The Beast of Bray Road at 25: What the 1991 Article Actually Said

In the last days of 1991, a weekly newspaper in Elkhorn, Wisconsin ran a piece that made one county road famous. Twenty-five years later, on December 17, 2016, the writer says, its successor reprinted it. It is worth reading again, because the original is more cautious, and stranger, than the legend it started.

The article

Linda Godfrey's story, "Monster or mirage, the sights sound like something out of 'Believe it or Not,'" appeared in The Week on December 29, 1991. She wrote that rumors had circulated in Elkhorn "for two years or so" about "a wolfish-looking creature that ran on two legs" seen near Bray Road, "stealing chickens, eating roadkills."

Her first call was the county humane officer, Jon Fredrickson. He had, she wrote, a manila folder in his files "marked 'Werewolf,'" holding note cards on six or seven sightings. One mentioned unusual tracks. Another described a pointy-eared creature chasing a deer on two legs. A third came from a Burger King employee who, in mid-November, saw a man-like runner he could not believe was so fast.

That folder is where the famous word comes from. Godfrey told the paper's editor in 2006, in a piece the paper ran for the 15th anniversary, that the file label was "when I knew I had a story." The word was an officer's filing heading, not a witness's claim.

Three accounts

Godfrey then interviewed people who did not want to be named. Two appear as "Barbara" and "Pat."

Barbara, a 26-year-old working mother, described driving home on Bray Road about two years earlier and seeing something kneeling at the roadside "eating road kill or something." It had pointed ears, long claws turned outward, brownish-gray fur and a long nose. She put it at about five feet seven and 150 pounds. It looked right at her and did not run. She said she later picked a "werewolf" drawing from a library book as a match.

Pat, a high school student, said that on Halloween 1991 her car lifted slightly on an unseen impact. When she got out, something big and hairy ran at her. By the time she reached her seat, she said, it had grabbed the car, and its nails left scratches. She says a younger girl riding with her later saw something kneeling by the road. She also said: "I'm not going to say it was a werewolf. I'd say it was a freak of nature, one of God's mistakes."

A third family said the then-11-year-old daughter had run home two years earlier saying she thought it was a big dog "until it stood up." Her mother thought it looked "deformed." Godfrey also noted two rumors no one would own, including tracks found by a hunter.

The officer's answer

Fredrickson, quoted in the same article, "sticks to his coyote-wolf theory." A wolf or coyote about to pounce, he said, will "actually spring up, which gives the illusion that it's standing." He still allowed that many people "really believe they've seen something out of the ordinary," and added: "The county is getting stranger."

The man whose file gave the creature its name was the one offering a canid explanation, and the first published witnesses included one who refused the label.

The spread

According to the 2006 anniversary piece by The Week's former editor, Dan Plutchak, the story was picked up by the sister paper in Janesville, sent out on the Associated Press wire, and followed by an Inside Edition segment taped in the newsroom, an Elkhorn Christmas parade appearance and T-shirts. The National Enquirer, he writes, hired Godfrey and a photographer for a stakeout.

Plutchak also lists explanations offered over the years, from buffalo kept by farmers to a loose bighorn sheep nicknamed "Big Al." None was ever confirmed. In his words: "Know one really knows."

2016

On her blog on December 17, 2016, Godfrey wrote that the successor paper, Walworth County Sunday, reprinted her original article and artwork "today" for the quarter-century mark. We could not open the reprint pages she links, so the date rests on her post.

Related reading: An American Werewolf in... America: The Beast of Bray Road and Hunter Hesitates to Shoot the Bray Road Beast.

Bottom line

Per the original 1991 article, the "werewolf" label began as the heading on a Walworth County humane officer's file of six or seven sightings, and he favored a coyote or wolf. Three published accounts describe an upright or kneeling, dog-faced animal; none is documented by a photograph, a cast or a physical sample in the sources we read. A December 17, 2016 reprint is reported only by the author's blog.

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Attribution / source table

• Claim: Original 1991 article: rumors for "two years or so," Fredrickson's file, six or seven sightings, Barbara, Pat, the 11-year-old, rumors, coyote theory, "The county is getting stranger"
  Attribution: Linda Godfrey, The Week, Dec 29, 1991, as republished on Walworth County Community News
  Link: Walworth County Community News
• Claim: File-label origin; AP wire, Inside Edition, parade, T-shirts, Enquirer stakeout, theories (buffalo, "Big Al")
  Attribution: Dan Plutchak, The Week editor, Dec 24, 2006 (15th-anniversary piece)
  Link: Walworth County Community News
• Claim: 25th-anniversary reprint by Walworth County Sunday, dated Dec 17, 2016
  Attribution: Linda Godfrey blog, Dec 17, 2016 (links to two Community Shoppers pages not opened)
  Link: Godfrey's blog
• Claim: Legacy Monstrum posts on Bray Road
  Attribution: Monstrum Athenaeum, 2014
  Link: Post 1 · Post 2

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Legal / disclaimer footer

Entertainment and cryptid-news commentary only. No source establishes that a werewolf or any unidentified creature exists. Quotations are from the 1991 and 2006 newspaper texts as republished online and are attributed to their authors. Witness names in the original are pseudonyms.