Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:442 Sasquatch saves child

Episode Date: June 10, 2018

"I was born and raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. When I was growing up as a troubled youth about 11 years old I was sent away to a group home (that's what they did in the 70's when I was a kid. if you were deemed a 'problem child' or were in trouble with the law, or you were a runaway (that was me) your parents signed 'incorrigible' papers on you and let the County juvenile authorities place you where they decide, which may be in a home with someone who would take care of you for a period of time instead of a jail cell. They called it a 'group home' or foster care. So, I come from a large catholic family of 12 other siblings (I was #6) and because I kept running away from being sexually abused by my older brother. He threatened me to never tell and I didn't,(I never told anyone about the abuse, I just kept acting out in other ways, like running away, staying out late, and skipping school etc.) my parents too busy to figure out what was up with me, turned me over to Ramsey Counties Juvenile justice system and they placed me in a 'Group Home' which was a man who owned a farm in northern Minnesota who would care for and hopefully turn troubled teens around before they got into real legal problems with the law and ended up in prison. This man took in 4 teens at a time and basically used us as free labor to run his farm. He had about 80 milking cows, some pigs, sheep, a couple hundred steers, etc. you know the deal.On the outside, and to everyone else, like the county authorities, our parents, this guy looked like he was offering a service to help boys, what he REALLY was, was a 60 yr old ex military CO, child abuser who beat and tortured kids for fun. (can you frikkin believe that shit!?) and for whatever reason, he had a bad attitude about me and he physically beat me, tortured me and emotionally tormented me for 10 months. He did not beat any of they other boys, just ME. His name was Don, and he had a farm on if I remember correctly 'Choke cherry road'. Its approx. 8 ½ miles west of Willow River, Minnesota, I believe in Finlayson township. Now this Don character was a real piece of work, He was so physically abusive to me, I actually thought I was going to die by his hands before my time was up there. I was to be there for 1 year. I lasted 10 months before the county got some report from a local constable and they pulled me from there and shut his place down. (that is another long story that I won't go into) He did everything from poking me with pitchforks while he had me tied to a post, to whipping me with milking straps til I bled from the brass grommets. He would make me stand naked in the field from dawn til dusk and sunburn the shit out of me, and then in the frigid winter, he made me stand out in the driveway naked til I was frostbit. I have plenty of scars and afflictions to prove what I'm saying. He would keep me out of school until my obvious bruises and cuts were healed, and then I was allowed to return to school. (I missed A LOT OF SCHOOL THAT YEAR) He beat me and He beat his cows and horses , sheep and pigs the same way, so at 12 yrs old I felt like another of his animals. OK, so I bet your wondering, "what the hell does all this have to do with bigfoot or you? and Why am I telling you my childhood abuse stories? well this is why. His farm was located down this gravel road, about 8 miles from the highway. One other farm about ½ mile down the road, otherwise no other homes, farms, nothing for 10 miles in any direction. After many beatings, I started running away, and when I started to run away from him, he would always catch me because I didn't know where I was, or how to get away, so I always just ran down the road until he would find I was missing and he would come after me with his old 67 Ford LTD that smelled like a cow pie inside. I would hear his car coming down the gravel road after me and I would go off road into the ditch, and hide. But he always found me and the beatings would begin again. I would have ran off the road and into the woods but I was afraid of the swamp that was on both sides of the road between the road and the woods. I would guess there was about 100 yds of swamp, then thick woods. When I did try to go off the road I would get cold and wet, and didn't know why but I was so afraid of the swamp, I had heard howls and strange noises that I can't explain whenever I was walking on the road and I was always afraid. but I shrugged the noises off to the local wildlife. On one of my 'escapes' I ran away and the only way 'out' was 8 miles down the dirt road that was the only way in or out of his farm. I would run for miles and then I would hear his car coming from a long way away but with nothing but swamps on both sides of the road I didn't know where to go and every time he would catch me he would Tie my hands together and tie the other end of the 20 foot rope to his bumper and he would make me run behind the car as he headed back to the farm. He did this several times, and every time I would get tired and couldn't run fast enough to keep up with the car and I would always fall sooner or later and he would not stop, he would just drag me the rest of the way back to the farm. I have many scars to this day to prove what I'm explaining to you. Again Wes, I know your thinking "what the hell does this have to do with Bigfoot??" well it will all be understood soon: One time (the last time) I ran away and ran down the road, (BTW, NO other farms or houses on this stretch of road. very desolate, open pastures and wooded forests and a strip of swamp on both sides of the long 8 mile gravel road. I don't know, but I believe now that this Sasquatch had watched what was happening to me, maybe only once, maybe it saw every time I was abused on that road. (I'm sure that he drug me behind the car at least 8 times over that summer) I somehow feel it (the bigfoot) understood my plight, or if it just noticed I was in trouble, or if it saw me running before and saw Don (the asshole abuser) stop and grab me smack me around and then tie me to the car and take me on another drag. Maybe it was watching the farm all summer, as my abuse was a daily thing around the farm, easy to see happening if you were watching the farm. I Don't know. it was in approximately the same location on the same dirt road that I heard noises before in one of my escapes that this guy don would come and find me at. So it goes like this; I was running down the side of the road, I hear Don's car coming off in the distance, so I jump off the road and down into the swamp along the road and I start heading across this swampy area, hoping to cross it to the tree line and into the forest that is beyond the swamp. It's getting deeper and muckier every step I take and I am panicking and struggling to get through the swamp before don's car gets to where I was. My feet are sinking, I'm struggling every step and I'm quickly realizing that it's too deep and I am not going to be able to cross this swamp to the tree line beyond it. Don's car comes, I duck, Don's car goes by, but he doesn't notice me about 75 yds out in this swampy area. So I have avoided him for the moment but I know he will turn around and come back, as always. but now I'm stuck in the swamp and struggling to keep my head afloat and to get out. (sorry, I'm not good with distances, don't know 50 yards from 50 feet but I think my numbers are close approximations) I'm panicking, I'm sinking, my feet are stuck in the muck up to my waist, and the water above the muck to my chest. The more I struggle, the more I sink into the swamp muck! I'm pulling at cattails and reeds, I'm screaming and crying and wishing Don had seen me, cuz a beating is better then a drowning! All of a sudden, from the tree line, I hear this big CRASH/SPLASH about 50 feet away from me on the edge of the woods/swamp. I look up expecting to see a bear or something because it sounded like a herd of buffalo was coming out of the tree line. What do I see? It's a MONSTER!! 8 feet tall, and massive! it's a HUGE BIGFOOT! (back then I thought it was a MONSTER, but now I know it was a bigfoot, so I'll just call it that) I notice right away it's a female because of the large hairy breasts. Weird how a 12 year old in puberty will notice tits, even on a bigfoot (LOL) anyways, tits or not it's a monster and I am screaming and struggling in this swamp and I think I'm going to drown, I stop struggling in the direction going away from the road and start struggling back towards the road but can't get my feet loose of the muck. I was finally able to pull my feet out of my shoes and get a few more steps, as this at least 8 feet tall brown hairy monster is coming straight towards me. I am dizzy from struggling and screaming and panicking and I have swamp water in my mouth and I'm coughing, and this Bigfoot is almost on top of me now, it never made a noise, no growling, roaring, nothing, and seemed to glide effortlessly through the swamp to me. The water seemed to only come to it's knees and as it got to within about 10 feet of me I thought for sure it was going to just beat me or kill me and eat me or something bad. it did not. I cowered down with my hands and arms over my head as I saw the shadow of this beast surround me and then I notice this terrible stench! Like a thousand skunks and rotten meat at the same time. Worst thing I have ever smelled, ever! Then everything got silent. She/it was over the top of me and I was face down in the swamp with my hands over my head and my eyes closed tightly crying. Next I hear this beast sigh, like it changed its mind and gave up scaring me or something, hard to explain the emotion, but we both just froze for what seemed like an hour but was in reality about 10 seconds. It was like this beast woman was trying to figure out what to do with me. It had the look of intelligence, not a wild animal. I feel this wet cold mucky hairy hand grab the back of my jacket and my neck and pull me up out of the swamp. I start flaying my feet and twisting around to get loose but it had me tight and effortlessly held me out in front of it. I started screaming and crying as it held me out in front of her and started moving swiftly towards the road. It seemed to take about 10 seconds and we were back at the edge of the ditch next to the road. It took me 10 minutes to get out there struggling all the way, but it moved smoothly and quickly back the way I came into the swamp from the gravel road in a matter of seconds. From where she picked me up to the gravel road was about 75 feet. She dropped me in the ditch, and just looked at me for what seemed like an hour but was a few seconds, the look was of sadness, of confusion, but firm too. It looked up the road towards the sound of Don's car coming back about a ½ mile away and turned looked at me again and walked away quickly straight back the way we came from following the same path through the swamp. It was into the tree line and gone in about 20 seconds. What I remember the most is the look on her face when she dropped me. she stood and looked at me for a couple seconds, she looked up the road where we both heard don's car coming in the far distance, (you know the sound a car makes on gravel when there is no other noise? You can hear it break the silence from a mile away) as I said, She looks back to me and I saw this look, one of understanding, of motherly caring almost, and of concern and of ANGER all at the same time. Then she turned and moved swiftly back through the swamp to the woods on the other side of the swamp and disappeared. What I can tell you about the face is that it reminded me of a carnival 'bearded lady'. I know how that sounds, but she did not look like a woman, she had long wet, dark brown hair, not fur draped in her face, a long dirty beard that seemed to start at her eyes and flow all the way off the chin. And the hair was full of pine needles and twigs and clumps of mud. Oh, and the skin, was dark gray, and her hands huge with brownish long nails that looked like an eagles claw, but dirty and chipped. Huge eyes, dark deep set and angry looking, but not angry at me. And the nose was wide and flat like a boxer or something, but not human. If I had to pick a bigfoot type that she most resembled it would be a cross between 'Patty' but with long messy dirty hair. Maybe Like the Florida swamp creature you have seen on the internet. I never told Don about the Bigfoot, he pulled up and saw me lying in a puddle in the ditch "your all fu**ing' wet! Where are your fu**ing shoes? And you STINK! You're not sitting in MY car stinkin' like that! Get in the fu**ing trunk" He snarled, as he got out of his car and opened the trunk and pointed towards it. I was cold and wet and stinkin like a skunk and probably in shock, I was still sobbing. So I climbed in the trunk and he slammed the lid down and drove me back to the farm as he had done many times before. I was just happy he didn't drag me this time. He made me throw the jacket away, we couldn't get the smell out of it, and he blew it off that I somehow got tangled with a skunk. A dead skunk. I never told anyone about the Bigfoot, who would believe me? I also believe that there was a bigfoot near me while I was picking raspberries out in Don's back forty a couple months earlier. I was in the woods. I heard a grunt in the bushes near the wild berry patch we always went to and I had a sudden fear come over me and I ran back to the house about a mile through the woods down the tractor trail. There seemed to be something moving through the woods on the side of me, but I could never see it, I was just scared shitless of something, and I ran. I Never heard the grunting sound again until I was walking on the road near the swamp months later. Until I started listening to your show, I figured I would take it to my grave. But you Wes, with your friendly voice and the way you make it sound ok and believable that someone saw a bigfoot and that the story should be told that I decided to at least put my encounter to paper."

Black thing go from left to right, and I thought, I'm going to die out here and no one's ever going to know. I couldn't believe what my eyeballs were showing me. I'll never forget how evil the eyes were. It was horrible. I mean, I've never seen nothing that evil. It ran towards me at a rate that I can't even explain, turned and stared at me. And this look of, I just want to kill you. I want to say it was human, but it wasn't.

He was yelling at me to grab a gun, grab a gun. I was like, for what? He said, just grab a gun. And there's footprints all the way to the door of my house. It had went inside my garage all the way to the door. 911, what are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know.

Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. You're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Check us out online at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you've had an encounter, email me. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight.

Got a great show planned for you this evening. And if you notice over this weekend, I've released almost all of the shows, member shows and everything, as a celebration as we move to revolverpodcast.com, They're now hosting Sasquatch Chronicles. And if you notice on your podcast player, you've probably noticed the color has changed on the logo. And it's just my move over to Revolver. And I'm really happy being there. I think the people over there are great.

And so I wanted to do something special, celebrate it with everyone, kind of release all the shows this weekend. Just this weekend. Next week, it'll return to normal. But I want to thank you guys for being here, especially on a Sunday night. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Tonight, I'll be talking to Tommy. And Tommy had a horrific childhood. Him and I have talked off the air.

In fact, I talked to Tommy almost a year ago, and he refused to come on the show. He really didn't even want to come on the show tonight, but I begged and pleaded with him to come on. Because Tommy's encounter is very fascinating. The backstory is hard to listen to. But the encounter as a whole is fascinating. to as far as what happened to him. And I'll let Tommy go into that tonight. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And even though I'm releasing shows this weekend, if you get a chance, go check out

Sasquatch Chronicles.com. You can become a member, get additional shows. There's a daily blog, a lot of cool people on the website. So if you get a chance, I hope you go over there and take a look at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. But either way, thank you so much for listening tonight. Let's actually jump into it. I want to welcome Tommy to the show. Tommy, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me, Wes. I appreciate. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. It's just you and I having a conversation, but I know it's kind of a painful memory to relive. The encounter is very fascinating to me. I know the backstory might be hard for the audience to live.

listen to, but it's important. It kind of explains why you were in the situation you were in. If you would, take your time and just kind of start from the beginning. And if you would, how did you get into the situation you're in? And Tommy, you share as many details as you want or don't share any details you don't want to share. And then we'll just kind of walk into this encounter. Okay, West, a lot of the personal details out from why I got the to northern Minnesota, simply because the names have been changed to protect the guilty

at this point. I grew up in, just outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, a large family. When I was, from when I was a young, young guy, having some happening to me.

Some people are fighters, and I guess at that age, I didn't, I couldn't beat the people that were beating me. And so my parents were, too busy to deal with a runner having come and fetched me from a few far places that I could hitchhike to when I was, you know, seven years old or whatever. Long short, um, they had, uh, the authorities in the, they filed what they call incorrigible papers on you. And they put in, one of the times that the cops had found me after running away. They put me in this juvenile detention center and waited for

somebody, now back in the 70s, this is like 72, 73, I think. And they would, um, they would put people in, put young boys that were having problems with the law, they try to cut that problem short by putting them, getting them out of the city and getting them into some type of a group home is what they call them, or foster homes, get them out of the city before they cause any more problems or end up in prison.

Their intentions were good, but they really didn't check into the people very well they were putting kids with. Long and short, I had a gentleman, my name of Don, come and fetched me out of the juvenile detention prison. They had me in, and brought me up to, northern Minnesota

west of I think it's Finland and somewhere in that neighborhood I was put up there with three other boys that were brothers they were from the Twin Cities also had some problems

with the law and so they because all three men problems they dissent all three them together so it ended up being the four of us there

I'm going from where I was is like somebody taking me from the fat to the fire or from the frying pan to the fire or whatever because this guy was he was insane

he was he was amazingly physically abusive to both animals and to people. The best way I can describe him is, if somebody needs a visual, is Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge, tall, lean, muscular, angry, cocky, belligerent, flat top haircut, gray hair, that was him. If you can picture that, that's the guy. His name was Don. He had a farm.

He had about 80. milking cows, about 200 had steers, he had sheep, he had pigs. You know, it's a farm. In the early 70s, pretty representative of what was around that area at the time. So at first, you know, at first I thought this was going to be pretty good, you know. I'm with three other guys. They weren't all my ages. Actually, the youngest of those three boys was my age.

And the oldest was just about 18, and I was 12, I think. 11 or 12 or something in that neighborhood. I have a real hard time with a lot of these memories because I have these big black holes in my memories from really traumatic things that happened in my life. And when I was about 15, I didn't know anything. I didn't remember any of it. And as I got older, things started to just pop in my head. And the things that I couldn't really believe over the course of about five years, all of the memories came back.

And it was difficult. Yeah, I don't blame you. And I don't mean to cut you off. But, I mean, just reading your email, Tommy, was hard for me to read. I mean, and you don't have to go into it all of it if you don't want to. But for the audience listening, this guy was a real monster. I mean, this guy was a flat out monster. So I don't mean to cut you off.

I don't blame you one bit for, for, I think. The thing is that, you know, there's a lot of different kind of monsters up for some reason. I feel like for a long time in my childhood, I thought I was a target on my back. And I'm not talking about just monsters in the woods or just monsters in farmhouses, talking about just monsters out there who prayed on children, who for some reason saw me as a victim to victimize. I don't understand that whole thing. But anyway, to get back to the story, people that want to listen to Sasquatch stories,

not child abuse stories. The only reason that I'm telling about the abuse is because it happened out the public or happened in and outside of this guy's barn. And I'll just briefly tell, again, the story that I just told you about the cows, just to give you an idea what kind of things he did around that farm on a daily basis. This guy had a, you know, he was a, he was a, some type of a commander or something in the army where he trained troops. Like, you go to boot camp or whatever.

He was one of them guys, a CEO or something. So he's one of those loud, big, demanding, guys and he, I don't know why, but he just seemed to have, he just hated, I don't know if he just hated animals, he just had no idea how to take care of them or what, but he was so hard on his animal. He had all these milking cows and he'd run these 80 cows in and I mean, I don't know how many people understand farms or farms back in the 70s, but I had no experience with this kind of a farm, but I learned real quick. Cows come in, they know where to go, they go in their stanchions, you click the shent stanchions down, holding their neck, they sit in a row on

each side of the inside of the barn. And right behind them is the gutter right under their butts. So when the traffic goes right in there. And they had a vacuum line. There was a vacuum milking system that had these pots. They were stainless steel pots that had the utter, I don't know, which call them suckers or whatever. And they would take this belt and they would throw it over the back of the cow and it had

these grommets on it like a belt that you wear and around your waist. And it had like a metal loop on the bottom of it. You stick it over the cow and you stick the loop. You hook it on to the grama and on it to adjust to each cow. And you'd wipe out the nipples. You'd put this vacuum line from there on in front of the cow. And you'd turn it on and suck, suck it, suck. It fills up with milk.

I think it's about three or four gallons or something. Anyway, this guy, he was psychotic. It's what I can describe he's psychotic. I'm standing there, an 11-year-old boy, watching what he's doing, learning what he's doing. Because anything he did, you're, you're going to be doing this tomorrow, kind of the thing. And he walked down with that thing in his hand, the milking thing in his hand machine, and he'd say, oh, Borgaine, and he hits this cow on, let's say he walks up to two cows,

and he hits the one on the left. He says, over Jane, and he hits the cow on the ass. But that cow don't right now take a step to the left so that he can get between the two cows, put that vacuum line on. That cow is in for some serious shit. Excuse me. Well, of course, cows don't know. They don't know nothing.

They only know they're grain in front of them when they lock them in the stanchion. Is there a grain here? Then they know they're fine. But he goes, over, Jane. The cow doesn't move over. Over jane, he hits it hard. The cow now is kind of freaking out a little bit. Taking some extra stuff.

It doesn't know what's up. He goes, get it. He hits this cow. And the cow doesn't know what to do. He's freaking out. He's locked. The neck is locked in the stanchion. He's sliding around on the crap that's underneath them.

And the cows get upset, they shit. I said again, sorry. The cows get upset. That's right. They crap. And then underneath their heart, who's it's all slippery now because they're freaking out. He gets all upset, and he thinks his cow is purposely trying to break,

trying to screw with his day or something. Anyway, so he smacks the cow, kicks the cow, pushes the cow, and now the cow's freaking out, and it's moving, and he's kneeing the cow in the belly, and the cow's not moving over, or it moves over or moves back, or it moves against him, and, oh, God, that was the end of it. If that cow moved the other way and bumped into him, that was it. He throws a milking thing down on the ground,

goes back and gets a pitchfork, comes back with the pitchfork, starts stabbing this cow in the ass. I mean, on the side of his ass, on the top side of the cow. It's tough. Move over! Wham! Wham! Wham! This cow is freaking out. This cow is freaking screaming.

Man! It's falling down, and it's running around us trying to get out. It's trying to escape this madness. I'm sitting there watching it. And my jaws hanging open about it. I don't understand this. I don't understand this. Why is this guy doing this?

And the cow doesn't know what to do. It's freaking out. He's pulling the pitchwork back out. The blood is hurting everywhere. And the cow, of course, he's not going to stand there quietly and wait for you to Malcolm. Now it's freaking out. It's gone totally berserk.

Oh, now the cow's starting to kick at him trying to get the badness away from him. Oh, God, the cow's kicking me now. Oh, you. Oh, you. Sorry, son of us. You know, he goes and he gets a rope, and he ties a rope to that cow's leg, and he goes across the alley or the gutter or whatever to the pole on the other side, and he runs that pole on there and cranks it tight until that.

The cow's leg is sticking straight out behind him. The cow is freaking out. It's falling down. It's getting up. It's moving. It's about to break the whole barn down. And he's doing all of this because, what? Because he wants to melt the cow.

You know, I don't think the milk would be any good anymore. Anyway, he finally gets the cow where it's so exhausted. He can't hardly even stand. And then he comes in there and puts the thing on and melts the cow. A cow is just, you know, freaking out and panting. So he does this. Now, that's one cow. Now, figure out of the next cow,

start staying crap all over again. You know, the other cows, I don't know cows are stupid, but the other cows, they know something bad coming, and they don't even know enough to move. They don't know what the hell the party's about, but he does this after two or three cows, and then this happened, this had been happened once. This happened all the time.

This happened four times a week. And after seeing this, I hadn't been there very long, but after seeing this, about the third cow, you know, he, before that second cow he told me he turns out and sees me stand here and go and clean the sheep shed or something don't he stand here watching me kind of a thing I'm in the sheep shed and I hear these cows moving and screaming and wailing I come back out I just it's like I had enough I just broke I just had enough and I came back out and I yelled at him I said I can't say what I actually said but I said you know you you really think you're a big shot you really think you're tough guy doing this to cows

do it to me come on do it to me you think you're real tough to get a cow is tied up Beating on them? Come and get me. Oh, you know, do you want trouble? Say that to him. Challenge him. Oh, you chased me all around that barn for 10 minutes. He finally caught me, and he tied me to a pole, and he poked me a pitchfork, and he strapped me with the, with me with the milking straps, and so the grommas made me bleed.

And if you don't believe it, you can check my back. It's full scars. Anyway, that was one day. I was there for 10 months. Jesus. The other day, we'd be out, we'd be out in the, and this is the part that's connected to the Bigfoot thing. I know people are going, oh, what's what's the got to do with Bigfoot?

What it has to do with is that's one behavior that happened in the barn. But this kind of behavior with him, the yelling and hitting me and dragging me around and kicking me down and punching me. And this stuff went on every day out in the farm and the barnyard and the sheep shed into whatever. It could happen while we're putting a fence up right out of the middle of the barnyard. It could happen on a tractor. He's knocked me off a tractor so many times that can't even tell you. And I'm surprised that.

wasn't run over many times, but he'd knock me right off the tractor, just smack me right off it while I was going down the trail if I shifted wrong or something. Anyway, my point is that there was a lot of abuse and things and torture that would happen to me out in this farm yard where if anybody, anybody, just anybody. I mean, even the neighbor guy, his name was Gus, nice old man. He had the only other farm around. You know, there's a couple a time that him and his wife would come over with like pies or something that they made because they felt so sorry for us kids and gone would like said he'd chase him out of there. Get that out of here.

These kids don't do their nothing. Get out of here. They came over because they felt sorry because they could hear us screaming from their house, which is half a quarter mile away across the field. Anyway, I think that this, I don't know what, the Sasquatch I know now at the time I called it a monster. But I think that it had been around. I think it heard these cries.

I think I'd been hearing it all along. That's my only assumption of why it even approached me. Anyway, so I told you that story, so I could tell you this one. I'm a runner. I told you that already. Because I don't think that people should be treated that way, children or adult. And so I would run. I would put a good runner.

I could run a long way. After about six, seven, eight, and six, eight months of this crap going on. I could talk these stories for three hours. won't. We, well, I'll back up. Before this actual, when I saw the creature, I was out, there's a big huge raspberry patches that are wild raspberries that were alongside of this couch, this tractor trail that we would take through the woods that went from one field to another field that he bought. We called it the Back 40, and we'd go and we'd bail hay back there. Anyway, a lot of times he would take the tractor full of hay and he'd make us walk. It's

about a mile through there. I ain't a big deal for young kids. And we could always stop. He had a sight, and we'd quickly stop at the raspberry patch, and we'd sit and pick raspberries. One of the times I was coming back alone, and I saw these raspberries. And nobody's around.

I can sit and pick raspberries and eat them. You know, I was always hungry. And I'm eating these raspberries. And I was there by myself. I went to just stop and start picking these raspberries. And I heard this something moving on, like, I suppose, 20, 30, 25 feet from me. I mean, the raspberry patch was humongous.

I mean, it's huge. And I heard something moving big, moving in there. I thought maybe it was a bear. I don't even know if there are bear up there. I didn't know if there are bear up there. But I heard something, and it made this noise just like a ho, like a hoof. But so low, though, that it didn't sound like a bear to me, that it sounded huge. Enough to that it scared the hell out of me.

I was feeling nauseous. I got up, and it took off. Just kind of dropped the berries and took off. And started running down the trail. Now, the right side of the trail is field. It's the front 40 that we bail. And on the left side of the little trail is all woods. And I'm running back to the farm on this trail,

and I can hear something, whatever that was, was now running alongside of me, but fired up into the thick tree that I can see what it was. I just see something was running alongside of me. I kept running. And I stopped for a second thinking, you know, maybe it's the other guys. Maybe it was them all along.

You know, maybe they were, the guys didn't stay there with the wagon and wait for the trailers to come back again or whatever. He'd do settle. Whatever, it's farming. I thought maybe those guys were sneaking behind me and they're just trying to mess with me. So I stopped for a second to see if I could see who it was. When I stopped, the noise stopped. And I started running again, and you could hear the noise again. It's just like clump, clump, clump, clump, smash, crack, just crack and break into trees or branches or whatever.

I stopped again. And stop. There's no noise. I had one once I yelled I said Come on you guys And I realized there's nobody around it Because they would have said something Damn I took off around I didn't slow down

So I got back to the farm Never said nothing to anybody Other than once I asked one of the other kids I said well you guys out by the berrycats That day out who's there or whatever No no we were out there We were sitting there having a smoke Whatever so

That was that time Something was there I don't know what it was You know maybe it was a bear But I'm going to assume that it wasn't knowing What I know now Okay So I told you all that, so I get to, let's see, I started running away from there.

I mean, he'd abuse me and I would run away. And on this dirt road that there was only one other farm, that's the one I mentioned earlier, that's Gus's place. Otherwise, there was no other farms, nowhere either direction. As far as I knew, I mean, you'd get in the car and you'd ride from town for about a half an hour, it seemed like. And then when you turned on to his road, it was a gravel road straight, nothing, just nothing but woods and swamps on you.

either side and you know it seemed like it was six or eight miles to you get to his farm so when i ran when i would run away well going out the driveway to the left would mean i assume now to finland's in which i didn't have a clue with that bent because we never went that way driving we always went the other way so i would just start running up the route to the right and uh i'd run and run and run and and I always looked to see where I could get off of the road because it wouldn't take long. He always had my eye on me, and it wouldn't take long for him to figure out that I was gone.

And when he did, he'd look around and he'd say, where's Tommy, he thought he was up in the garden. I don't know where he is. He'd jump in his old LTD, 67 LTD, that just stunk like a cow pie inside. It just annoyed me how much it stunk, and it's because he always was in it with his cow clothes, you know. Anyway, he'd always come looking for me.

He always catches me. It happens all the time. It happened, I don't know, six, eight times. I would run down the road. I'd hear his car coming. You couldn't see it yet. You could just hear it coming, and I would jump off the road, but there's swamps on both sides of the road.

Now, I've checked a map recently. Now, that area's changed a lot. Maybe it was high that year or something. I don't know, but there's not swamps like that anymore, but this is 45 years ago. So, anyway, I would jump off, and I would try to just kind of hide alongside the road. It was really easy to see it because there's nothing but, you know, the road, some swamp, and then nothing but thick woods on the other side of that. And I duck down, he'd go by, here to breaks.

He'd jump out and yell and scream and smack me around. He'd grab a length of rope out of his trunk, and he tie my wrist to it, and he tie the length of rope to his trailer hitch, and he started driving me back. And he made me run behind the car. Well, I just ran two and a half miles or so. I'm exhausted. He looked up to it. I can only run so far, and eventually I'd fall, and I'd be yelling at it.

and screaming, stop, stop, he would stop. He'd drag me all the way back home. I got scars to show you that, too. Anyway, so this happened many times, six, eight times, like I said. And I'm starting to get a little smarter, or I'm thinking I'm smarter. I'm not any smart. I'm a little kid. I'm scared.

I'm trying to get away, and I don't know what else to do. So I run. But this last time that I ran, second to the last time that I ran, I should back up just a little bit. One of those couple of those times when I was running up that road, I could hear. noises from the woods, which I'm not good with yards. I'm better with feet. I would say it's, I don't know, 300, 500 feet, let's say, 500 feet to the woods. But between the road and the woods is swamp, mucky, thick swamp with reeds and cat tails and all nine yards. And I could hear something in those woods every once in a while. I just had a bad feeling. Every

time I ran up this road, I'd get by the certain area where the second farmer Gus's property ended, and then it was all thick woods all the way up to the highway, which is, what, six, seven miles? Anyway, that bunch of woods on the right side as I'm going north always just had a bad feeling, weird noises coming out of it. Now I realized that they were whoops and there were grunts, there were howls, different things that I would hear different times when I was running up that road. I just thought it was, you know, whatever animals make those noises, so I just would keep running. but anyway,

sometime I'm running up the road. Don, and I just, I see the swamp, and I see the woods on the other side of the swamp, and I hear Don's car come and I go, damn, he caught me already. And I jumped down into the, off the side of the road, into the ditch, like I've done several times before, and he always catches me, always sees me in the ditch. For some reason that day, he didn't see me.

Maybe he was looking out the other side or something, but he went by. He went by, I started running through the swamp, hoping I could get to the woods. I figured if I get to the woods, he can't see me. I could take the woods all the way up to the main highway. I had a friend that lived on the corner of his street in the main highway,

which I figured was six miles, eight miles, something like that. I figured I could get to my friend's house. He had a real nice mom, and she was a single mother, trying to take care of her kids. And there was a few times that I had run away that I got almost there. I always thought if I could get to their house. If I could just get to their house, I could get some help. Anyway, I jump in the...

I hear his car coming. I jump in the ditch. He goes by, I continue going through the swamp, and I realized pretty quick that it's really mucky underneath of the water. I don't know. I just didn't realize what I was getting into. I started going into the swamp, and the further and further I get, the worse it is. More thick, the muck is underneath of the water, and it's like I'm stepping in, and it's pushing the mucks going all up, like, past my knees. And I'm wearing these, what they call back then, we're called duck boots.

They're green boots or the yellow lot. Probably people think they're popular now, but back then we call them duck boots and we hated them. But they were like knee-high for working on farms. I start struggling and struggling about having a hell of a time getting each foot out of the muck and into the next step, but I know I've got to get crossed with these woods. I'm about, I would say, three-quarters of the way across the swampy area,

and I'm into where the thick cat-tails are, and I'm really panicking now because I don't, I don't think I'm going to make it. I mean, now the water is up to my chest. The muck is up to my knees, and I can't, and I'm getting so tired that I can't get my feet each step. I can't get my feet out of this muck if I get sucking them in. I keep going.

I keep going. I'm struggling. And now I'm starting to freak out. The water's getting up to my neck. I don't have to explain this, but if you push down with one foot, just pull the other foot out of the muck, the first foot is going in deeper.

He ends up digging yourself a hole, basically, what you're doing. And, of course, I'm just panicking and, I mean, I'm getting swamp water in my mouth. I'm trying to get through. And I start crying. I start screaming and crying because I think I'm going to drown now because I'm getting to where if I stop, it stinks. And if I keep struggling, I kind of get moving a little more, but at least you can keep my chin above the water.

And then I find a little clump of cattails or something. I'd be grabbing them and pulling them toward me and pull my feet out of the muck underneath. Anyway, I'm right into all that. I'm panicking and freaking out. I don't think I can do this any longer. I don't think I'm going to be able to stay aflo. I honestly think I'm going to drown right where I am. And all of a sudden from the woods, which now I would say, I don't know, 50 feet, 30 yards.

I don't know. Not too much farther. I would say there was the swamped right up to the edge of the woods. So I would say there was probably 75 feet, whatever that is in yards. And I hear this crash, bass, trash, crap. coming through the woods, I'm not sure what I'm thinking. I'm not,

I don't know what I'm hearing, but I'm thinking, this is bad because I can't even run. And it just crash, crash, crash, crash. Right away, it's just, bad, crash, crash. And out of the woods comes this freaking monster.

It just, I mean, it's huge. It's huge. It was as wide as the barn door. I mean, not kidding, it was huge. It come out, splash, splash, and it jumps.

It could just, it walks through that swamp like it was three inches thick. it just walked right out to me. And I'm watching, as it gets close to me, and I see it coming, and it's huge. It was like dark brown with lighter brown hair, not fur, but hair, and it was long,

it was straggly, like a gilly seat or something. It was long. It was dirty, and the hair on the top, the top hair was lighter, like a lighter brown like it had been sun bleached or something, but all the hair underneath the real dark. And it comes out, and it's got breast. It's a female.

It's the first thing I noticed. It had breasts. And immediately I see it, and it's stomping out towards me, and I had this look at its face like it was like I'm done, you know, like it was going to eat me or whatever. It just was not good. Whatever it was and what it was coming at me, I panic. And I turned, I turned to stop.

Now I'm trying to go back to the road, and I'm stuck. I can't get, I can't move. I stopped long as to see what the hell is coming at me, long enough for me to sink in this muck. I can't get out of it. And now the water's up to my right up to my chin, and I'm choking, and I'm screaming and yelling, and I'm not saying anything, just screaming.

And I turned, and I struggled so hard. I pulled the boots off. I took, I pulled hard on, that the boot came off, and I got another step, and I pulled the boot up. I got another step. Now, I got nothing to help me. It's like I sunk even faster. Without the boots on, it went right into it.

By that time, I'm seeing this shadow coming up behind me, and the noise and it looked up behind me, and I just put my hands over my head and cowered down expecting to be, you know, I'd ever killed. And this thing just stops. It was the worst smell. It was still the worst. My dad owned a garbage company to tell you, I know what bad smells are, the worst. That was the worst smell I ever smelled in my whole life since then, even since then.

To me, how to describe that, dead skunks waiting and vomited on it. I don't know. It's just a really bad smell. It's standing right next, right behind me. I didn't even turn to look anymore. I got my hands over my head, and I'm soaking wet, I'm sinking, and I'm starting to spit and cough out the swamp water, the little green things that are in the swamp.

And the thing just reaches out and grabs the back of my jacket right behind my neck and reaches and pulls me right up out of the water. And, you know, I've been thinking about this lot lately. This is how you can describe it. This thing grabbed me, and it's holding me out in front of it. And the only thing I can think of is when I was a kid, you know, we used to have puppies and stuff, or rabbits or something. They always say, you grab a rabbit by the back of the neck there,

they're just fine with that, then I'm a problem with that. That's what I felt like. I felt like I was the size of a rabbit to a human. I mean, the thing was huge. It just grabbed me, a woman pulled me right up out of the water, and starts walking towards the road that I just came from. I'm screaming, I'm swinging my arms, and I'm hitting the arm that's trying to hold me. Or that is holding me.

I'm hitting its arm, and it's just, it's wet, and it's stinky. and it's strong, and I'm just going to call it she. Stomp, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, goes right back through the swamp, the same way I came, and gets the edge of the road, and just drops me down, soaking wet, into the mud puddle. They're kind of like whatever, the edge of the ditches are all water, too, and just drops me down in the ditch.

I just stands there and stares at me. And I'm screaming, and I'm crying, and I'm, you know, I'm cowering, and what do you do when you see a monster? You know, I saw monsters in the movies. I've seen a wolfman. I've seen Frankenstein. I don't know what this is. And I didn't think monsters were real.

I thought they were only in the movies. This happened really kind of, and it's some kind of a shock or something, because I'm just freaking out. I'm screaming. It's basically what I'm doing. I'm screaming. Ah, ah, I'm screaming.

It doesn't do anything. It's just standing there. It just threw me down and standing there looking at me. And I'm not looking at it. I'm looking at the ground. I'm not really looking at anything. I had my hands on my head, and I've got my face down. I'm waiting for it to just fucking pounce on me or something.

It doesn't. Nothing's happening. It's just standing there. I'm just here going, it took like these breaths there were like 10 times my breath. It seemed like it never stopped exhaling. And all of a sudden, everything got really quiet. And it's a hard part. No, it's a monster.

It's brown, brown hair, gray skin. I thought of was for some reason somewhere I saw a picture of or a movie of. of the circus freak, the lady with the beard, the big bearded lady. That's the first thing I thought of it. It's a woman. She's got breast, but it's not a woman. It's a monster.

It's got long, long hair coming right from below its eyes all the way down, off of its face. Nose didn't have hair on it. The hair, the hair, like, had a receding hair line. It didn't, it didn't come like all with its eyebrows, which were huge. But it had the head, the forehead was larger than most and went back from there. But its hair was dirty, a piece of branches, keep it in mud and crap, and it was dirty. And it's like his mouth was in the wrong place. Her mouth is lower, like from your nose to your chin.

There's a lot of more distance there, and it was just huge. It didn't growl. It didn't speak. It didn't nothing. It just looked at me. And it looked like, it's kind of hard to explain, but it looked at me like with sympathy. I don't know if that makes any sense coming from a monster. I mean, you don't look at the dog and see sympathy or something.

That thing looked at me with these angry eyes. And at the same time, it was kind of cocked its head a little bit to the side and looked at me. And I don't know, it just looked at me. And I thought, it's like I saw it like, okay. and then about that time this was all went by in like seconds but about that time I heard the gravel of

Don's car coming from a mile away or something you could just hear when you're out in the country on a gravel road and you're standing there and nice and quiet you can hear a car coming

from a mile and a half away you can hear the car coming he had turned around and started coming back this thing heard about the same time oh and I think she heard it before I did because turn her

and turn back again and looked at me, turned and just bolted. Didn't run, just walked fast. Right back through, we're exactly where I just came from. Same trail that we took, same one that I took out. It took, walked right down. It went into the woods, gone. You could hear crash, car come more, crash, crash, crash.

I was laying here in a ditch, and about whatever, 20, 30 seconds later, Don rolls up, slams on the brakes, takes one look at me, and starts cussing. I can't use those words on your show. I'll abbreviate him. And he said, what the heck? And what the heck are you doing? You, sorry, Zahlerland. What the hell are you all?

What did you stay? Where the hell are your shoes? Where do you get the hell up here? Now I'm crying again. And he said, I wouldn't even put you in my car here. That damn mess. He grabs his, he grabs his keys this time. I don't know, maybe he didn't have his rope.

I kind of looking at him. He grabbed his keys. I'm standing around. I went going, oh, no drag today. He grabs the keys and he opens this truck. He goes, get your ass in there. And he throws me in the trunk, he shuts the door and drives us back to the farm. He goes to the back to the farm.

And I don't know what it is, five, six o'clock. So it's starting to go down or whatever at that time. But anyway, take all that crap up and throw it down there and take all the clothes up him down to nothing. If you try to leave your underwear on or he says take all your clothes up and you need your underwear on, you know, you might as well have a jacket on. Anyway, take out of your car. What they stunk? They were raised.

You could really smell. It's like I was rolling around in skunks or something. It was bad. He had me take all my stuff off. And they had this old bathtub and old cast iron bathtub that they had. They didn't have an indoor plumbing. This is a farm, right? You know, they're crap in an outhouse, you know.

They made us do all that. But they had indoor plumbing. They had a shower in a toilet in the basement that they had put in. recently, but we couldn't use it. We had to use the outhouse. We had to bring buckets of water, five-gallon buckets of water out from the hand crank well and poured into this cast-iron bathtub, and that's where we took our bath. And he made me do that, of course. Through me a bar so they could have to stuff cleaned up. And apparently they made me, I couldn't get the, I couldn't get that smell out of the jacket. I just could not get it out, matter what I did.

I probably made me throw it away. He was really pissed about that too. Well, he thought that was, The worst thing you could ever done is throw a jacket away perfectly good jacket just because it smelled. That's the worst thing he could ever do. Anyway, Longest wrote it is that that's what happened there. There was one other thing that I briefly mentioned to you, West, that we went hunting across the street from his house. And at the time, I didn't think too much of it. Now looking back and watching videos and stuff of people that have all this structure and stuff from Sasquatch. when we went hunting, we would do these, I don't know what pushes or whatever they call,

everybody stands at a big, huge line, and you push and you scare all the deer out to the road and the guy shoot him from the road. And we were walking through there, and there was all these structures, those hoops, those branches that have been, their trees that have been pulled over. And I saw all kinds of stuff like that, and like a teepee. It's like, you know, wood piled up like a teepee. I saw all that stuff in these woods, and we were rushing through there, and I never thought anything.

I was a kid. I just noticed that they were there, but I didn't think nothing of it. I don't know what they're for. If they had any significance to anything to me, then they didn't. But I just remembered that when I started seeing videos of other people showing structures like that, Noel. Yeah, Christopher Noel. Yeah. He, I really liked that guy, by the way.

He talks so eloquently and so intelligently, and he knows what he's talking about. And I just love listening to his stuff, too. Anyway, yeah, I saw some structures out there when we were out hunting once. We weren't actually hunting. We were doing the slave labor so he could shoot the deer with all of our tail. But that's my big foot story. Does it matter how I left there? No, no, and I appreciate you sharing it, Tommy.

And for the audience listening, I mean, this has been what, Tommy, you're in the works. You know, I know you had contacted me this story with a long time ago. And I know you really didn't want to come on, I guess for the audience listening, you really didn't want to come on. and I bade and begged and begged and bade and pleaded with you to come on. Because I really think it's a fascinating account as far as, well, before we get into descriptions, I want to go back to that creature. One thing I want to say to you, Tommy, is, you know, when things happen in your life,

and I can't relate to what happened to you, I mean, most people probably can't relate to what happened to you. You can sympathize, you can empathize, but you can't relate, you know, to what actually happened to you. But a lot of times when people are in those situations, one of two things happens. Either they become the hero or they become the villain. And most of the time in life, people become the villain. It's kind of like the conversation you and I had before we went on the air. If something bad happened to you throughout your life, generally you'll treat people the same way throughout your life. So you become the victim, the villain.

And you didn't. And you're a good father and you're kind to your kids. And I know you got a big heart. and I admire you a lot, actually, for everything that you went through to come through at this point in your life and be a strong person. Sasquatch aside, just to be a strong person for all the crap that you went through, I admire you, man. I admire and I respect you a lot for what you went through and what you had to deal with and where it's taking you in life. And the fact that you don't do that to your kids or you don't treat people the way you were treated growing. up because it's very easy to fall into, to become the villain in life. If bad things happen to you,

it's very easy to become the villain and you've chosen not to. And I just admire you and I respect you a lot and I wanted to say that publicly because you and I've talked a lot off the air. And so, you know, I just respect you for it. Going back to this creature that you ran into, I find the encounter fascinating because there is situations like this to where they almost have empathy for you, where there is some strange humanity in these creatures to where they're not all just monsters to rip you apart. I think, and it's the humanity you'll find sometimes with these creatures as far and few between. In your situation, I think it just felt sorry for you. But I wanted to ask you, when you were looking at this thing, can you kind of describe a little bit more of the face?

Did it remind you more of a human? Did it remind you more of a non-human primate? it didn't appear to me to be like a gorilla or a monkey. It appeared to me to be a monster. I don't know how else to say that. And I could tell you what I saw as far as the features go. But it looked like a monster to me. You know, the funny thing is that the stupid referral, I know it sounds ridiculous to even use it,

but that freaking beef jerky commercial with that Sasquot thing, whatever, something Sasquots. Anyway, it had a lot of similarities today because when I first saw that commercial, I went, wow, but at the same time not. It wasn't. It was kind of like that. Where his hair was kind of like that, where his hair went over and it came off its face like a, like, it's like the hair came like right from under the eyes all the way down off its face. So it's whole face covered with hair. And we're in northern Minnesota.

So that would, but his nose was flat and wide. I think I said in the blog, something I got like a boxer's head. but I've heard that many times since it was definitely the hair you could see through the hair to the skin it wasn't like a fur

you could see through the hair to the skin which was like a medium gray eyes were big set back deep they were huge they were

the sizes I'm sure they're bigger than like a Coke can or something like the bottom of a Coke can they're huge but so the thing was huge I mean

when it grabbed me by the gruff of the neck when it grabbed the back of my jacket and lifted me up. I felt like a rabbit to a human. It was that much bigger than me. I literally, I mean, I was laying in the ground, so I didn't like stand up. I didn't go farther much past its knee or maybe a little higher, halfway into its thigh. That's it. It was that much bigger than me. And the eyes were dark. Like I said, I was cowering so much of the time that I didn't let. And for some reason, I felt like I should not look at this thing. And I kept

I was screaming. I was carving. My hands were over my head. And the one was carrying me, I was facing forward, and it was walking. So I didn't, couldn't see it. And I was flailing and smacking my arm against its forearm, trying to get free. I didn't know where it was going. I thought maybe it was taking me back to feed me to its kids or something. I don't know. But as far as how it looks in the face, dirty hair, beard, or I mentioned the breasts.

and really big mouth and not big lips they were they were closed i'd never like saudi teeth it didn't like bear its teeth at me or anything like that yeah i almost wonder if the creature had obviously had probably heard what was going on on that farm and you know just kind of saw you as you know maybe it didn't i don't know you could probably answer that question better than i could but i can just imagine it seeing you stuck there and it's kind of like a hunter who's hunting a deer and then all of a sudden a deer gets caught on something. And I've seen videos that maybe this is a bad example, but bad illustration,

but you'll see hunters where they'll free the deer and let it go and they're not going to harm it. And it almost makes me wonder if it looked at you and it just felt sorry for you and decided it would pull you out of that mess instead of moving on or killing you. It's very fascinating. Don't you think the behavior is fascinating?

How it really did help you out? yeah i agree it's epic summarized that the the monster returned me to the monster i don't know which was worse drowning or going for another drag i don't i think at the time i said i'd rather get drug than then drowned or something to that effect but to comment what you just said i didn't look at the thing very much uh but when i did look at it it had uh i don't have to explain this and it makes you sound like a coop great i don't care but it's almost like it was talking to me without words, and I don't mean like a mental retarded or something like that. It's almost like it was saying it's easier to just bring you off the road and put you back

with the guy than it is to have, you know, what's going to happen? I don't know how to explain this, but it's almost like I was a pain in the ass. It's almost like, you know, you're stuck out here. You're going to bring trouble. You're going to bring people. You're going to bring problems to my area. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like it was a, it's kind of like getting a dog off the freeway, you know?

like, if I need a damn dog out here, somebody's just going to hit it, and it's going to mess up the traffic and we're stuck in it all day. It's kind of like that. It's almost like, oh,

I better just throw her to act out here because you're just going to bring trouble. And I think the other thing is that, like I said, we hunt and stuff around there. I'm not much for a hunter, but I was involved in the hunting, and sighting rifles and shooting,

they would cite rifles in the backyards you'd hear the guns going off and all that. I think that it's probably had run-ins with guns, didn't see me as a threat, but I almost feel like it, maybe it had some compassion, but I think that it more thought that it was probably, my guess is that it would have been a bigger hassle to let me drown there and have a bunch of people looking for me. Maybe, I don't know why I would think that way, but. Oh, I understand.

I understand. Yeah, that's my assumption. Yeah, it's fascinating. It really is fascinating. Did anything else happen on their property? So Don picks you up. God, I'd love to get my hands on that guy. Don picks you up and you guys go back.

Did anything else happen more around that property before you left? No, I left shortly after that. I ran away again and I ran down the road past that same area again. I don't like a week later. And I came around. I made it to the guy who the kid who lived on the corner. We're going to call him Eli because that's all I know of him. And his mother, Eli must have been telling his mom's stories about me for a lot.

long time because his because I come to the door and I ran and it was just before dark and I thought well if I run now I can run into dark and he won't see me and I did I was able to go out to get away I got all the way up this road to the main highway and his his sister younger sister lived in a little motor mobile home across I ran to their house and she knew she knew what I was never met her before she knew exactly who I was she was a nice woman she immediately brought me in changed my clothes and she called the they called it a constable in those days it's a sheriff that donates his time or whatever they didn't have like cops and stuff that ran around up in the middle nowhere anyway they brought me to him or he came out and got me in this old squad car kind of like

a mayberry kind of a thing he brings me back to his house and uh search call authorities and i didn't give me much information other than where i was it seemed like this is the weird thing is that this whole town knew that this was going on with me this whole whole whole town knew it. Because when I come to school with all kinds of scars and stuff, kids all knew there's something up with me, but nobody did anything. They all kept their mouth shut and mind their own business.

And anyway, that's how I escaped there. I was brought back to the city, and the guy that was brought upon charges, and he, because I wouldn't testify against him, which is only because I was standing across the room from when I was scared of death, he just lost his license, wasn't able to do

that, and I think he, he lost most of his cows because he didn't have the income anymore, something to that effect. But that's that story. But never had any other encounters there because I left. I told you about the Raspberry Pass. I told you about the hunting. There was weird noises in that place all the time. I just thought they were like timber wolves or something.

Oh, there was, we've had a few, we had some calves that came up dead, that were usually left in the barnyards, but they were found out in the middle of fields. and they were, I don't know, they were mutilated in weird ways. Like, all the meat and everything wasn't gone. It'd be like one leg missing off the back of the calf, and its guts missing. That's it. Kathy Lane out there. We'd fight it, and Don always said it was wolves.

But if it was wolves, wouldn't it be, like, blood scattered all over and the whole thing torn apart? It wasn't. It's just like the back leg off his calf is missing, and the guts are missing. That's it. So we had a couple things like that. It had some dogs missing. The noisy dogs always disappeared. Don't that make sense?

The quiet dogs always hang around. Noisy dogs always disappeared. Yeah, it's fascinating, especially the cow story. What do you think that these creatures are? What's your honest opinion, Tommy? I mean, you've got to, your encounter is probably one that most people don't get, they don't get to get this close to one of these things. What's your honest opinion?

What do you think that they are? I think they've been here as long as we have You know it goes back to how much you believe about the Bible and about Ancient aliens and all that stuff And if there's some kind of a hybrid from us or if they're some kind of a genetic experiment From someone from some other planet Or maybe they're just another wild animal or another animal that are an offshoot of You know the giganticus or the apes or something

I think they're absolutely intelligent There's no doubt in my mind that that thing was smarter than me There's no doubt in my mind that that thing knows what it's doing It had no qual... What is it? I think it's another gene off of the humans. Maybe we came from them. I don't know.

But it's not a wild animal as far as I'm concerned. I think it's an intelligent animal that lives and doesn't only survive, but it thrives away from humans. And it knows to stay away from humans. That's why it survived. I don't know. No problem with them in the woods. Let me know which ones they're in so I can stay out of it. Yeah, I hear you.

I hear you. Whatever became of Dawn? That's another story. How much time we got? Well, I'm just curious on what he, whatever became of him, if he ever got a taste of his own medicine or whatever became of the scumbag. I'll give you the short version, then the one that takes about a minute. Short version is God took care of him. And the long version of that is about 10 or 15 years later.

Now, I didn't mention while we were on the air that my brother also was at the same group home. He was there before me. He's also a troublemaker, and I don't even know the monsters that had been in his life. All I know is that he was in trouble, and was at this place. But he was older than me, and Donvin messed with the older guys because he had to physically fight them, and they're puberty. You know, there's young tough guys that came from the east side, and, you know, he didn't mess with kids like that. You know, put a knife in you while your sleep.

So Don didn't mess with those guys. He messed with the one that he knew that he could control it. He could power over, and that was me. I was the youngest one there. So, but my brother was there. When I came there, he left. They let him leave, and they had me come in this to take his place. I pointed to that about 15 years later, me and my brother got a belly full of beer,

and we start talking a little bit about Don and his craziness. And we said, we got to go up there and get that. Yeah, we should. Yeah, that's just, do it. Let's get a case of beer. We're going to try. up there from the cities, we're going to get that guy

for all he did and blah, blah, blah. So we did. We drove up there with venom in our hearts and, you know, and we just were going to kill this guy. And we drive up there. We had a hard time finding it. I mean, that was so young, I don't know highways or anything,

but now that I knew the highways, I'd try to figure out where it was. So we went to his house. He had a couple younger kids. At the time, when I was there, they were just little, they were like four years old. Well, now they're, you know, whatever.

18 years old and two big guys, they're twins. And we pull up and they come out, the house like that, my best friends. Hey, how you do? And how are you guys doing? Hey, come on in and see my dad. You know, like nothing that ever happened. It was all like we were all a bunch of buddies or something. I mean, my brother, you know, we got like knives in her pockets.

And we're just, you know, we're just really upset. And we're like going, where's your dad, you know? And say, yeah, he's in the house. Come on and say hi. You know, they thought we were all friends. They didn't have a clue what happened. We went in the house. They opened the door or come in the house.

Yeah, I guess who's here? Round the corner, he comes in a wheelchair. The guy had always had this flat top, like I told you, this flat top haircut by Clinties. Within that movie, he didn't anymore. He looked like Sean Connery from the movie Alcatraz, had his long gray hair, way long, way past his shoulders. He totally let himself go real sickly,

couldn't walk, die in a cancer, just about the night. As a matter of fact, he died like a week later. He comes strolling it. He sees us. He takes one to look at it. You can see we're angry. I'm sad. He's going, gosh, boys your boys came here to get it out something.

I don't know what that means. Or get a pound to something. I don't know what that means, but something means something. He says, well, you're here to get a pound of something. I think that means vengeance or something. And it's always like going, F this. He turns around and walks out the door. I'm standing by myself.

And it's like all that hate and all that venom and all that terribleness. it just washed out my body in that instant. It just all washed out, and I went, you know what? Thanks. God got him for us. I died a week later. Yeah. Well, good for him.

I hope he's rotting in hell somewhere because, you know, that's very sociopath-like behavior, especially when you really start getting into some of these serial killers, some of these serial killers, and they start out abusing animals and then children, and then they eventually move on to killing people. And, I mean, that's terrifying to think that this guy was in charge of troubled youth, you know, that coming out to his farm. I mean, what the hell was going on? I'm sure your story's not unique. I'm sure a lot of this went on back in the day. And it's tragic. It really is tragic. And I'm glad you were able to let it go, you know, and even though it would have felt better to, you know, knock him over in his wheelchair and crack a skull. but like you said, God took care of it.

You know, it's funny. It sure is funny how life has a weird way of coming back and teaching you a lesson. And I think the lesson was taught in his case, especially dying of cancer. That's a terrible. My dad went of cancer. And it is a terrible, long, drawn out, terrible death, absolute terrible death. And it. I'm sorry, I didn't need to interrupt you.

No, no, go ahead. No, I was going to say that. You know, he had twin sons and he had a daughter. I think he had another older daughter that was like moved back to the city as soon she could, since he turned 18 or whatever. But these two kids, it is, or there's three, angels. Totally treated him like angels. Never touched him, never beat him, never yell at them.

They couldn't do wrong. It was only us that he acted upon. And I didn't understand that. I thought, you know, I thought that was, I thought it was very much. Yeah, it sounds like you were. It sounds like you were. I mean, what kind of a monster drags a kid behind a car? car or beats a kid or what kind of a monster even takes a pitchforks and starts stabbing a cow.

I mean, really, what's wrong? You know, and... That was just the cows. He did it to his pigs. He did it to sheep. He did it to dogs. He did it to everything. Well, and that shows you what...

This is a Sasquatch program. That's why I kind of telling me about all the crap that he did. No, no. I just clarified me because I couldn't believe that people would treat animals that way. Why don't you have animals if you're going to do that to him? Well, it's a control thing, you know, just like with you. That's why he just. he didn't pick fights with the 18-year-old guys because he probably would have got his ass handed to him.

But in your situation... Well, that's why he didn't pick fights with the younger boys, too, because one of the older brothers saw the younger one getting it, they'd be on top of him. He knew that. You could see that. Those three brothers were locked together. They were tight. You weren't going to...

You're going to mess with one. You're going to mess with all three, and he knew that, so he stayed clear of them. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to... It's one of the few times you'll hear me say. I'm glad he died of... Someone died of cancer, and I'm joyful that someone died of cancer. And maybe that's just me.

I just hate... people like that. You know, cowards and bullies and I just can't stand them. Maybe that's the reason the Sasquatch stay hidden because humans are so...

Even people start hearing that they're actually the Sasquatch. What do they load their guns and they get in trucks. Hey, let's go kill the monster. You know, I knew even at that age that

it's not like I wanted to kill it. I didn't know what it was. I just didn't know what it was. It's huge and foreign to me and I didn't understand it. But I still didn't want it dead because it's whatever. I just still to the day, I don't think they should kill them.

But I think that, you know, you said a long time ago, yeah, I guess maybe one will have to be sacrificed so that we can prove the species, but, you know, the government's got 100 of them already. That's nothing new. They just keep it as long as they don't, it's a financial thing to the government, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, I think it runs probably deeper than that, but I tend to agree with you. I think they've already killed, they've already killed these things million times over.

And so there's really, you know, if you kill one and bring it in, you only, if you get, if you're able to bring it in, you're only going to prove it to the public. Government's well aware of it. But, you know, going back to your encounter, Tommy, you know, I just, I respect the fact that you came on the show. I know you really didn't want to come on the show. And I think that's important for the audience to understand. I mean, I had to grab Tommy by the year and drag him on the show. Not really, but, and I'm so glad.

Yeah, well, I'm so glad that you did, honestly. Because I love the encounter. You know, the horrific story around the encounters heard to listen to, and I know you barely touched on it. But the encounter itself is fascinating, really fascinating to me, because I've heard other encounters like this to where there's this weird humanity in them. You know, and I think you know, I've talked about the curious George story I told you about where this female dragged this kid back, eight miles through sticker bushes, back to camp. And it's like, well, what do you make of that? But the problem is that you can't, your situation and some of these other situations, that's not what happens every time. And so you kind of have to go on the side of caution when you run into these things because what you ran into may not be what someone else runs into.

But I really, I love the story because I, you know, I love the whole encounter because it shows compassion. It had compassion for you. And whether you think it was just trying to get you out of here, and you're probably right, if that's, That's what you're thinking. But in the same breath, it didn't have to save you either. It could have just moved on. And you would have been drowned in the swamp, and old Don probably would have found you. Well, you know, that's why the only reason I thought the backstory was important was because maybe it did show compassion.

Maybe it saw all of the problems I was having there. Maybe it had its own children in the woods somewhere and saw that. And just so, that's no way to treat it. That's why I think there was a connection there. I think that it had been watching that going on with me for a long time. The whole summer, I mean, it's not even just the whippings and the beatings. It was making me stand out in the middle of the field all day and all night and no clothes on to see how sunburned I could get and then make me go military wool blankets,

you know, just burn your skin all night. Anyway, there's a lot of things going on out and it would be in the public there. I mean, you're really easy to spot it. You just hadn't watched that farm for a few days. You'd see that stuff going out. I think that they're watching farms. I think we're entertainment to them. I think they sit and watch what humans do, and they are entertained.

And maybe this Sasquatch was horrified by it and just saw me, just happened to see me in a situation, heard me screaming, and I'm going to just pluck this kid out of here and whatever, and not do what's been done to me. I don't know exactly. It doesn't, you know, it didn't talk to me, so I don't really know. Yeah, it's hard to say, and it could have killed you just quickly, too. Yeah, it would just not done anything. I just went about his way and let me drown.

I'm real sure I would not have made it across there. I would never have made it across. Yeah. It was still getting deeper as I was going into it. It was actually still getting deeper. And I would never have been able to, I wasn't going to make it back. Once I lost my boots, I was done. I wasn't going to make it.

Well, it's definitely a fascinating account, Tommy. And I really do appreciate you coming on. And sharing, I know you didn't really want to, and I know it was tough to relive. I can imagine when you relive, I know what it's like to relive a Sasquatch encounter, but to try and relive, I don't even know if I want to call it abuse. I almost want to call it torture that you went through. I know that's even harder.

And, again, thank you so much for coming on. I really do appreciate that, and I mean that. You really have an integrity and a humbleness about you that makes it easy to talk to you about it. And that's a rare thing in this world nowadays. It's not been an egotomaniac and whatever. I mean, I just think you do a fantastic thing. And I think it can probably be overwhelming to you. or same old same all the time,

but you really are doing a huge service for the people in this country. Well, thank you for the kind of words, Tommy. I really do appreciate it very much. Thanks your time, Wes. Have a good night. You too, Tommy. Thank you again.

And that's it for tonight. Everyone, remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Until next time, everyone. Faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your end. I'm Tom Barton, and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand.

I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGuard Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.