In his house trailer here, Verlin Herrington, a part-time Grays Harbor County deputy sheriff, has two curious samples of hair and a polaroid photo of some trampled brush and grass.
The photo is highlighted by a broken devil's club, which grows in these woods. Herrington believes the trampled brush and grass is a footprint, but it is indistinguishable in the photo.
It measures 18 1/2 inches "from the end of the heel to where you could see the toes stepped" and 7 inches wide, Herrington said.
One sample of hair is a single strand, dark brown almost reddish, 2 3/4 inches long. The other is a cluster, grayish and black. Both samples could be no more than cow's hair, but the deputy wonders.
HERRINGTON is convinced that the crushed grass and brush, which did not sink into dirt and could not be plaster-casted, was made by what he saw at 2:35 a.m. July 27 along the DeKay Road, about seven miles north of Hoquiam.
Despite conflicting reports that he believes what he saw was a bear, Herrington is firmly convinced that it was a Sasquatch - the fabled man-like ape of Indian legend.
Herrington, 30, born in Missouri and reared in Toppenish, Yakima County, is a shingle -mill employe here hired by the sheriff's office for the summer. His boss, Sheriff Pat Gallagher, is a nonbeliever in Sasquatches and thinks his deputy saw a bear. The deputy hadn't told him about the "footprint" photograph until yesterday.
Gallagher also does not want any undue alarm or people tramping around the woods with guns looking for Sasquatches. Since Herrington reported what he saw to the press, Gallagher has been beleaguered by telephone calls and television stations from Los Angeles to Vancouver, B.C. Gallagher is not overly enthused about the whole thing.
IT HAS BEEN a center of conversation in the Grays Harbor area, where reaction has ranged from loud guffaws to serious wondering.
FOR YEARS there have been reported sightings of Sasquatches - the West Coast version of the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas.
The most publicized were photographs taken in Northern California by Roger Patterson of a creature which looked like a huge ape.
The Grays Harbor deputy said what he saw was between 7 and 8 feet tall and weighed 300 pounds or more, it was dark when he saw it standing by the side of the road.
COULD IT have been a bear? Herrington shook his head in the negative. He said:
"It had no snout. It had a face on it. It had feet instead of paws. It had breasts located like a human rather then a bear."
"I had centered my spotlight on it. It walked to the edge of the road, didn't fall down on all fours like a bear would have. The feet had hair right down to the soles but it did have toes. One hand was spread out and it had fingers."
I crawled out of the door of my car, readjusted the spotlight, drew my revolver and aimed at it. As I cocked the hammer, it went off in the brush, still erect."
Herrington said he had hoped to get a shot off to wound the creature so it could be tracked more easily. "I knew I couldn't kill it with my .38 police special," he said. "It seemed to realize I was going to shoot and moved pretty fast."
Herrington formerly worked on a brush crew in Snoqualmie National Forest and had seen many bears there as well as in the Grays Harbor area.
THE ONLY physical evidence he has is the photo of the trampled grass and the samples of hair.
Herrington took the photo the day after the sighting. He found the hair samples in the area three days later. He said the single strand of hair was on the inside of a huckleberry bush limb "like someone had grabbed the limb and broke it back."
There are cows in the area but Herrington did not believe a cow could have rubbed a hair loose inside the bush in such a position.
The cluster of hair was taken from a fence in the area, where the farmer said his cows "had been spooked" by something lately. The deputy said the farmer's cows had always crossed a bridge by the fence but would not when the cluster of hair was there "because of its smell."
Herrington said he hoped to have the hair analyzed.
AFTER THE deputy told his story, he was told four teen-agers saw a similar "monster" near Copalis five months earlier.
Mary Hyde, 16, one of the four, said she saw something big and hairy, standing on two feet late at night. She said she only got a fleeting glimpse of it, but that Greg Nichols, 17, of Copalis got a good look at it.
Nichols' response was, "I didn't see anything," accompanied by a big smile. "I don't want people to think I'm crazy," he said.
Bonnie Wiedman, 17, said she saw it "and it was too big to be a bear."
But other than size the youths gave no specific identification to distinguish it from a bear.
....
But Herrington is firm in his conviction. He said: "What I saw wasn't a bear."
