Creepy Myths and Fairytales

The Beast of Bray Road

The first werewolf sighting to go public occurred (perhaps fittingly) on October 31, 1999. A young woman named Doristine Gipson, from nearby Elkhorn, was driving along Bray Road near Delavan. As she neared the intersection of Hospital Road, she leaned over to change the station on her radio when she felt her right front tire jump off the ground as if she had hit something. Concerned, she stopped the car and got out to see what it was. Finding nothing on the roadway behind her car, she began to look around. As she peered into the darkness, she suddenly saw a dark, hairy form racing toward her. She did not see what the figure looked like from the distance at which she was standing (about 50 feet) but she did see the figure was quite bulky and she would later compare the form to someone who works out continually with weights. Startled by the oncoming form, and by the sounds of its "heavy feet", she quickly retreated to her car. She jumped in and was attempting to drive away when the beast jumped onto her trunk. Luckily, it was too wet for the creature to hang on and it fell off onto the pavement. Doristine returned to the site later on that evening with a young girl that she was taking out trick-or-treating and saw a large form on the side of the road. When she saw the creature moving, she ordered the child to lock her door and drove quickly away from the scene.

She had no idea what she had seen but wondered if perhaps it might be a bear, angry because she had struck it with her car. Regardless, she told a neighbor about the encounter the next day and showed her the scratched car. As word spread, more local people began to step forward with their own encounters with the beast, dating back to 1989.

One night in the fall of that year, 24 year old bar manager Lorianne Endrizzi was rounding a curve on Bray Road (just a half mile from the site of the later incident) and saw what she thought was a person kneeling and hunched over on the side of the road. When she slowed down, she took a closer look at the figure on the passenger side of the car. She was no more than six feet away from it at the time. The sighting lasted for about 45 seconds and she stated that she clearly saw a beast with grayish, brown hair, fangs and pointed ears. "His face was ... long and snouty, like a wolf".

For the Complete Story of the "Beast of Bray Road", see the book and Website from Linda Godfrey! Click on the Book Cover Above!

She also noted that even though the car's headlights were pointed ahead down the roadway, the creature's eyes glowed with a yellowish color, just like an animal's will do when reflected car lights. Like Doris Gipson, she also saw how wide and powerful the creature's chest and build were. She went on to add that the arms of the beast were rather strange. They were jointed as a man's would be and it seemed to be holding food with its palms upward, completely like any animal that she had ever heard of. The arms were muscular ("like a man who had worked out a little bit") and the creature seemed to have human-like fingers with claws on the ends. She did not notice any sort of tail but did say that its back legs were behind it, like a person would be if kneeling.

Endrizzi was completely unnerved by the sighting. She later stated in an interview that the creature "appeared to be so human-like that it was scary." He own answer to what she had seen was that it had been a "freak of nature". She had no idea what it could have been until she saw a book at the library that had an illustration of a werewolf in it. It so closely resembled what she had seen on Bray Road that her "eyes popped out" of her head.

After hearing Doris Gipson's account by way of rumor, Endrizzi contacted the Lakeland Animal Shelter and her mother contacted a local newspaper writer named Linda Godfrey, hoping that publicity might encourage other people who had encountered the creature to come forward. The story that followed was published on December 29, 1991 and while it contained basic information about the Gipson and Endrizzi sightings (using pseudonyms for the two women), it also included some scanty information on other sightings. It also mentioned that chickens had been stolen and than another family who lived near Bray Road had experienced their own close encounter with the beast. Karen Bowey, who actually lived along Bowers Road, stated that her daughter Heather (age 11) had seen the creature back in 1989. They had been playing outside and though they had spotted a large dog - until it stood up. She mentioned the odd shape of its back legs and the speed at which it could move. The county humane officer, John Frederickson, told the reporter that he believed the creature was a "coyote" but he did concede that there were a lot of people who believed that they had seen something out of the ordinary. He admitted that he was not sure what to make of it.