THE BEAST OF BOGGY CREEK: The True Story of the Fouke Monster (6 page)

Despite the new theories, the original Ford tale had ignited a sense of public curiosity that could not be easily doused. The story had already gone viral, and it would become clear that no efforts to debunk or calm the situation would be entertained. After all, how could a four-legged cat or rickety old horse be mistaken for a seven-foot upright monster? A legend had been born and nothing would stop it from growing.

It Walks Among Us

Two days after the Woods saw a strange creature lope across the highway, the
Texarkana Gazette
printed another small article, indicative of the burgeoning interest in the Fouke Monster. The short report, featuring the rather academic headline of “State Funds Sought for ‘Monster’ Hunt,” put forth one citizen’s suggestion that state officials should take interest:

Dean Combs, a history instructor at Dial Junior High School in Pine Bluff, Ark., is taking the Fouke “monster” seriously.

Tuesday Combs said he believes the “monster” is a symbol of Arkansas’ wild heritage and that the state should appropriate money for the capture and preservation of the beast.

State officials were probably either scratching their heads at such a notion, outright laughing, or just hoping it would go away as quickly as it started. But as the reports continued to roll in, it was becoming apparent to everyone that something unique and exciting was happening down in Miller County. Folks didn’t have to wait long for another titillating report to hit the pages of the
Texarkana Gazette
.

It was June 2, only a month since the first incident sparked the creature to life in the minds of the locals. Officials responded to a call from three individuals claiming that they had seen a “tall hairy creature with red eyes” during the evening hours in a wooded area near Texarkana. According to one of the witnesses, Gloria Dean Richey, they spotted the creature “squatting” on an embankment across the street from her Oats Street residence after hearing something walk through a weeded area near the road. “We shined a flashlight on the spot and saw the creature,” Richey told reporters. “He was real tall and hairy and had real red eyes.” When the light hit the creature, the dogs began to bark wildly. At that point the thing started running through the heavy brush “leaping high over the weeds and running faster than a man could.”

Mrs. Richey glimpsed the animal once more, approximately 25 yards from where it first entered the heavy brush, before it finally disappeared for good. At that point, the two other witnesses, Junior Goodman and Jerry Smallwood, went to retrieve their guns and call police. When they returned, they followed a trail of trampled weeds and bushes, but could not find any further trace of the creature. Mrs. Richey waited in the house for the men to return. Her fright was evident: “I have never seen anything like it. I know it wasn’t a cat or a man. I could still hear the dogs acting up and the brush breaking and rattling. I didn’t go out again until [Goodman and Smallwood] got back."

June 2, 1971: The creature is seen in the vicinity of Oats Street
north of Fouke.

The police searched the wooded area around the house shortly after receiving the call but came up empty handed. It was obvious that something had scared the trio, but it was impossible to substantiate their story without tracks or some other evidence. To make things even more puzzling, the location was much further from the usual Boggy Creek haunt. The first incident—at the Fords—occurred in the vicinity of the north fork of Boggy Creek (a.k.a. Chicken Creek), while the second incident—the Woods—occurred on Highway 71 near the south fork of the creek. Oats Street is located on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, about 10 miles north of Fouke. In those days it backed up to an area of thick trees, but still, it was much closer to the outskirts of a large city than any of the previous sightings.

However, it was hard to completely dismiss the possibility that the “monster” had decided to venture north from the creek. The following Saturday, June 5, police received yet another call from a residence at the intersection of Oats and Washington. This time a child had reported seeing a “monster in the woods across from a group of houses in the area.” As unreliable as a child’s eyewitness “monster” account may be, it still added fuel to the fire and caused some alarm in the neighborhood.

A more thorough search of the area, at the request of the residents, turned up some unidentified tracks at an abandoned fertilizer plant on North Oats Road. On Sunday June 6, Miller County Constable Paul Jewell and Deputy Constable Richard Haygood discovered what they described as “four-inch wide tracks” in the soft soil surrounding a large barn-like structure used for storing fertilizer bins. There were at least five visible prints, but unfortunately they could not tell if the animal’s foot had claws because of the nature of the soil. It seemed that for the time being the creature had managed to cover its tracks.

But not for long.

On the hot morning of Sunday, June 13, Yother Kennedy discovered a series of mysterious footprints in his freshly plowed soybean field located near the south fork of Boggy Creek. The tracks originated from the woods at one corner of the field and traveled about 150 yards before disappearing into the trees on the other side. The trackway appeared to have been made by a bipedal creature walking upright. According to an article that ran two days later in the
Texarkana Gazette
, the tracks measured 13.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide with a maximum stride of 57 inches between them. Just as in the Ford incident, the animal appeared to have three toes, all about the same length. Another smaller toe imprint was observed about five inches back from the big toe, but this digit only made a faint indention in the sandy soil.

A curious incident that occurred just prior to the track find was also reported by Kennedy: “Kennedy said he was plowing Wednesday and had stopped to work on his tractor when he heard strange noises coming from the thick undergrowth near the field. He said he got his rifle and plowed the rest of the day with it close by. Then Sunday he returned to the field to see how his beans were doing and found the tracks.”

Several Fouke officials and citizens were initially called to the scene that Sunday morning, including Constable Ernest Walraven, Sheriff H.L. Phillips, J.E. “Smokey” Crabtree, and Willie Smith, who owned the land. The tracks were so unusual that even doubters began to wonder what was going on. Walraven, who had previously investigated the Ford incident, seemed swayed by the evidence. He told reporters: “At first I didn’t think too much of the sightings but now I do. I have never seen tracks like this and I have been in the woods all my life.”

Sheriff Leslie Greer and the local game warden, Carl Gaylon, also investigated. Neither had ever seen animal tracks like those before, so they could not make a judgment as to whether they were authentic, only that they were indeed mysterious.

Willie Smith weighed in on the discussion, informing the press that he and his family had seen these type of tracks in the area many times in the past. He was also the first to theorize that the creature must live and roam in the vicinity of the creeks, which more or less spread out in a ring around Fouke. “Every time it has been seen around here, it has always been near one of the creeks,” he told reporters.

Smith also cited numerous broken limbs in the area that he believed were indications of a tall animal walking through the trees. To strengthen the case, Smith’s niece-in-law [3], Bobbie, told of her own sighting, which had occurred just two weeks earlier. She said the creature stood approximately six feet tall as she watched it walk through the woods near the soybean field at about 7:30 p.m. one evening.

Word of the track find spread quickly, and more of the locals came down to the field to see for themselves. Rick Roberts, whose father served as mayor from 1978-1991, was one such person. At the time he was a young man, familiar with the Sulphur River Bottoms and the surrounding area. He took a special interest in the phenomenon unfolding before him and would later own the local Monster Mart convenience store in Fouke. It was his mother, Jane Roberts, who was responsible for helping law officials make plaster casts of the footprints that day. Fouke officials had very little experience in casting at the time, so Robert’s mother, skilled with arts and crafts, assisted them. Like the others, Roberts didn’t know what to make of the tracks, but he was definitely impressed by the distance between them. In a series of personal interviews I had with Roberts, he told me: “If the tracks were a hoax, they would have been very hard to fake. It would not have been easy for a person to get that much distance between each one.”

Journalist Jim Powell and radio personality Dave Hall represented the press that day. They had both been present at the Ford investigation, so naturally they were interested by the new evidence this case presented. But Powell was not as convinced as Walraven that the tracks were those of a real animal or even an unknown creature. “I noticed that it stepped over the plants,” he told me during our phone conversation. “I’ve never seen an animal that didn’t step on plants as it crossed a field. It just didn’t seem right.” This was puzzling. Those present agreed that whoever had made the tracks had been reluctant to step on any of the young bean plants.

One of the tracks found in Willie Smith’s soybean field.
(Courtesy of the Texarkana Gazette)

Regardless, there was no denying that
something
had made strange tracks in the soil, whether it was a strange animal or just a clever hoaxer. Since there was no solid evidence pointing either way, it was simply news and Powell reported it that way. The resulting story appeared in the June 15 edition of the
Texarkana Gazette
, taking up the better part of a page that featured a large photo of a single track and the headline: “Monster Tracks Found.”

By now the Fouke Monster was big news, and his story was being followed by a good portion of readers in Texarkana and the surrounding areas. The lawmen were taking the reports seriously and were doing everything they could to solve the mystery. But so far, every trail went cold. The monster might have left tracks for all to see, but he himself would not be so easy to find.

Media Mayhem

It wasn’t long before other regional newspapers got wind of the strange discovery and ran stories in their own editions. Photos of the bizarre three-toed tracks, along with more revelations offered up by the landowner Willie Smith, spread to a wider audience. These new anecdotes had to do with encounters he and his family had with the monster years earlier, giving even more credence to the belief that something very strange was lurking in the spooky woods along Boggy Creek.

In an article printed in the
Victoria Advocate
, Smith claimed that his sister had first seen the creature way back around 1908 when she was just 10 years old. This pre-dated any previously reported sighting of the creature by almost 40 years. Smith went on to state that he himself had first seen the creature in 1955 near his house along Boggy Creek. “I thought he was a man. I shot at him 15 times with an Army rifle, but missed,” he told reporters.

Despite the clamor of gunshots that the mystery creature experienced, it did not stop him from returning for an encore. Smith went on to add: “Next time he came up behind the house throwing chunks at my dog. So, I shot through the brush and missed him again.”