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An American werewolf, and it's in . . . Elkhorn?
Author's tale of creature turned out to have (hairy) legs
By MEGAN TWOHEY
[email protected]
Posted: Feb. 25, 2004
Elkhorn - Linda Godfrey thought the first story she wrote on the subject would be her last.
But almost immediately after the weekly newspaper in this small city published her article about local werewolf sightings in early 1992, Godfrey's phone started ringing.
Other witnesses came forward. People claiming to be werewolves surfaced. The national media swooped into town.
"I thought people would talk about the story for two weeks and then it would blow over," Godfrey said. "I was so wrong. Interest in the werewolf went on and on. People weren't going to forget about it."
Enticed by the response, Godfrey plunged into what became more than 10 years of digging.
What she found were dozens of accounts of people who have seen something resembling a werewolf in Wisconsin. Six more articles followed. Last year, she decided to write a book about the accounts. "The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin's Werewolf" - a title taken from werewolf sightings along a rural road near Elkhorn - hit book stores last fall.
Along the way, Godfrey, a part-time teacher and librarian at Kansasville Grade School, became convinced that the state is indeed home to . . . something.
"At first I didn't believe there was a man changing into a wolf on Bray Road," Godfrey said this week during an interview at her home, which is tucked along a rural stretch of old farmland eight miles outside Elkhorn. "Now I'm more open."
Not that she thinks it's an actual werewolf.
Spooky stories
Most of the descriptions she collected paint a picture of a furry, eight-foot creature with pointy ears that prowls the night scavenging for road kill and live animals.
The first account Godfrey heard of a wolf or large dog with human characteristics came from a woman in Spring Prairie, a tiny community east of Elkhorn.
In her book, Godfrey, 52, describes how the woman was driving home from Elkhorn one night in 1989 on Bray Road when she came across a "dark brownish-gray" animal the size of a man. The animal was using its claws to eat road kill. After searching through books at the library, the woman found an illustration of a werewolf that looked like the creature she had seen.
Other accounts came from men and women of all ages, whose sightings occurred all over the state, and, in some cases, dated back to the 1920s and 1930s.
Because she was the first person to write about the sightings, Godfrey has come to be viewed as an expert on the subject.
She started making local TV and radio appearances soon after she wrote her first story on the Beast of Bray Road. Over the years, she has obliged reporters from national TV shows, like Inside Edition, who have traveled to Elkhorn to sniff out a werewolf.
For one tabloid, she actually camped out on Bray Road with a photographer and a baked chicken that was placed in a ditch with the goal of enticing the beast. Much to the tabloid's disappointment, no werewolf appeared.
In Godfrey's eyes, it was her duty to help other members of the media.
"I felt that because I had the information, I had an obligation to share it," she said.
Godfrey said she has received even more attention since her book was released last fall.
She has participated in numerous book signings and other types of public appearances to discuss her work. Just last weekend, she addressed a conference hosted by the American Ghost Hunting Society in Alton, Ill.
Godfrey, who has begun researching a follow-up to the "Beast of Bray Road," says she thinks her students at Kansasville Elementary School have benefited from seeing someone they know have a book published.
"It's been good for them to see that authors are real people," she said.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/feb04/210304.asp