Laurie Duda

Missouri, 2016

I don’t live in St. Louis county anymore, but in 2016 I was there visiting and showing the kids where their dad grew up. He used to hunt on Howell Island years ago when it was owned by a little old man that used to have fields there he managed and grew crops on. I was having heart surgery the next day and wasn’t sure how it was going to go so I wanted to make good memories with the kids by going there. All went fine with the surgery and I went on to have two more surgeries and I’m still here.

I have always believed in Bigfoot and always thought that if I saw one I would handle it in such and such a way. Well my kids and I saw one. We were at Howell Island State Park hiking. I didn’t handle it anything like I thought I would!

I was so shocked and terrified I was unable to think clearly. I do remember thinking, “I am going to have to fight this thing!” I had a million thoughts a second while standing there. Like how am I going to make my kids run for it. . . where will they go, my keys are in my pocket. . . what am I going to do? Luckily it didn’t want anything to do with us!

It crossed the path and went into the woods on the other side. We went home and told their father about it and he didn’t believe it. He had hunted on that island as a kid and knew there were lots of hogs and deer there but nothing else. So about three days later he is watching the six o clock evening news and what comes up? “People are making reports of seeing Bigfoot on Howell Island”, that’s what. The only thing he could say was, “Well I’ll be damned!”

This experience sort of ruined hiking trails for me. I haven’t been able to go back to that place or any other wild place since.  The whole thing is imprinted into my mind for forever I guess. I’ll never forget that feeling of shaking off the woes me and realizing that I am going to have to fight this thing for our lives. Primitive, ancestral instinct.

Description:

Using the montage of Sybilla Irwins drawing at the top of this page as a guide, the one we saw was very close to the second from the left and the last one on right. It had a long thin nose that was broken and pushed to the side. It looked like he had two black eyes too. I, for a couple seconds thought it was a man crouched down there. I specifically remember thinking ‘Man that has got to hurt’. Then I noticed the skin color and then the hair framing the face and my heart fell down to my feet. He looked like he ran into the side of a truck or got smashed in the face. His mouth was not open at all so I saw no teeth. To be frank, he looked like George Harrison. That long face and broody eyes.