Cop Fired, Hoaxers In Hot Water
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 19th, 2008
Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner has “moved to have [Matthew] Whitton fired,” according to breaking news from Atlanta’s CBS 46 News, posted at 4:29 pm EDT August 19, 2008.
Meanwhile, in an update to the Fox News story, Bigfoot Body Revealed to Be Halloween Costume for Tuesday, August 19, 2008, Paul Wagenseil added these new passages at 5:00 pm EDT:
SearchingforBigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi had paid an “undisclosed sum” — Internet rumors put it at $50,000 — to Georgia residents Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer for their frozen “corpse” and the privilege of trotting them, but not the body, out in front of TV cameras.
…[and]
Loren Coleman, who runs the influential Cryptomundo.com Web site devoted to mysterious animals, isn’t buying Biscardi’s pleas of ignorance.
“He’s a huckster, a circus ringmaster,” Coleman told FoxNews.com. “It’s all about money with him. It probably didn’t matter to him whether it was real or not.”
So why would Dyer, described as a former security guard, and Whitton, a police officer with the Clayton County, Ga., department, make it all up?
“They probably started out small, as a way to promote their Bigfoot tracking business, and got in way over their heads,” Coleman figured. “These are not very intelligent individuals.”
The involvement of Biscardi, who Coleman says was introduced to the pair by Kulls, brought them attention they didn’t need.
“In a way, both sides may have been trying to out-con each other,” said Coleman.
The Bigfoot Field Research Organization, another Bigfoot group that refused to take seriously what Coleman dubbed the “Georgia gorilla,” wants everyone connected with the “body” — Biscardi, Dyer, Kulls and Whitton — arrested.
“Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves the country,” the organization’s Web site states.
As for Whitton, he doesn’t seem to have a job to come back to in Georgia.
Asked for comment on Officer Whitton, Clayton County, Ga., Chief of Police Jeffrey Turner, corrected FoxNews.com. “You mean ex-officer Whitton.”
“As soon as we saw it was a hoax,” Chief Turner explained, “I filed the paperwork to terminate his employment.”
Turner said he hasn’t heard from Whitton, and that he was mystified at the former officer’s involvement in such a blatant scam.
“He was a real go-getter,” Turner said, citing Whitton’s wounding in the line of duty earlier this summer while apprehending a suspect who had allegedly shot a woman in the head. “For someone to do a complete three-sixty like that, I can’t explain it.”
The woman who answered the phone at Biscardi’s Searching for Bigfoot office in Menlo Park, Calif., said he was out ill but would return calls when he could.
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.
Personally, I was under the impression he was never a cop to begin with…
Well, well, well, we called that one, didn’t we? In fact, I know I posted, along with several others, that he had better be careful. And that he was putting his job on the line.
Any one with half a brain could see that one coming. I guess the cop had less than half a brain. We knew this from watching his immature videos attacking Loren and good folks here at Cryptomundo.
When the police chief started distancing himself from them, the cop should have stopped. We all saw it. How could the cop miss it? Oh yes, arrogance and lack of intelligence prohibited him from seeing the obvious.
We warned him that he was treading on thin ice. We warned him that he was going to lose his job. We warned him that a hoax, for the purpose of selling expeditions on the basis of them having a BF body was fraud. The cop refunded any monies paid for BF expeditions, but was not smart enough to drop the whole hoax and continued with lies. The police chief said, that whatever the cop did was his own personal business, unless it reflected poorly on the police department. Continuing to lie and continuing a hoax is a bad reflection on the police department. The former cop, idiot, call him what you like, did lack the intelligence to stop, even after being warned by us. Instead, he continued to attack us here. Guess who has the last laugh officer, I mean former officer? We are laughing at you! We have no sympathy for you! You made your bed. Now lie in it!
Oh, and buy the way, I had posted earlier that I hope the money he was making on this scam was worth him losing his job over. How prophetic was that?
Well Loren, good job on sticking to your guns. Good job on maintaining your objectivity and skeptism from the beginning. Keep sticking with you gut feelings. And you did a beautiful job on Coast to Coast! Kudos!
For the former cop: There are a couple of fast food restaurants near my home that are looking for help on the nightshift. Since you probably no longer have a job in law enforcement, perhaps you can get an entry level job as a cook at one these establishments. Afterall, in one video it showed you over a grill burning a book. Try replacing that with hamburger and you are well on your way to securing your fast food career. You are halfway there genius!
What worried me the most was when Loren responded to the photos with “A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!” when my own immediate impression was a costume in a trunk!
I think the biggest lesson learned is that when the news does finally happen that solid proof of the existence of Bigfoot that Loren has a bigger server in place to handle the heavy internet traffic!
What is funny about all of this is; that it was a very poorly executed prank from the get go and it got a LOT of worldwide attention!!
All of this to win a Bushnell camera?
I hope it was worth it!
What a complete disaster.
i love how the police chief is an idiot too: “for someone to do a complete 360” it’s 180 not 360…
also it’s scary to think that whitton had authority at some point in his life. thank god he won’t be “upholding the law” any more. plus he’ll have a hard time even finding a fast food job. on interviews, they always ask why you were fired from your former job and he has to answer “because i pretended bigfoot was real” which makes this whole thing well worth it.
Aren’t these guys currently M.I.A.? Have they even returned to Georgia? My theory was that they were gonna try to make as much money from those $500/person expedition preorders and then disappear.
If they have Biscardi’s money on top of the likely miniscule amount of money from their website, maybe they’ve fled the country altogether.
They should all be drawn and quartered in my humble opinion.
First, the big lie, then attacking Loren and Cryptomundo, then taking everyone for a big ride just to make a few bucks.
This wouldn’t have been put up with in the old days. We can only hope that old “BS Biscardi” WILL disappear and take his two backwoods lackeys with him.
The end.
Mojo
Sadly when I read that police officers were involved the red flag came up for me. In my experience as witnessing several police lying in court on on police reports my faith in defacto officers has evaporated.
The big surprise for me was that they were fired. A policeman Boy Scout leader in my home town raped 14 little boys and was never arrested. He lived out his life a free man.
If Tom Biscardi actually touched a fabricated suit and claims it was real demonstrates his intentional fraud.
Is this effort the last nail in the coffin of Bigfoot?
Are all efforts done by egos and frauds?
Perhaps the search should be for honest humans.
Well, I guess that’s Karma then. He’s done, Biscardi is [hopefully] done too, and we know what will happen to Cryptomundo if the real thing is discovered.
Ah, Sweet Karma, how I do love thee. 🙂
Tom B. Please call me, I am behind on my bills, and have a REAL BIGFOOT! A bigfoot family gave me their unruley son because the cops were closing in on there location in E. Texas Piney Woods. Cashiers’ check or money order only! NO PERSONAL CHECK!!! ( Betty Sue get that coon skined quick he may what a DNA sample).
What a joke these 3 guys are. They should be outed by the bigfoot community forever.
The way in which this whole matter has culminated, insofar as the perpetrators involved having suffered some serious personal repercussions from this fiasco, actually provides a silver lining of sorts.
Now, someone will (at the very least) think twice before thinking that they can remained unscathed by engaging in such fun n’ games.
actually, i think it is the real bigfoot, the thing is ,,,,, he is made of rubber ! that is how he bounds so fast and quietly thru the woods! and would explaine why no bones are found or any DNA evedance, tee hee