Media Article # 320

Tuesday, June 24, 1980

By Bill Fox
Ohio Daily News (Dayton)

Bellefontaine, Ohio - Does Logan County have a "Big Foot" stalking its wooded hills between West Mansfield and the Union County line?

Sheriff's deputies are investigating a sighting by an off- duty Russell's Point police officer who said he saw a "seven- feet-tall, hairy animal" in his barn yard Sunday night and a similar report from Union County last Tuesday.

Ray Quay, a Russells Point police officer who owns a small farm on Twp. Road 132 near West Mansfield, said he was "surprised and dumbfounded" about what he saw Sunday night.

"I was unloading eight pigs I had bought about 11 p.m. I shut off the light in the barn and went around the corner to see what my two dogs were raising cain about. They never bark when I'm around".

"I stepped around the corner of the barn and saw this hairy animal. I thought it was a man so I hollered at him. It took off and I've got some weeds out back I haven't mowed and they are waist high or higher and the creature went through them with no problem", Quay said.

Four deputies searched the area but found nothing.

Deputies said that last Tuesday Patrick Poling, who lives on County Rd. 142 in Union County east of West Mansfield, was cultivating a field when he said he spotted a creature walking out of some woods and stride along a road near where the farmer was working.

Poling said he walked over to try to get a better look at the creature, but it ran back into the woods. Poling's description was similar to that of the creature Quay said he saw. Poling said the creature walked up-right all the time.

The Lima research team, a non-profit organization, took measurements and a cast of three claw marks found on the Union County farm.

The claw prints are about 40 inches apart. The claw mark has four toes and measures 16 inches by 4 inches, deputies said.

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