An American Werewolf in Wisconsin
By Dr. Abner Mality
"Even he who is pure in heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf/ When the wolfsbane blooms/ And the Moon is full and bright"--Maleva, Queen of the Gypsies, "The Wolfman".
The above doggerel verse is what I think of every time the subject of werewolves comes up. I love the fuzzy critters, myself. Always have, since I watched "Werewolf of London" and "The Wolfman"(from which the quote is taken) as a lad. But for all my fascination with bloodthirsty lycanthropes, I never would have imagined in my wildest nightmares that werewolves prowled the fields of Southern Wisconsin, mere miles from my home!
And yet a number of sightings of shaggy, two-legged creatures have been made in Walworth County and the surrounding environs. In the early 90's, an actual werewolf frenzy seemed to grip the area around Delavan, Jefferson, Fort Atkinson and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Did a rabid greyhound escape from Geneva Lakes Kennel Club, the dog racing facility so beloved by my late father? Did mass hysteria grip the area because of an elaborate hoax? Or did Satan himself visit Wisconsin in the form of a hairy demon?
Let me now dive into the murky depths of this mystery, which is clouded by a lot of hype and hooplah. The "werewolf" saga is a convoluted one and contains elements of many other paranormal phenomena, such as Bigfoot, UFO's, Satanism, Men In Black and the enigmatic Shunka Wara'kin. The what, the what, you ask? Well, read on, McDuff, and you may learn the answer. Though I will say that real, concrete answers are not going to be found here.
The epicenter of the "werewolf" flap is Bray Road, located in Walworth County in Southeastern Wisconsin. I have been to Bray Road and am fairly familiar with the area. You may think that Bray Road is some lonely, godforsaken country lane dotted by a few aging farmhouses, like something out of H.P. Lovecraft. The truth is, Bray Road is a very ordinary rural road, not very far at all from State Highway 43, a very well-travelled road that heads into Milwaukee. Bray Road is within very easy distance of several small towns and the area is becoming a popular one for people to move to. It is not the cliched "spooky" road at all.
But that doesn't mean strange things don't happen there.
Perhaps the first "modern" sighting of the lupine beast later known as the "Bray Road Werewolf" was made by farmer Scott Bray in the fall of 1989. Bray farmed the road that bore his family's name. Bray spotted an odd looking wolf-like animal in the dairy pasture. It was much larger than an ordinary dog and built very heavily in the chest. Bray trailed the "dog" for a while but it vanished without a trace after heading into a rocky outcrop. Bray was troubled that the animal might harass his cattle but did not think much more about the incident. It was only later that the sighting became significant.
A young man named Russell Gest had a much more unnerving encounter just a short time later, not far from where Bray saw the beast. After hearing some rustling in a thick patch of undergrowth, Gest ventured into the weeds and was shocked to see a wolf-like animal in the clearing. Only this time, the beast was standing upright, on two legs. The creature took a couple of tentative steps towards Gest and snarled. That was enough for Gest, who took off in a hurry. He later noted the very wolfish aspects of the creature's head area.
Gest was not the last to see this fuzzy biped. In December, 1989, along Bowers Road (which I always associate with the Alpine Valley Music Theater), mother Karen Rowey and her 11 year old daughter Heather also saw a large canine animal that walked upright. By now, word of the phenomena was getting out. Local officials said the animal was likely a coyote in an area where such animals were seldom seen.
A coyote was certainly not what Lorianne Endrizzi of Elkhorn saw as she was driving Bray Road one lonely night. The headlights of her car illuminated a large, hairy figure hunched over at the side of the road in a "kneeling posture". Slowing up, she saw a beast with gray fur that had a "long, snouty face like a wolf". The creature had a powerful chest and seemed to be holding something (possibly food) in long arms stretched out in front of it as a man would. Again, the animal "snarled". The beast seen by Endrizzi seemed to have much more man-like characteristics than the more dog-like beast seen by Scott Bray and Russell Gest. When Endrizzi looked up a werewolf in a library book, she noticed that an old European woodcut showed a man-beast very similar to what she saw.
So now the dreaded word emerged at last: werewolf! The local media and soon, the national media soon jumped all over the story. Walworth Country suddenly became the butt of a lot of snickers and jokes. Curious passerby stopped along Bray Road to conduct their own "werewolf hunts" and pretty soon "werewolf" T-shirts and other memorabilia popped up. Cynicism and practical jokes ran rampant and many speculated that the werewolf was created to drum up a little interest in rural Wisconsin.
Sightings continued, but other odd things started happening in Walworth County. More than a dozen farm animals were found dead in a ditch along nearby Willow Road. All had had their throats cut and some had been tied up. One dog had its heart removed, another was decapitated. Walworth County humane officer John Frederickson, who also investigated the werewolf reports, had the opinion that these animals had been sacrificed by Satanic cults. Some abandoned farmhouses in the area had been found defaced with occult graffiti. Police Chief James Jensen dismissed Frederickson's supposition and loudly pooh-poohed anything to do with the "werewolf" as well. It is worth noting that Frederickson has gotten a lot of publicity out of his speculations on the Bray Road case.
Frederickson said he had also received reports of mysterious people pretending to be "animal control officers" trying to round up stray dogs. A man in black driving the stereotypical "big black car" was said to have tried to talk local kids into giving him their dogs. These odd reports are reminiscent of "Men In Black" stories often found in connection with UFO reports. Such reports can often be linked to cases of mass hysteria. In England in the 90's, there was a huge flap about "phantom social workers" who tried to intimidate families into giving up their children. We see now that many different kinds of paranormal phenomena were starting to work their way into the tale of the Bray Road Werewolf. And there would be weirder incidents yet to be revealed.
The most dramatic encounter with the monster took place on All Hallow's Eve, 1991. Many have noted the significance of the date being Halloween...some feeling that it is the perfect date for a scary hoax, others that forces of evil would truly be abroad that night. In any event, a young lady from Elkhorn named Doris Gipson was driving along Bray Road near the intersection with Hospital Road when her car was rocked as if it had went into a large pothole. Doris stopped the car to see if there was any noticeable damage and got out. She heard the tread of "heavy feet" and turned to see a shadowy, bulky figure covered with hair advancing quickly towards her across the field. Terrified, she jumped back into her car and took off just as the beast lunged for the vehicle, clawing the trunk. Doris sped away but returned to the vicinity later that evening. She saw what looked like a large form lurking in the shadows.
The tale is almost too dramatic to be believed. But the trunk of Gipson's car showed it was scratched by something. Exactly what has never been proven.
When Gipson's tale made it to the news, the Bray Road story exploded again, becoming more notorious than before.Suddenly all sorts of stories started coming out of the Walworth County area. It seemed that the werewolf appearances that began in 1989 were not the first. A newspaper writer from Kenosha named Joe Schackelman recalled an interview he did in 1958 with a local nightwatchman who told him about a strange incident that took place in 1936. While making rounds out of doors, the watchman stumbled across a man-like, hairy creature digging in the ground. The area where the creature was digging was said to be an old Indian burial mound. When the watchman swung his flashlight on the creature, it stood to its maximum height and growled something that might have been a word. It is worth noting that this creature is not described as being particularly wolf-like, in comparison to later sightings.
This whole tale makes for a good story, but without specific names and places, it can be considered nothing more than an urban legend. Which is what many people consider the whole Bray Road Werewolf saga. Yet there were other sightings of large, hairy creatures in the area...creatures described more like apes than wolves. In other words, prior to 1989, the beasts seemed to be more like Bigfoot than werewolf.
One such encounter took place in 1964 and was reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A man driving at night to Delavan saw a large, ape-like creature weighing between 400 and 500 pounds jump easily over a barbed wire fence and lope across the road. A similar ape-like monster was seen around Fort Atkinson in 1972.
Were these animals all the same creature? It doesn't seem possible. The animal seen by Scott Bray and Russell Gest sounds very canine, but the monsters prior to 1989 were almost classic Bigfoot type creatures. Were two different kinds of creatures stalking the cornfields of Walworth County?
In one of the last sightings, two teenagers, Tom Brichta and Chris Maxwell, saw an apparition that seemed to be both werewolf and Bigfoot. It was the summer of 1992 and the two boys were returning late one night from a wedding reception (where I'm sure they drank nothing but soda and iced tea) when they saw a massive humanoid form crouched by the side of the road, looking like it was eating roadkill. In a case very similar to Doris Gipson's, the beast lunged at the car and scratched it as the boys fled in a panic. They noted the muscular, powerful look of the creature, but also that it had a pointed muzzle and ears. A were-foot, perhaps?
Brichta saw the monster again in the company of another boy, Scott Freimund. This time, the monster was leisurely sauntering into a cornfield and almost seemed to dare the onlookers to follow it. Both boys noted a feeling of intelligence and malevolence around the beast.
What exactly was going on in Walworth County? It seemed as if the tranquil Wisconsin farmcountry had suddenly been transformed into Transylvania.
Could the animal have actually been a wolf? That's not impossible. Wolves once roamed Wisconsin and are still seen sparingly in the very far Northern reaches of the State. But one would be straying pretty far afield to be lurking around Delavan, Jefferson and the like. Seeing a large wolf might cause some people to freak out or perhaps exaggerate what they've seen.
Coyotes are no strangers to the area, but it would be pretty hard to mistake a 30 pound coyote for a hulking, humanoid monster. Well, was the werewolf really a Bigfoot like creature? That's not impossible, as hairy hominids have been seen in Wisconsin more than many might realize.
Some paranormal researchers believe the Bray Road Werewolf may have been one of the most obscure and elusive cryptids, the shunka wara'kin. This legendary beast was known to Indian tribes in the Plains States, particularly Montana and the Dakotas. The name shunka wara'kin means "carrying away dogs" and this strange creature was described as having the qualities of a large hyena mixed with a wolf. By the time white settlers had arrived, the shunka was considered almost extinct by the Indians and has never been accepted by science. A picture of a stuffed and mounted specimen has circulated for years, but the actual mounted beast itself has never turned up. Some believe the shunka is an example of an ancient type of hyena named Borophagus that once roamed in the American West. It would certainly be different enough to get people talking if seen.
Was the whole thing just bullshit, pardon my French? Many feel this is the most likely theory. It is worth noting that many of the witnesses were connected to each other. The mother of Lorianne Endrizzi was a neighbor of Doris Gipson. She also drove a school bus used by Heather Bowey, the young daughter of Karen Bowey, who had both seen the creature. Karen Bowey was a school bus driver as well. Bray Road was named after the family of Scott Bray, who saw the creature. His wife Tammy also saw the Werewolf in 1992. Tom Brichta somehow had the fortune of seeing the creature twice. It is far from unlikely that maybe these folks decided to liven things up a little with some tall tales. Perhaps they had heard earlier stories of the Bigfoot like creatures in the area and decided to put their own spin on it. Maybe they had seen a coyote or a wolf and used that as the springboard for starting an urban legend. It is also worth noting that, other than undefined scratches on a couple of vehicles, no footprints, fur, blood or other physical evidence of the Werewolf has ever been obtained. As for the Joe Schakelman story, it is nothing but unprovable hearsay.
However, none of the witnesses really profitted monetarily from the story and they wound up being the butt of a lot of jokes and snickers. Was it worth it for them to fabricate the story for such little reward? The answer is debatable.
Hysteria might also play a part in the sightings. One tale plants a seed in the mind of a few others, then they tell their stories and blow things out of proportion. Soon, it takes off like wildfire. The Bray Road story, as mentioned before, has elements of other paranormal events, like UFO sightings and Satanic cults. In fact, there were a number of UFO sightings in Walworth County and Southern Wisconsin in 1992, the last major year of werewolf sightings. For a brief time, did Walworth become a "magnet" for bizarre phenomena? This is what happened in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the 60's, when the "Mothman" flap started a whole rush of phenomena like UFO's, cattle mutilations and Men In Black. Does one solid report of a strange incident start a cascade effect of other incidents?
The Good Doctor has pondered the mystery of Bray Road. As in all cases of the supernatural, there was probably a truly unusual event that triggered the phenomena. But in this case, it looks like exaggeration, hysteria and outright hoax were probably added on so thickly that the real mystery has become obscure. Some strange animal probably did wander into Bray Road in the early 90's. Whether wolf, coyote or shunka wara'kin is unknown. Or maybe, just maybe, some damned soul has made the gently rolling hills and valleys of Southeastern Wisconsin his home, succumbing to a terrible affliction every now and then.
The next time you head up to Delavan, Jefferson, Fort Atkinson or the vicinity, perhaps it would be best to pack along a silver-tipped cane or maybe get some silver bullets for your gun. You just never know...
This is Dr. Abner Mality, turning out the lights.