The Killer of Lake Tangyanika - Part Three

THE DEVIL WITHIN

GUSTAVE — Episode Three: The Hunt

For years, Patrice Faye had followed the evidence left behind by one of Africa's most notorious predators. He interviewed witnesses, mapped attacks around Lake Tanganyika, studied movements along the Rusizi River and learned the scars that distinguished one enormous Nile crocodile from every other animal in the water.

By 2002, studying Gustave was no longer enough.

Faye wanted to capture him alive.

In the final installment of our three-part investigation, The Hunt, the naturalist's obsession becomes an extraordinary field expedition. Gustave's legend has now escaped Burundi and entered the international press, bringing increasingly spectacular claims with it: hundreds of victims, gunshot wounds, attacks on massive animals and a crocodile that supposedly killed without eating. Faye himself offered a considerably more cautious estimate, saying he had documented roughly sixty deaths attributable to Gustave, perhaps fewer—a number that still could never be scientifically confirmed.

But Gustave himself was real.

His extraordinary size and distinctive scars allowed Faye to identify an individual animal moving through the enormous interconnected ecosystem of Lake Tanganyika and the Rusizi River. Capturing him alive could finally replace estimates with measurements: his true length, weight, age, physical condition and injuries could all be studied for the first time.

So Faye built a jail.

Nearly thirty feet long and weighing roughly a ton, the enormous steel cage looked more like industrial machinery than an animal trap. Cameras monitored it. Bait was placed inside. Crocodile specialist Alison Leslie joined the expedition, while filmmaker Jean-Michel Corillion documented the hunt for what would become Capturing the Killer Croc.

Eventually, something enormous approached the cage.

Then everything went wrong.

A violent storm struck. The infrared camera failed. By morning, the trap had been damaged and partially submerged—and the live goat being used as bait had vanished. Whatever happened during those missing hours was never captured on film. The cage intended to settle the mystery of Gustave had somehow produced another one.

Faye's expedition ended without its prisoner.

But Gustave didn't disappear from the story. Reports continued for years, including another reported sighting in 2009. What remained were ultimately two Gustaves: the documented animal—an exceptionally large, heavily scarred Nile crocodile photographed and filmed in the Lake Tanganyika region—and the nearly supernatural creature built around him by decades of rumor and repetition.

And then there is the final mystery.

Did Gustave ever die?

Rumors say yes. Evidence says we don't know. No verified carcass was recovered. No skull was conclusively identified. No scientific examination established when or where Gustave's life ended. That doesn't make him immortal. It simply means that the final chapter of his biological life was never documented.

Perhaps that's appropriate.

Because after three episodes spent asking what transformed Gustave into a monster, we arrive at a more uncomfortable possibility:

Maybe nothing did.

Maybe Gustave remained exactly what millions of years of evolution had designed him to be—patient, opportunistic, adaptable and capable of learning from the world around him.

Perhaps it was the world around him that changed.

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The Devil Within is written and hosted by Branden Morgan and produced by Evio Creative.

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