Image: Contract between George and Vilma Radford detailing the lending of $700 to Patterson by the Radfords.
Description: After being struck by a drunk driver in May of 1965, Vilma Radford received $14,000 in a court settlement. Jerry Lee Merritt, a close friend of Roger Patterson's also involved closely with his Bigfoot film project, was the promoter of the Velvet Illusions, a rock band funded by the Radfords of which their son was a member. Jerry had borrowed money from the Radfords and told Patterson of Vilma's court settlement. Jerry introduced Roger to the Radfords in May of 1967.
Roger Patterson was creating the film
Bigfoot: America's Abominable Snowman when he ran out of funding and could no longer pay for the services of Fred Smith, a cameraman from Yakima's largest TV station, KIMA TV and the 16mm camera he brought with him. Roger told the Radfords about sighting Bigfoot personally and how many people were trying to prove the creature's existence. He told the Radfords that he needed money to be able to film a Bigfoot in California to prove the claims he had made.
From p. 302 of
The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story by Greg Long. Prometheus Books 2004:
"All he had to have was something to prove that he had seen the thing." - Vilma Radford
What Patterson asked the Radfords for was money to pay for the 16mm camera they no longer had so that he could film the creature for his movie. This is exactly what the Radfords gave him...
"I gave him just enough money to rent a camera. He immediately went down and found a Bigfoot." - Vilma Radford (TMoB, p. 303)
Patterson never used the $700 for the camera. He failed to pay anything at all for rental fees to Sheppard's Camera Shop where he got the Cine Kodak 100 camera that he filed Patty with and was eventually arrested over the matter. Bigfooter Peter Byrne tracked down and spoke to Harold Mattson, the owner of Sheppard's Camera Shop in 1967...
"He confirmed that Patterson rented the camera in May 1967 and never paid the rental fees to where in November 1967 they went to his house after sending him several warnings and a registered letter. The Yakima County Sheriff's Department finally went out and arrested him and hauled him in. I wasn't so much interested in the wrongdoing as much as I was interested in the numbers on the camera and the number of the lens.
It's difficult, very difficult after all these years. A lot of people have died since then. Patterson hadn't paid any rental. It was something simple like $30 dollars a month, or mabye $50. And he didn't pay it. And there was something else. The check bounced. He bought something like $300 or $400 worth of film, and something about a check bouncing. Roger wasn't very good with money. And Roger didn't have a very good reputation as far as paying his bills. Most of us believed that when he left, there were bills all over the place, from what we heard. He didn't have a very good reputation in that area." - Peter Byrne (TMoB, p. 186-187)
On October 17, 1967 the Superior Court of Yakima issued an arrest warrant. This was three days before he was supposed to have filmed Patty on October 20, 1967. The warrant was served on November 28, 1967. So Patterson borrowed $700 from Vilma Radford he said he needed for a camera. One that he never paid anything. But there is a problem - he already had the camera from Sheppard's. The arrest warrant issued gives May 13, 1967 as the day Patterson took the camera. So if he got $700 from Vilma, where did it go?
""We ran out of money (for the film). We had $700. Well, Roger and I went down to Hollywood to try to get some money." - Jerry Merritt (TMoB, p. 110)
Note:
- Witnesses signatures are Jane King and Nora Hanharan, Radford's nextdoor neighbours.
- When Vilma Radford came to Patterson's home in early 1968 to try and get her money returned after months of letters threatening legal action (She was in Los Angeles at the time), Patterson responded to her, "Awww, I don't even know where that note is. You've got to prove it to me."
- In the file that Vilma Radford kept the original contract, she also kept the receipt for a check for $200 that George Radford had lent to Jerry Merritt one week before Patterson came to Vilma for money. A note on the receipt states, "Contingent on 10% share of Big Foot contract." It was signed by Merritt.
Tag words: Vilma Radford, George Radford, Jerry Merritt, contract, swindled.
