June 22, 2009
On Monday, June 22, 2009, Chris Davis will be laid to rest. Few involved in cryptozoology can forget the shy young man who would find himself in the limelight after he came forth to say, yes, he’d seen a bipedal reptilian creature in South Carolina.
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Last Wednesday, June 17th, Davis, 37, was shot to death. Investigators say the killing was likely a home invasion. Deputies identified the gunmen as 19-year-old Lakiem Butler and 22-year-old Anogory Slater.
The local paper, The Item, noted that…
Christopher Davis was killed shortly before 11 p.m. in an incident at his home at 5230 DuBose Siding Road. Investigators say Davis was targeted in a drug-related incident.
In another story, the cause was clarified:
His killing…was drug-related. A narcotics officer recovered 10 grams of marijuana and two scales from the kitchen of his home, the sheriff said.
Because the investigation is still pending, he was unable to provide more information, except that a shotgun was used as the murder weapon and that Slater and Butler both had criminal records.
According to the police report, five other people were present at the time of the shooting. They were Davis’ girlfriend, his brother, the brother’s friend, Davis’ 12-year-old daughter and his 14-year-old son, who witnessed the shooting. None was injured.
Christopher Davis, a Lee County native, recently moved to Sumter County, Lee County officials said. Davis became an international celebrity at the age of 16 when he reported the first sighting of the legendary Lizard Man of Lee County.
Former Lee County Sheriff Liston Truesdale told the media that “there would be no Lizard Man without Davis.”
“In July 1988, Chris was the first witness interviewed as seeing the Lizard Man,” Truesdale said. “And what impressed me was that he told the same story every time. And he had to tell the story over and over again to the media and others. If you’re lying, you can’t tell the same story twice.”
Everybody wanted to hear the Lizard Man story from the eyewitness, Truesdale said.
Davis served as a grand marshal at a festival parade and signed T-shirts at a mall in Myrtle Beach, he said.
“At that time, he was super, nice kid,” he said. “You know, I bet he told the story more than 100 times every week for several weeks.”
Truesdale said he believes the media attention and publicity became too much for him.
“He could have made a mint from this,” Truesdale said. “A lot of people don’t know that he was scheduled to go to the Oprah (Winfrey) Show, but he canceled it. I think finally he just had enough.”
Funeral services for Christopher Davis will be held at 1:00 p.m. Monday, June 22, 2009, at the New Haven United Methodist Church in Bishopville, South Carolina.
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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.
Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Giant Cryptid Reptiles, Lizard People, Men in Cryptozoology, Merbeings, Obituaries