He was not entering the creek because he wanted to hunt the animal.
He was searching for a missing child.
The water was murky enough to make the task frightening even without the possibility of a shark nearby.
Fisher eventually located Lester.
But the rescue attempt turned into a second attack.
The shark struck Fisher.
He was severely wounded in the leg.
People managed to get him out of the creek, but the injury was devastating. Fisher was taken for medical treatment and later died.
Lester Stillwell was also dead.
Within a short period, Matawan had lost both an 11-year-old boy and the man who had entered the water trying to recover him.
According to Smithsonian, the Matawan attack occurred about 30 miles north of the earlier Spring Lake incident, and Lester was roughly 16 miles inland when he was attacked.
That geographic detail transformed the event from another terrible coastal shark attack into something much harder for the public to comprehend.
The predator had apparently traveled into a narrow creek.
And it was not finished.
Less Than Half an Hour Later, Someone Else Was Screaming
News of the Stillwell and Fisher attacks had barely had time to spread when another incident occurred farther along the creek.
A group of boys was swimming near a different location.
Among them was Joseph Dunn, a teenager from New York.
Then the shark appeared again.
Dunn was bitten in the leg.
This time, however, the victim did not disappear beneath the water.
Other boys grabbed him.
For a few terrifying moments, a struggle unfolded at the edge of the creek as Dunn was pulled toward safety.
They managed to get him out.
He survived.
According to the historical account summarized by Smithsonian, Dunn was bitten less than half an hour after the attacks involving Stillwell and Fisher.
In other words, this was no longer merely a story about an animal entering an unexpected habitat.
Within roughly 30 minutes, three people had been attacked in different parts of an inland tidal creek.
Two were dead.
One was wounded.
And nobody could say with certainty where the shark had gone.
Imagine Looking at the Creek Afterward
The psychology of the Matawan incident is difficult to appreciate from a modern photograph.
A creek does not look like shark habitat to most people.
That was precisely the problem.
Imagine standing on the bank immediately after the attacks.
The surface becomes calm again.
There is no dorsal fin permanently cutting through the water.
No obvious shadow.
No roar from the animal.
Nothing tells you exactly where it is.
The creek simply keeps moving with the tide.
Yet somewhere underneath that ordinary-looking surface, a predator capable of killing a person may still be swimming.
People began searching.
Some used boats.
Weapons appeared.
Explosives were reportedly used in attempts to kill the animal.
The attacks had transformed a familiar local swimming hole into something terrifying.
And the public now had to confront a disturbing fact:
The boundaries people had mentally created between themselves and sharks did not necessarily exist for the shark.