The Rifleman

The Rifleman is the name given to the ghost of a man in Washington State who hunted his family and later came back as a violent spirit to continue killing people.

History
According to stories, while he was alive, for no apparent reason, the Rifleman went crazy and decided to hunt his entire family. At gunpoint, the Rifleman marched his family outside, told them that he was going to hunt them and that if they could run fast enough and get away, he'd let them live. Though his family begged the Rifleman not to, he fired his rifle at their feet to show that he was serious and they ran away screaming. To give his family a fighting chance, the Rifleman waited five minutes or so before chasing after them. The Rifleman soon found his daughter hiding in a tree, presumably as ordered by her mother. Though she begged for her life, the Rifleman killed his daughter with a single shot. He next found his son running from tree to tree and it took him three shots, but the Rifleman killed his son as well. Angry, his wife snuck up on the Rifleman from behind with a rock to kill him, but he heard her coming. At the same moment as his wife smashed him in the head with the rock, the Rifleman turned around and shot her point blank. Both died of their injuries, though not right away.

After almost a week, the wife's sister became concerned as she didn't hear from them and searched with her husband. By the time they arrived, the bodies had been picked clean by animals. The Rifleman ended up becoming a ghost haunting his property, Herald House and stories began circulating about an armed man in the area. When people came to investigate, the Rifleman's ghost shot them to death. After no one could ever locate the shooter, people just began staying away from the area. Over the years, the Herald House ghost became a local legend and he was nicknamed the Rifleman in the 1950s after some old TV show, a name that stuck. Over the decades that followed, every once in a while a hiker or regular hunter would go missing and sometimes their bodies would be found, shot to death by the Rifleman.

When Sam and Dean Winchester are barely teenagers and staying with local Walter Hansen, his daughter Trish enlists their help to hunt the Rifleman and put a stop to his killings. Wanting to impress Trish, the Winchesters agreed to help her hunt the Rifleman despite their lack of experience in hunting.

Appearances

 * Supernatural: Carved in Flesh