'It Came From The Big Muddy River'

'It Came From The Big Muddy River'

Around midnight on June 25, 1973, a young couple was parked by a desolate riverside for a romantic interlude when they came face to face with a huge, wet, hairy, mud-slathered monstrosity with a penchant for disturbing teenage lovers.

During two harrowing weeks in the summer of 1973, the rural town of Murphysboro, Illinois became the epicenter of a terrifying series of encounters with a huge, albino beast, which would come to be known as the “Murphysboro Mud Monster” or the “Big Muddy Monster.”

This bizarre beast tormented the citizens of this small community for approximately fourteen days before its reign of terror abruptly ended, resulting in one of the strangest and, in some ways, most frightening cases in the history of hairy hominid research.

The first official encounter with this decidedly unhygienic beast occurred at approximately midnight on the on June 25th, 1973. A youthful couple, Randy Needham and Judy Johnson, who were parked at the foot of 23rd Street, in Riverside Park, near the town’s old boat ramp overlooking the Big Muddy River.

According to their account, Johnson claimed that they were listening to the radio, engaged in a debate about when they should leave and, presumably, doing what couples are want to do, when they heard a piercing roar (which Needham compared to an “eagle shrieking into a microphone”) that seemed to emanate from the thick underbrush not far from his car. Needham quickly snapped off the radio and scanned the area, listening intently.

Suddenly, another horrific shriek echoed through the night accompanied by a rattling of the brushwood in front of them. Needham flicked on his headlights and Johnson gasped as they both saw a huge, foul scented creature lumbering toward them...a creature whose very existence would tax the limits of their imaginations.

Needham wasted no time in starting his car and accelerating away from the scene with his frightened girlfriend. As the pair entered more civilized territory they made a beeline for the Murphysboro Police Station.

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The couple arrived at the station and made out what is known as an “unknown creature” report, describing a beast that looked like an “over-sized gorilla,” which they estimated to be almost 8-feet tall, with matted, mud streaked, white hair. Former patrolman, now retired Murphysboro police Chief, Ron Manwaring, was still able to recite the facts of this strange incident from memory almost three decades later:

“The first report came in just before midnight on June 25. A couple had been ‘parked’ near the boat dock on the southwestern edge of Riverside Park, next to the woods.”

“The two, who were not married, said they were in the car when they heard a loud screaming sound in the wooded area and observed a large creature approximately 7- feet tall. The creature appeared to have light-colored hair matted with mud. The creature appeared to be walking on two legs and was proceeding toward his car.”

Manwaring felt that the couple’s account was lent credibility due to the fact they risked exposing their alleged indiscretions...which would no doubt bring them public ridicule and, even more alarmingly, Johnson’s father’s wrath. They were so frightened by what they had seen by the river: “There was no advantage for them to come up and report this.”

While the officers who took down Needham and Johnson’s statement were understandably skeptical of the event, they dutifully sent out two patrolmen, Meryl Lindsay and Jimmie Nash, to investigate their report. Within minutes of the sighting the officers arrived at the boat ramp in the Riverside Park area to inspect the scene.

Officer Nash was the first to discover a plethora of “peculiar” tracks, “approximately 10 to 12-inches long and approximately three inches wide”, deeply impressed in the mud by the riverbank. Nash claimed that as he bent over to inspect the prints from a closer vantage point he was shocked to hear a horrifyingly shrill screech nearby. Nash took off posthaste, accidentally dropping his revolver in his panic.

The officer, who admitted that he initially thought the story to be little more than hogwash, described the hideous sound as: “The most incredible shriek I’ve ever heard. It was in those bushes. It was no bobcat or screech owl. We hightailed it out of there.”

Nash and Lindsay quickly went back to the station to report their findings and gather more men for a search party. The officers later estimated that whatever had made that sharp cry was no more than 300-feet away from them.

Approximately two hours later, at 2:00 am. on the 26th of June, officers Nash and Lindsay returned to the scene accompanied by officer Bob Scott and Needham. The quartet swiftly discovered another spate of tracks near the river. As Lindsay ran back to the patrol car to retrieve a camera the rest of the group intrepidly followed the prints along the bank.

Without warning, the stillness of the black night was shattered by the same horrible scream that Needham and Nash had heard earlier. Fear rapidly usurped curiosity as the trio of men summarily abandoned their search and raced back to the patrol car for safety.

After huddling in the car for what must have felt like an eternity. No doubt waiting for the beast to attack, the men managed to regain their courage and continued their pursuit of this enigmatic monster once more. This mini-posse worked until dawn trying to track down the “splashing” sounds, which they described as being like a large creature rushing through the knee-deep water in the distance...to no avail.

As the sun rose, the officers felt that this so-called “monster” would evaporate with the rest of the night-shadows, never to be seen again, but this presumably nocturnal fiend had a surprise in store for them.

At approximately 10:30 pm. on the evening of June 26th, 5 year-old Christian Baril was playing in his backyard, which was located relatively close to the Big Muddy River, attempting to catch fireflies in the glass jar his mother had given him.

The child frolicked about delightedly when he spied a colossal, white shape looming up from behind the fence that separated his yard from the neighbor’s property...the Ray family.

The terrified Baril dropped his jar and raced inside, crying out: “Daddy, Daddy! There’s a big ghost in the backyard!” The child’s father was understandably dubious of his son’s story, that was, until, his neighbors corroborated the tale.

This account of a terrifying backyard encounter is uncannily similar to one that befell another young Illinois boy named Greg Garrett just a few months earlier on April 25th, 1973.

Garrett claimed to have been attacked while playing in his backyard by a truly bizarre, slimy, three-legged beast known as the 'Enfield Horror'. Like Baril, Garrett immediately retreated to the relative safety of his parent’s house.

While Baril was sobbing in his father’s arms, teenager Cheryl Ray was sitting on her darkened back porch next door with her young suitor, Randy Creath. The pair claimed that they were talking and looking at the stars when they heard a rustling in the bushes about 15-feet away from the porch.

Assuming that is was neighborhood kids come to spy on them; an enraged Ray went inside to turn on the porch light, while Creath, the son of a state trooper, now a minister at the First Baptish Church in Sheffield, Iowa, leapt to his feet and opened the door. This intention vanished the moment that the light came on revealing the same appalling apparition that had terrified Baril just minutes before — as well as Needham and Johnson the previous night. Ray recounted the scene:

“Randy and I were sitting in my parents’ breezeway when we heard something in the woods. We both went down, but Randy was walking a little bit ahead. Then he said ‘Come here,’ and there it was. We stood there looking at it.”

Creath and Ray stood frozen with shock as this filthy, white monstrosity seemed to stare back at them. Creath recalled the moment vividly:

“The thing I remember was the bulk of it, the shape, the human form, and the stench of the river slime it apparently had on it. It was about eight feet tall, and at least as stocky as NY football player. We were within 15-feet of it, close enough to see the body, the texture of the fur, long and hairy, like an English sheepdog.”

Ray also described the beast, which she claimed bore inhuman features and stood more erect than an ape:

“It was real tall, hairy. I think it was white, but it was dirty, matted. It had a real bad odor. It was really rank. I never smelled anything like it. It seemed like an eternity we stood there, and then it just turned around and walked off into the woods. We could hear it trampling through the woods.”

Creath claimed that the “animal” stared at them for what felt like a long time, although he later estimated that the incident lasted only about 30 seconds. Both agreed that the creature had “glowing red eyes,” which Creath accredited to the glow of a distant streetlight.

This description of the eyes is significant if one is to assume that the Murphysboro Mud Monster is actually a prototypical Bigfoot-like creature that just happens to be albino. While pink eyes are a common trait in animals lacking pigmentation, Ray would insist that this beast’s eyes were actually “glowing” and were not reflecting light from some other source.

After this strange interaction, the couple claimed that the shaggy beast simply turned and pushed through the shrubbery, thrashing its way back to the nearby river.

Creath and Ray testified that the creature they saw weighed at least 350-pounds, stood about 7-feet tall. They also stated that it had a “roundish” head and long, gorilla-like arms. Officers Nash and Manwaring were swiftly dispatched to the scene, where they noticed a powerful odor that quickly dissipated. They also found a cluster of footprints where the creature had been lurking.

Following the officer’s discovery, Chief Toby Berger immediately dispatched the rest of his men to the scene then sent for an officer and trained dog handler with the nearby Carbondale Police Department, a man named Jerry Nellis.

Nellis was the owner of a tough German Shepard named “Reb,” who had assisted the Murphysboro police in the past as a search and rescue, attack dog and, most pertinently, as a tracker.

The officers discovered a trail of unidentified “black slime” that seemed to lead directly from the Ray’s back porch to the river. Officer Manwaring confirmed the existence of this still unknown material:

“I saw this substance and smelled the smell myself.”

Almost instantly, Reb picked up the scent of his prey and took off. The men then followed the dog down the recently forged path of broken tree limbs and trampled underbrush toward their bizarre quarry.

The dog managed to track the monster through the dense forest and down a steep embankment toward a small pond, but the brush became too thick for it to continue. The officers began searching the area with flashlights for clues as to where this creature might have escaped, but in no time Reb picked up the scent again.

The determined dog darted toward an abandoned barn on the Bullar property, which was located just east of the Ray’s house and a little north of the river, but once he got to the decaying door the usually courageous canine began trembling and yelping with fear.

This mystified both Nellis and the officers who had noted over the years that Reb was the most relentless tracking dog in the county. Nellis attempted to grab the dog by the scruff of his neck and thrust him through the open door of the barn, but Reb just dropped to his belly and scampered backwards, whimpering.

The usually bold Reb’s terrified reaction to whatever lurked within the barn was enough to convince Chief Berger to call in the “troops.”

He radioed for help from neighboring police departments and within hours a dozen patrol cars had responded to his call.

Unfortunately, in the time that had elapsed between Reb’s fearful display the arrival of backup, whatever it was that had hidden in the barn managed to slip out through the back. Not long after, the search was called off for the night and the disappointed officers returned to their home bases.

But this would not mark the end of the Murphysboro Mud Monster saga as sightings of this mysterious man-beast were reported two more times during the next week and a half. Berger claims that during this period he was worried less about the monster and more about one of the 10,000 Murphysboro residents shooting another in one of the many armed posses that seemed to spring up like wildfire.

The next reported encounter with the beast occurred approximately 10 days later after a traveling carnival set up camp in Riverside Park. The carnival workers chose a pleasant glade near the river between the boat ramp and the sewage treatment plant located below the Ray house.

At 2:00 am. on July 7th, long after the carnival had closed up for the night, three carnies, Otis Norris, Ray Adkerson and Wesley Lavender, where sitting behind one of the carnival trucks discussing the day’s receipts when they heard a series of whinnies coming from the Shetland ponies that were tied to the bramble on the other side of the truck.

The men quickly got up to see what the commotion was all about and were shocked to find the usually docile ponies where in a tizzy with their eyes rolling in terror, furiously tugging at their ropes in a desperate bid to free themselves from their constraints. It wasn’t long before the carnies would see what the frenzy was all about.

The men maintained that they spied an 8-foot, 400 lbs. creature that seemed to be “calmly” watching the ponies. The men decided not to wait around to see what happened next and immediately ran for help, claiming that the monster also ran in the opposite direction.

About an hour later, one of the carnival workers called in to help deal with this beast, Charles Kimbal, claimed that he saw the creature once again staring at ponies with its head cocked to the side in what was described as a “deeply curious” pose.

While this would prove to be the last “eyewitness” report of the creature, its reign of fear was not quite complete. Later that same night a woman named Nedra Green asserted that she heard a screaming sound coming from a shed on her rural farm. She chose to remain inside her home rather than go out to investigate.

Berger’s concerns for the townsfolk’s safety led to a request from the town fathers to bring in “expert” help.

The man they chose for the job was St. Louis insurance agent and serious researcher of Sasquatch reports Harkan Sorkin. Sorkin led a group of five men, including reporters from the Kansas City Star and a lawyer, into the woods near Murphysboro in the fall of 1973, in an effort to track and possibly capture the Murphysboro Mud Monster.

Sorkin claimed that private groups had offered as much as $2.5 million for the creature’s capture. With that in mind this small expedition came armed with a stun gun with the capacity to take down a for a 500-pound animal, as well as chocolate and bananas, which Sorkin stated they would use to pacify the beast.

They also carried loaded shotguns, which they claimed would only be used if their safety were threatened. Sorkin further claimed that they had local zoos standing by and that arrangements had been made for a cage to be flown in by helicopter should they get lucky and manage to imprison the monster.

Needless to say, this mini-expedition met with very little success. Sorkin asserted that they heard “a very loud yell or guttural sound, between a roar and a bellow” and saw huge footprints and found two-inch saplings pulled out of the ground.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the press got their talons into this tale of a colossal, mud-caked critter. The local paper, The Southern Illinoisan, ran a small story on the search, which was eventually picked up by the New York Times.

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman investigated the sightings in the 1970s and came to the conclusion that the Mud Monster was a Bigfoot-type creature, stating: “I think it’s within the context of other reports of a Bigfoot.”

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Coleman also felt that the Murphysboro Mud Monster represented a distinct type of ape-like creature distinct from its west coast counterparts in that they are known to be more aggressive: “There’s something very unique about this eastern-midwestern Bigfoot. From the reports from the Mud Monster it seemed to frighten people the way it didn’t in the west.”

Over the next three years there were sporadic reports throughout the area of animals that resembled the Mud Monster. Perhaps the most intriguing of these sightings occurred on January 26th, 1975, when four truckers, all of whom were traveling separately, radioed in reports of seeing a bizarre “bear-like” creature near the Illinois 149 junction west of Murphysboro.

On July 7th, 1975, two Murphysboro men reported a sighting of a strange creature that they believed may have been the Big Muddy Monster near a pond in the Harrison community, north of Murphysboro. Needless to say these isolated events in no way compared to the tremendous flap of encounters that had plagued the community in the summer of ’73.

The case of the Mud Monster is just one of two cases that remain unsolved in the history of the Murphysboro Police Department. Police Chief Berger puts it most succinctly when he said: “A lot of things in life are unexplained, and this is another one. We don’t know what the creature is, but we do believe what these people saw was real.” - americanmonsters.com - unexplainable.net - trueillinoishaunts.com