Mystery Man Named
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 21st, 2008
An Atlanta newspaper has identified the Indiana man who says he was the middleman in a $50,000 deal to buy the body of Bigfoot.
William Wald Lett Jr. of Eaton, Indiana, says he met the Georgia men in the Clayton County (GA) Justice Center parking lot, handed over cash and loaded a freezer containing a frozen, furry “carcass” onto a trailer. When he got back to Indiana, the object thawed and was revealed to be a Halloween costume.
Matt Whitton, in happier days, when he was an active police officer.
In a complaint filed Thursday with Clayton County police, Lett said he brokered and videotaped the transaction on behalf of Tom Biscardi, a Bigfoot hunter in California. Lett said Biscardi said he’d repay the loan at 50 percent interest within 90 days.
Lett said he met with two men the night of Aug. 14 in the Justice Center parking lot, where the two men signed a “transfer release agreement” to sell the frozen remains of Bigfoot, a gorilla-like creature that some people claim to have seen in wilderness areas throughout the nation. Lett said he handed over $50,000 in cash.
Lett said he then followed the two men to a house on nearby Poston Road, where another person was “standing guard” over a freezer that held the alleged remains. Lett said the freezer, which weighed almost a ton, was loaded onto a trailer towed by his GMC Yukon Denali.
Once Lett returned to Indiana, the thawing process began, and the creature turned out to be a Halloween costume, he said. Lett said he has tried without success to contact the men to get his money back.
The two suspects are not identified in the report, but they are thought to be former Clayton police Officer Matt Whitton and former corrections officer Rick Dyer. Both men appeared on WSB-TV Wednesday and admitted their roles in the hoax.
Police Capt. Greg Dickens said suspects are not identified in incident reports until charges are filed. The case might be assigned to a detective by Friday afternoon.
“I think the solvability expectation in this case is pretty high,” he said.
Whitton, 28, was fired Tuesday after six years with the department because of his involvement in the hoax, police Chief Jeff Turner said. Dyer, 31, worked at three state prisons, according to Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council records. However, he now drives a truck for Big Foot Towing Co. and sells used cars over the Internet.
Both are being represented by Jonesboro attorney Steve Lister, who was in court Thursday afternoon and not immediately available for comment. No formal criminal charges have been filed.
The whereabouts of the two Georgia men are unknown.
Reporter Kathy Jefcoats of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote her article on Thursday, August 21, 2008.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Wait… Dyer appeared on the news on Wednesday and no one knows where he and Whitton are? Unless they taped the news spot a couple days in advance or something, then boogied out of town…
or…
in an amazing case of karmic justice dee-luxe, Whitton and Dyer fled to the deep Georgia woodlands, where they met with an unfortunate fate involving a justifiably cranky group of Squatches, who went all Jack Link on them, never to be seen again.
They say if you listen close in the dead of night, you can sometimes hear the haunting cry…
“Gol-dangit Rick, why’d I go and let you talk me into that ding danged cockamamie scam anyhow!”
And somewhere, out there, the Sasquatch smiles in his sleep. 🙂
Holy Toledo! This drama has become a saga of epic proportions. I would have thought its Warholian “15 minutes” should be up by now; but the story keeps delivering new turns, just when you think it must surely be over. I predict it will live in infamy, in cryptozoological circles, and beyond. And you heard it here first, folks. So please do all you can to help support the museum, and Cryptomundo.
Wow! When does the movie come out?
Who better to hoax than Biscardi? He’s apparently the most gullible man on the planet. He believed the Marx films were real, and that a lady had a bigfoot in captivity, and that he had a bigfoot hand-which was a bear paw.
Those so-called dummies from Georgia at least knew an easy target when they saw one…That is; if you’re to believe Biscardi himself, who claims to have been “hoodwinked”. Wow(!), a self admitted stupid guy is “THE BIGFOOT HUNTER”?
Of course this latest story of the money changing hands etc. could be bogus too…But look, I’m in the antique business and we don’t ever buy anything even for $5.00 that’s frozen in a block of ice! WE have to examine it for chips, cracks, or signs of it being a fake! (not really old etc.) Now if you want to beleive that this T.B. character is so stupid to pay these guys $50,000.00 without exhaustively examining the “evidence”, especially after being duped before (supposedly), then I think we went to a different school of logic. Wake up! They’re ALL culpable.
yeesh, for that kind of cash i would have verfied it first!
It’s more ironic than ever now how Biscardi says he’s the one to have been scammed – not saying he was necessarily in on this, but we know William Lett almost certainly wasn’t
Whereabouts of the two men is unknown? That’s funny, in my radio interview with J.C. Johnson Aug. 20 for UncannyRadio, J.C. declared from the site of the thawing ice block that they (he, Biscardi, and other crew members) knew exactly where the two were. Meaning Whitton and Dyer have run again since Wednesday? Although now I understand why Biscardi didn’t immediately press charges…it was not his own cash on the line. I hope Letts got more than just a verbal promise from Biscardi to repay the money in 90 days with interest. – Linda Godfrey
Biscardi is the real person behind all this. After the news broke about the hoax, a simple browse of his website revealed to me that he had visited America’s biggest costume shop just weeks before this story emerged. Philip Morris, the costume factory owner, even gave Biscardi a tour!
And to make things even more obvious, Morris admitted on a radio show in 2002, that his company provided the ape suit for the famous 1967 Patterson Bigfoot hoax. Morris has even appeared on Biscardi’s radio show about the subject in 2007.
What we have here is simple – 3 dimwits who thought they wouldn’t be caught out. Biscardi thought he could fool the World – even though he has a webpage on his own site telling everybody that he visited a huge fancy dress costume factory just a couple of weeks before Whitton and Dyer came forward. The $50,000 payout is just a cover story to try and fool people who are gullible.
What is surprising though is that the national press didn’t even find this fact out.
Dave Cosnette, Cosmic Conspiracies Research Team
I know EXACTLY where they are!!!
They’re trying out for the next “Messin’ with Sasquatch” beef-jerky commercial!!!
Both of those guys are shoe-ins for sure!!!! LOL!
I KNOW WHERE THESE TWO GUYS ARE! They’re in a freezer in my garage. I tracked them down with dogs. You can believe me because, as everyone knows, I am the world’s greatest bigfoot hoaxer hunter. Youtube videos to come shortly. Photos, ballcaps, T-shirts, & insulated beverage mugs available soon.
I agree this story deserves to become a movie. You should begin to write the script ASAP Loren 😉
“A fool and his money are soon parted”
-Thomas Tusser, ca. 16th century
Cosmic Dave- You said “The famous 1967 Patterson Bigfoot Hoax.” However, this is still open for debate. It has not been conclusively shown to be a hoax, and is in fact one of the most hotly debated subjects on this site when it is brought up.
You could say “I think it was a hoax.”, or “POSSIBLE (even ‘likely’ or ‘probable’ if that is your opinion) 1967 Patterson Hoax. But it’s a bit premature to go out labeling it as a famous hoax as if it is a foregone conclusion. As far as many cryptozoologists, and even some skeptics, are concerned, it is not. To this day the PG footage is the subject of investigation and intense discussion by many intellegent people on both sides of the fence.
I don’t mean to start up a debate on PG. I just thought I’d point this out.
Yes, in fact this Biscardi/Whitton/Dyer hoax is one more reason I think the PG film is real! Everytime I see an admitted or obvious hoax it’s usually apparent before admitted simply by comparing it to the PG FILM! Nothing even comes Close!
But, what irritates me is how they’ll (Fox news etc.) be running the PG film or a still frame from it in the background as they promo a segment on the latest Biscardi bungle.
I think this is a reason this sort of association happens, and in peoples minds it clicks the “They’re All Hoaxes button”!
At work the other day I was asking a young lady who was returning to school in Gunnison, Colorado if she’d heard of the Bigfoot sightings in the Black Canyon (nearby)… Someone else who was only HALF LISTENING and heard the word bigfoot in our conversation, turned around and said “That was a rubber costume in the Freezer!, I saw it on TV last night!” My theory confirmed…
Don’t mix apples with oranges. Remember in JAWS when the kid was snorkeling with a shark fin on his back to scare the other swimmers? Would you say that was proof their were (are) No real sharks or shark film footage?
mystery_man:
Say it ain’t so! Say it ain’t! After all this time; all that well-reasoned skepticism; all those thoughtful posts…YOU, IN WITH BISCARDI on what has to be one of the worst, most puerile….
….um, er, ah, heh heh, wrong “Mystery Man”…heh heh sorry there…
And yeah, it’s real problematic that there are still so many people out there who think P/G has been proven a hoax. To get the depth of the public’s understanding of this topic, one need go no further. In the interest of education (and please do not contest this point, because you are wrong and it is pointless and let’s move on here): there is much evidence that P/G is the real thing. And not one shred yet produced that so much as hints that it is not.
That’s not belief talking. That’s evidence.
On to burying the biscardi, Rover. Woof!
I concur east texan and and Red Pill Junkie … wow…
yeah it does have movie written all over it… even a broadway play ..lol
Loren i forgive u for that one post because you put your credibility on the line, I put mine on the line with my friends …
… but its cool i saw your explanation 🙂
Its too bad… these guys have really cast a negative cloud on something that people are in general already skeptical about
I’ve enjoyed this site for years but never posted anything before.
Now that the characters in the bigfoot hoax (not they fooled anyone) finally admit that it is a hoax, I will have to look elsewhere for entertainment.
I found these guys funny from the start. Who in their right mind would walk up to anything that is presumed dead? If they actually did catch anything with a rope while standing in a tree, it seems highly unlikely that any creature would go along willingly, or was it catch and release program they were initiating?
People were wondering where they could find employment after this debacle, perhaps they should try the Shriner’s, I hear they’re always looking for clowns.
“A fool and his money are soon partying…’
– a variation of the Tusser quote I came up with while in college. I think the statement could apply both to Biscardi if he’s able to ultimately financially capitalize from his involvement – or to the two lunkheads from Georgia – if they don’t get their collective keisters sued into oblivion and can do the same.
I think what may be more fascinating than the story itself is the psychological effect it’s had on people. I’ve been a bigfoot enthusiast since I was a kid (thanks Mom!) but now more than ever I want to learn more to hopefully one day legitimize what I believe to be true – that bigfoot and so many more cryptids are flesh and blood living things. If Saquatchsicle hadn’t come along – I’m not sure I would have been so motivated. I think that the incident has had a polarizing effect overall. Those that believed before, believe even more. Those that didn’t are now, more than ever, saying, “See I told you so!”
DWA- Yeah, haha. I just want everyone to know that there is no relation and no affiliation between that Mystery Man and this Mystery Man. 🙂
As for PG, I’m not completely convinced it is real, but I’d say there is definitely a lot to point in that direction. Certainly it is not a proven hoax, yet a lot of people out there are under that impression.
As far as mistaken thoughts some have had of this being the end of the line for Bigfoot studies, I’d say the only thing this is the end of the line for is Biscardi’s tomfoolery.
I think some or all of these characters will face either a civil or criminal suit some time in the future. It’s just a matter of time, tick, tick, tick.
mystery_man:
Agreed, everything you said. In fact, I’m not sure anyone (who hasn’t seen one himself, and verified the resemblance) can be totally convinced of the authenticity of the Patterson film.
All of the evidence I’ve seen, I’ve seen secondhand at best. (OK, with one exception, which could easily have been something other than what it pretty clearly looked like.) It sure seems odd – odd stretching belief – that misinformation could behave the way the sasquatch evidence does. But absent better personal evidence, I have to hold open the possibility. As to P/G itself, that it’s a hoax is a notion that, given human nature, seems to stretch belief to the breaking point. But how many times have we seen evidence that, indeed, it really does take all kinds to make a world?
So, with you, I await better evidence. Which it will be hard to get as long as the media and the scientific community continue to think that the sideshows in this discussion are the main event.