to these events; people watching from nearby buildings.
After years of remaining undetected, Waylon could no longer avoid the public eye.
The city’s newspapers began to publicize the “Crocodile Man” running loose in the city.
Artists and journalists alike had a field day with the Killer Croc,
spinning wild tales and speculations about his alleged existence. Parents told their children
that the “Croc” would come to get them if they didn’t behave or go to sleep. Waylon retreated
back into the sewers and Marshes, now unable to even come out after dark. Both police and
thrillseekers were constantly on the lookout for him now. He could only avoid them for so long.
Later in 1890, his makeshift abode was discovered in the Marshes, and the police staked it out.
They caught Waylon returning late one evening, and overwhelmed him with sheer numbers. He was
apprehended and, due to his appearance and the nature of his crimes, remanded to Arkham Asylum
for the Criminally Insane. There he was under the so-called care of Professor Hugo Strange.
Waylon Jones had already seen enough cruelty and inhumane treatment to last a lifetime.
At Arkham, it only continued. Strange was fascinated with Jones’ appearance and conditions
and conducted numerous experiments on him. During these experiments, Waylon’s condition worsened.
His skin became even more scaly, and Strange conducted sessions of atavistic regression with
Waylon, reducing his mind to its baser instincts. Hugo Strange’s unethical experimentation continued
unabated until mid-1891. Strange would come to regret his treatment of Waylon Jones.
Jones may have become a monster, but he was merely the product of many other monsters before him.
Taylor Haley, Hugo Strange, and numerous others who spewed hatred at him were responsible.
When one is treated like an animal long enough, one tends to believe it.
The story of the Killer Croc was tragic; abandonment at his mother’s hands,
the death of his only friend, and his desire to just be left alone.
The crimes he committed were certainly horrendous, but he had been driven to that point,
and the odds were stacked against him from the moment of his birth to the moment of
his incarceration. But, even locked away in that Asylum, Croc waited for his moment to get revenge.
The horrors heaped upon him would come back to bite those responsible, quite literally.