The Haunting of René Rondolier: Savannah’s Tallest Tale

On a moonlit night in Savannah, a seven-foot shadow drifts among the tombstones of Colonial Park Cemetery. Locals and visitors alike have reported a large, phantom figure silently roaming between crumbling crypts or swaying eerily from an old oak known as the Hanging Tree. For generations, Savannah’s children have been warned of this ghostly giant, and ghost tour guides spin his story to wide-eyed audiences. Who is the towering specter said to haunt these hallowed grounds? Enter the legend of René Asche Rondolier, the notorious “boogeyman” of Savannah’s past.

In the early 1800s, as the story goes, a boy named René Rondolier grew up in Savannah under circumstances as grim as any Gothic novel. From the moment of his birth, René was different. Weighing a staggering 16 pounds at birth, the child quickly grew into an unusually large and strong figure. By his teens he was said to tower near seven feet tall, a “boy giant” who lurked in the alleyways of the city’s east. Some accounts claim he lived near a place called Foley’s Alley, a now-vanished neighborhood where whispers of his presence kept locals indoors after dark.

Despite his frightening size and strength, legends hint that René may have been a misunderstood soul. He was rumored to speak only broken French—taught by his mother, a French Huguenot—and hardly any English. Children who saw him described a hulking, misshapen figure who moved awkwardly and kept to the shadows. Small animals often turned up dead in his vicinity, their necks inadvertently broken by the boy’s overwhelming strength drugin play. This gruesome pattern earned René a monstrous reputation. Neighborhood gossip painted him as a lurking menace, a giant who didn’t know his own power. Some even whisper that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was inspired by tales of René’s pitiable monstrosity – though historians firmly debunk that as fanciful lore with “absolutely no evidence” to support it.

By all retellings, young René lived a life in the margins, feared and shunned by Savannah society. In an era with little understanding of developmental disorders or physical deformities, someone like René would have invited superstition. “If someone was insane or malformed, they were locked in the attic,” one storyteller notes, suggesting that in those days “the monster isn’t René; the monster is us.” Whether René truly existed or not, this chilling setup would soon lead to a crime that cemented his place in Savannah’s ghost lore.

The legend’s most harrowing chapter begins with the discovery of two young girls’ bodies on the grounds of Colonial Park Cemetery. The girls had been brutally killed – in one version of the tale, a single girl is found in Foley’s Alley with her neck snapped, while other versions speak of two girls whose bodies were dumped among the tombs inside the cemetery. In a city already teeming with ghost stories, these murders struck a nerve. Panic swept through the historic district, and fearful eyes quickly turned to the one person who seemed capable of such violence: René Rondolier.

The evidence was nothing more than eerie pattern and local suspicion. The manner of the girls’ deaths – necks broken, as if by tremendous force – mirrored the only thing people knew about René’s interactions with living things. It was exactly what had happened to those small animals back in his childhood haunts. Surely, the townsfolk thought, the giant must be responsible. Rumors ignited like wildfire. Neighbors recalled seeing a huge shadow trailing children at dusk. Others claimed René had been heard muttering in that strange French patois near the cemetery gates. In the minds of nineteenth-century Savannah residents, a “gigantic killer of children” was on the loose.

It didn’t help that Colonial Park Cemetery was already a spine-chilling place after dark. Spanish moss hung low from gnarled oak branches, and the faint glow of lamplight threw dancing shadows across the gravestones. One can imagine the tense, terrified atmosphere on those nights: citizens barring their doors, mothers clutching their children close, and perhaps the distant silhouette of a very tall figure slipping between the crypts. Whether out of genuine fear or mob hysteria, the people of Savannah decided to take action before another child fell victim.

Once blame fixed on René, vigilante justice was swift and merciless. The legend describes an enraged mob forming under the cloak of night – men with torches and rope moving as a posse toward Colonial Park. They scoured the cemetery’s “deep, dank catacombs” and hiding places where the giant was rumored to sleep among the dead. Eventually, the mob found René. How exactly this confrontation played out varies with the telling: in some stories he was cornered in the dark mausoleums of the graveyard; in others he had fled into the surrounding swamps only to be tracked down by hounds. Either way, the mob seized the hulking man-child, determined to make him pay for the innocent lives lost.

Without trial or mercy, René Rondolier was lynched that night. One popular version says the mob dragged him to a large oak in the southwest corner of Warren Square, a few blocks from the cemetery, and slipped a noose around his neck. The first attempt failed – René was so tall and strong that the fall did not break his neck. The lynch mob had to haul on the rope, hoisting the struggling giant until at last his neck snapped with a crack, ending his life. Another account places the execution right in the swamplands outside the city, suggesting the mob left René’s body in the marshes as a grim warning. Yet another story insists the deed happened at the very Hanging Tree inside Colonial Park Cemetery, claiming that tree’s twisted branches still creak under phantom weight on certain nights.

No matter the exact locale, the outcome was the same: René Rondolier was dead by the hands of his fellow citizens. In the stillness that followed, one imagines the mob’s anger giving way to uneasy silence. The threat had been dealt with, but a sinister question hung in the humid Savannah air: What if they’d gotten it wrong? What if the killings were not René’s doing—or worse, what if death would not stop a spirit as strong as his?

According to legend, the horror was only beginning. Despite René’s lynching, the murders did not stop. Children continued to vanish or turn up dead even after René was buried (or so the stories claim). The city’s relief curdled into renewed terror. Had they lynched an innocent man? Or had René returned from beyond the grave to exact vengeance? It was in this climate of fear and guilt that the ghost of René Rondolier stepped into Savannah folklore.

Almost as soon as René was gone, sightings of a specter began to spread. Frightened whispers told of a huge, shadowy figure prowling Colonial Park Cemetery after midnight, a dark shape as tall as a full-grown oak. People spoke of encountering a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness, and children claimed they saw a giant ghost watching them from behind tombs. Residents near the cemetery reported seeing a silhouette “almost 7 feet tall” drifting among the headstones. Others swore they saw a body hanging from the old oak tree behind the cemetery wall, swinging in the breeze with an ominous creak — yet when approached, the figure would vanish into thin air.

Before long, the tale of René’s ghost became Savannah’s most infamous legend. The Colonial Park Cemetery gained a new nickname: “René’s Playground.” It was said that in life, the lonely giant had treated the cemetery as his safe haven, a quiet playground where he could hide from tormentors and be among the departed. In death, it seems he never left. Any strange occurrence around the graves was now blamed on René’s restless spirit. If flowers were found trampled or crypt doors discovered ajar, folks winked that it must be René wandering again. Children on dare would hop the cemetery wall at night, only to flee moments later claiming the ghost was after them. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Rondolier’s legend was firmly embedded in local lore, a perennial favorite among Savannah’s ghost stories.

“Credit this tale with inspiring more sleepless nights on camping trips than any other story in Savannah,” joked author James Caskey, who has chronicled the city’s hauntings. Indeed, generations of boy scouts and brave campers have huddled around fires listening to the story of René Rondolier. One version told far beyond Georgia even claimed “Rondo Rondolia” would prowl riverbanks cutting off the heads of wayward campers, punctuated by pranks where an older scout would leap from the darkness to scare everyone witless. The ghost of René had transcended Savannah, becoming a Southern campfire legend.

Back in Savannah, ghost tour companies never hesitate to include René Rondolier on their routes. To this day, tour guides lead curious crowds through Colonial Park at night, recounting the grisly tale with a flair for the dramatic. They describe how René’s greenish misty form has been spotted gliding between grave plots. They point out a particular gnarled oak and claim it’s the very Hanging Tree where René met his end – “On some nights, if you gaze up, you might see him hanging there still,” they whisper. Thrill-seekers eat it up, and Savannah solidifies its reputation as “a city built upon its dead”, where the line between history and myth is forever blurred.

So, did a gigantic killer named René Rondolier ever really terrorize Savannah? Historical evidence says no. Despite the vivid tales, researchers have never found a single mention of René Rondolier in Savannah’s archives or records. No birth certificate, no death notice, no contemporaneous newspaper reports of a seven-foot madman or unexplained child murders in the early 1800s. The supposed crime spree that led to René’s lynching – the broken-necked girls in the cemetery – leaves not a trace in period documents. In short, “the story isn’t based in reality,” as one historian plainly concludes.

Likewise, Colonial Park Cemetery’s logs show no burial plot for René (under any spelling of the name) despite some tour guides claiming to point out his grave. A popular TV broadcast once alleged that René was interred there, but when curious locals searched the grounds, no grave was found. Savannah’s oldest cemetery holds many secrets, but a gigantic phantom’s tomb isn’t one of them. As one local writer remarked with some disappointment, “it is just that – a story”, a bit of spooky folklore with no hard facts to back it up.

That hasn’t stopped embellishments and outright fabrications from creeping into the narrative over time. Some storytellers have added details that border on the absurd: one tour company infamously claimed René’s family tried to contain him behind glass walls, or that he lived in a specific house (now the Hampton-Lillibridge House) until he escaped – pure nonsense with no basis in the historical record. But in the realm of ghost lore, such inventions often thrive. Savannah’s haunted history is a blend of well-documented tragedies and fantastical yarns woven to entertain. Tour guides openly admit they take liberties to captivate their audiences, acknowledging that each storyteller “reserves the right to pursue their own story telling paths.” The tale of René Rondolier is a prime example: a morality tale and fright story rolled into one, repeated so often that it gained a life of its own.

Interestingly, some modern authors have attempted to humanize René and explore what truth might lie behind the legend. Savannah writer David H. Rousseau reimagined René Rondolier in a fictionalized story, suggesting that perhaps René was an autistic boy misunderstood by his community. In his version, the “giant” was a gentle soul whose difference made him an easy scapegoat for heinous crimes – a commentary on how societies often mistreat those who don’t fit the norm. “All the stories agree he was a very large child… in all folklore, there is a grain of truth,” Rousseau points out. His speculation, while fictional, highlights a thought-provoking angle: could there have been an unusually large individual in old Savannah who inspired the ghost story? We may never know. Folklore has a way of magnifying kernels of truth into monsters and myths.

One theory holds that the legend of René Rondolier started as a cautionary tale for children. Savannah parents may have concocted the boogeyman to keep kids from wandering into dangerous places like cemeteries or alleys at night. “Rene’s story may have started as a way to teach children to stay away from strangers… It’s a morality tale,” notes one commentator on Savannah folklore. Indeed, the basic lesson “stay away from the creepy man in the cemetery” would have been an effective one in an era of real perils. Over time the tale likely grew more sensational – picking up the gruesome murders, the lynch mob, the ghostly revenge – because nothing captures imaginations in the “Most Haunted City in America” quite like a homegrown monster.

Though René Rondolier almost certainly never walked the cobblestone streets of Savannah, his ghost walks on in our collective imagination. In the balmy darkness of a Savannah summer night, as Spanish moss sways and crickets sing, it’s easy to feel a shiver of possibility. You might find yourself glancing over your shoulder as you pass Colonial Park Cemetery, wondering if a giant shadow might be following behind the iron fence. The power of this legend lies in the atmosphere it conjures – a mix of Southern Gothic tragedy and supernatural thrill. Savannah, a city that “produced a treasure trove of ghost stories over the centuries,” holds tight to the tale of René Rondolier because it encapsulates so much of its haunted charm.

Today, René’s story endures not because it is factual, but because it is effective. It continues to spook new generations, adding a thrilling human monster to Savannah’s catalog of specters. The legend has inspired books, tours, and countless retellings. It serves as a reminder that in Savannah, history and myth dance intimately together. Even when a story is disproven by historians, the allure of a good ghost story means it never truly dies. As one travel writer put it, the tale of René Rondolier “embodies the macabre fascination people hold for this quiet enclave of the dead” – a fascination that keeps visitors tiptoeing into Colonial Park Cemetery, heart pounding with each rustle of the breeze.

In the end, the Haunting of René Rondolier is less about a literal ghost and more about the ghostly atmosphere of Savannah itself. It’s about the flicker of gaslight on old brick walls, the weight of history in the air, and the way a community’s fears and legends can take on a life of their own. René’s tale, true or not, invites us into that dusky realm where imagination runs wild among the tombstones, and where every shadow could be something more. And if you ever find yourself in Savannah on a midnight stroll, pause by the cemetery gates and listen closely. You just might hear the faint echo of heavy footsteps – a giant’s footsteps – reminding you that stories never truly rest in peace in the City of Ghosts.