The Lizard-Man of
Bishopville, South Carolina
 One
dark night near Bishopville, South Carolina, in June of 1988, seventeen-year-old
Christopher Davis stopped to change a flat tire along Scape Ore Swamp. As he was
finishing the task and putting the flat tire in the trunk, he heard a noise
coming from a nearby field. As he peered off into the darkness, he saw a seven
foot tall creature with red glowing eyes running towards him on its two hind
legs and grunting as it closed in. Christopher jumped into the car and sped off
down the road.
Just as he thought his nightmare was over,
Christopher heard a crashing thud above him and saw a large, three-fingered hand
with scales and long claws reach over his windshield. Another hand was trying to
pry open his drivers side door. Christopher, now petrified and scared for his
life, swerved the vehicle on the road and the creature suddenly fell off. He
didn't know what kind of animal ran on two legs and could catch up with his car,
which was traveling at a relatively high speed. He had managed to get away and
that's all that mattered.
When Christopher arrived at home shaking
and crying, his father settled him down and Christopher began to tell his
parents about what had happened. His dad knew that his son wasn't usually an
imaginative storyteller, and Christopher's highly emotional state compelled him
to believe that Christopher did, in fact, see something highly unusual.
 When
Lee County Sheriff Liston Truesdale heard about what had occurred to Christopher
Davis, he interviewed him and asked Christopher if he would be willing to take a
lie detector test. Liston figured that if Christopher was really making up a
story for attention, the idea of taking a lie detector test would make him
retract his story. To Liston's surprise, Christopher happily agreed to be
tested, adding that he was sure of what happened and of what he had encountered. Christopher
Davis drew an image of the being that attacked his car and got wired up for the
test. A series of questions about the event were put to him and Christopher
answered them without hesitation. Although believing that they were victims of
an imagination gone wild, the officers administrating the lie detector test and
Liston soon realized otherwise. Christopher had passed the test with flying
colors.
While Christopher Davis' adventure into
the unknown had ended, Sheriff Liston Truesdale's had just begun.
In the months that followed, Sheriff
Truesdale began to receive more and more reports from individuals claiming to
have seen a large, wild beast near Scape Ore Swamp. It's not unusual to hear
such stories, seeing that the swamp had a long history of mysteries involving
reports of hauntings, sightings of strange lights, and the occasional bear or
two. But the new reports were different.
Multiple eyewitnesses began to surface.
Many of those whom Sheriff Truesdale interviewed were upstanding members of the
community. They were people who risked losing credibility and possibly business.
Most of all, Liston noticed the highly charged emotional state of some of the
eyewitnesses. His investigation-training at the FBI academy taught him to look
for signs of emotional distress to help him determine when someone was
recovering from a truly traumatic event, and many who reported seeing the
"Lizard-Man" were showing all the signs.
It wasn't long before word spread
throughout Bishopville and beyond. The press, curiosity seekers, avid
out-of-town hunters, and television crews from around the world began to show
up. Gradually, businesses began to profit from the invasion. Lizard-Man mania
engulfed the small community and the nation when the Bishopville Lizard-Man
story was reported on CBS news. Stories were also printed in the Los Angeles
Times, the Charlotte Observer, the Herald Examiner, and Time Magazine. Serious
investigators, the international press, and the societal "fringe" arrived on the
scene.
Sheriff's department spokesman Billy Moore
told reporters that although hundreds of the 3,500 plus residents of Bishopville
ventured into Scape Ore Swamp in search of the "Lizard-Man," armed with
shotguns, most of the citizens believed that the sightings were hoaxes. After
looking into it himself, however, Moore said that he had no doubt that there was
something very real on the road with young Christopher Davis that strange night.
He thought, though, that there had to be a more conventional explanation.
Meanwhile, George Hollomon Jr., 32, from
Bishopville reported seeing the Lizard-Man while collecting water from an
artesian well near the Scape Ore Swamp bridge. Hollomon and an unnamed friend
were both frightened away by a creature fitting Christopher Davis's description.
Hollomon's brother told reporters that George was visibly shaken by the event
and that, despite his pleas for George to stop telling the story, because he
didn't want to hear it anymore, he continued talking about it. He said it took
time for George to settle down.
Also, a young couple by the name of Brian
Edward (23) & Michelle Nunnery (20) Elmore informed the Sheriff’s office that
they almost hit a huge, bipedal beast while driving on Cedar Creek "Gum Springs"
Road at 12:30 am. They provided statements and were interviewed by officers.
Lizard-Man mania soon began to bring out
the worst in people, and Sheriff Truesdale knew that it was only a matter of
time before some gun-toting Lizard-Man hunter was going to accidentally shoot
someone in the swamp.
 It
was then that the inevitable happened: An Air Force sergeant was discovered
trying to dress up in a lizard costume. When the press heard the story, a shadow
of doubt was cast over the Lizard-Man encounters. When the press left
Bishopville, Liston was happy to see his hometown return to normal. But "normal"
never really returned.
During the early 1990's, the Sheriff's
office continued to receive reports of Lizard-Man sightings.
One eyewitness, a Colonel in the Army
Corps of Engineers, reported seeing a half-dinosaur, half-man running alongside
his car late one night. He informed Sheriff Truesdale of the event and, after
seeking counsel from his attorney, decided not to place a formal report on file
regarding his sighting. The stated reason for his refusal was that his attorney
told him he would lose his privacy. As an officer who had spent years at the
Pentagon, and who was about to be promoted to General, Robert Cooper may have
thought that filing the report would be a death sentence to his military career.
Another truly interesting eyewitness
Lizard-Man encounter was that of the Blythers family. While driving home after
getting dinner at a fast food restaurant, a woman and her children were laughing
about the Lizard-Man sightings when their lives took a sudden, frightening turn:
They almost hit a huge, hairy beast on the road. The encounter shook them up so
much that they immediately drove to the Sheriff’s office and told Sheriff
Truesdale and his officers about what had happened. The family was split up into
different rooms and their reports were taken separately. All information
provided matched.
In another strange incident,
damage to a Ford LTD belonging to Tom and Mary Waye
was attributed to the Lizard-Man, because of the anomalous strength that would
be needed to cause the destruction. In the middle of the night, when Tom and
Mary were asleep upstairs in their house, parts of their car had been ripped
apart and wires were pulled away from under the hood. Remarkably, neither Tom
nor Mary heard a single sound all night. (Read
about Dixie Rawson's report to a news station regarding her March 2008 Lizard Man
car attack)
To this day, Sheriff Liston Truesdale
continues his search for whatever it was that turned his small, sleepy community
upside-down. The Lizard-Man of Bishopville occasionally resurfaces, and
continues to provide a sense of mystery and wonder.
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