D'autres enfin pensent a des ours, ce qui pourraient plus correspondre aux dégâts infligés au véhicule.

Le chat de la famille a disparut, aucune trace ni rien n'a été retrouvé... Mais il n'est pas le seul, une vingtaine de chat ont aussi disparut, certains habitants de la région commence a s'inquiéter car après les chats, la voiture semble être un plus gros partie, et des enfants pourrait se trouver sur le chemin de ce qui a détruit cette voiture le risque semble maintenant important.

September 3, 1988 — Lee County, South Carolina — The 17-year-old youth who created an international Lizard Man frenzy has passed a private polygraph test about his encounter with the 7-foot creature, his promoters say.

Polygraph experts say that means Davis believes he saw what he said he saw — a red-eyed greenish creature that chased him on a rural county road. Others put as much stock in polygraphs as they do Lizard Men.

Lee County Sheriff Liston Truesdale said another “eyewitness” claims in a sworn statement to have crossed paths with the creature last fall. Yet another man reported seeing a “brownish creature about 8 feet tall” eight days ago. Truesdale’s office investigated, and the sheriff said he will administer a polygraph test to the man, a colonel living in Lee County, next week. “Everyone who reports seeing something will be given a polygraph test,” Truesdale said.

Sumter Police Capt. Earl Berry administered Davis’ polygraph Aug. 18 at the Sumter City-County Law Enforcement Center.

The test was paid for by Southern Marketing Inc., a company formed by two Sumter men to arrange personal appearances for Davis, and Berry said he could not release the results. Davis said his father wanted him to undergo the exam “to prove I’m telling the truth.” Rick Welch, a former Sumter police detective and a partner with Randy Galloway in Southern Marketing, said he and Galloway arranged to have the test done “to satisfy our minds. Some in the media are saying he might be on drugs or strung out on drugs.” ” What put the icing on the cake was one weekend we had some young boys picking on him, so we wanted to set the record straight.”

Welch said the questions Davis correctly answered included: “Was the creature that attacked your car green and black? Were you drinking or smoking drugs? Were you really driving 35 mph when a creature jumped on your car? Did it occur immediately following your changing a flat tire?”

While police rely on polygraph exams as an investigative tool — often eliciting a confession — results are rarely allowed in court because of contentions that polygraph testing is not an exact science. “We’ve long been opposed to them because of their unreliability and invasiveness. They’re probably as reliable as the Lizard Man story itself,” said Charles Taylor, director of the Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment.

About 10 percent of those undergoing polygraph exams — including people who suffer from mental illnesses like psychosis, schizophrenia or paranoia — would not be good polygraph subjects and probably would provide inconclusive results, veteran examiner Frank Faulk said. “If a person really believes he didn’t commit a crime or was so drunk he doesn’t remember it, he could possibly pass it,” said Faulk, who retired in 1978 after 27 years as the State Law Enforcement Division’s chief polygraph examiner.

Truesdale said he had been looking for another Browntown resident who told a deputy in June he saw a creature in the swamp last fall. The deputy didn’t put much stock in the story until Davis made his claim. “What adds credibility to his story is that we knew about him before we knew about Chris Davis,” the sheriff said. “We’ve been looking for him but couldn’t find him.”

In an Aug. 13 statement, George Holloman Jr., a 31-year-old construction worker, said he had ridden a bike to a flowing spring about 12:30 a.m. one day last fall. Holloman drank some water, lit a cigarette, turned around and “saw it across the road,” Truesdale said.

“What he saw, he thought, was a dead tree that had been struck by lightning. Then it moved.” The sheriff said Holloman described it as between 7 and 8 feet tall, and it “stood up like a man,” Truesdale said. “A car passed by, and that’s when he saw the eyes. He said they glowed when the car passed.” The creature went back in the swamp after the car passed, Holloman told the sheriff. “He thought it was a ‘hant,’ ” what rural folks call ghosts, the sheriff said. Truesdale said Holloman told no one of the encounter. “When he did tell his family, his brother thought he was going fool.”

Published: Saturday, September 3, 1988 Section: METRO/REGION - Page: 1C
By JAN TUTEN, Camden Bureau

The Lizard Man in 2008
Ironically, almost twenty years after the Lizard Man craze put Bishopville on the map, the story would once again generate worldwide interest. On February 28, Bishopville residents Bob and Dixie Rawson awoke to find their minivan heavily damaged by strange bite marks and scratches. The front grill appeared chewed up, as were the wheel wells where the metal had been literally pried back. In addition, several of their cats were missing and the towels that were in the boxes the cats slept in were torn to shreds, along with the morning newspaper. Even more troublesome was the corpses of a coyote and cow that were found in a field merely yards from the vehicle, though there was no official account as to the cause of the death. Still, neighbors reportedly told the couple that Lizard Man might be the culprit.

Bishopville sheriff E.J. Melvin came to personally inspect the damage and to search for any further carcasses. His initial guess was that the damage had been caused by a coyote, but told WIS News 10 out of Columbia that, "All the scratch marks, people are saying, 'Sheriff, it's Lizard Man.' Don't know. It's hard to say." Police were able to extract samples of blood from the damage to the automobile, but the Department of Natural Resources initially reported that the samples had unfortunately been contaminated. For their part, the department attributed the damage to a dog trying to get at the cats underneath the car.

Still, the incident was enough to revive interest in the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp and footage of the damage to the couple's car was featured on news reports from around the world in early March. The new coverage even attracted the attention of controversial Bigfoot investigator, Tom Biscardi, and his California-based organization Searching for Bigfoot. The team arrived by the end of March and started a two-day investigation to try and track down what they believed to be a Bigfoot-like creature. Biscardi explained to WIS News 10, "I'm going to tell you, it's not a Lizard Man. What you've got is a primate, a thing called a swamp ape." Their investigation turned up nothing, but they reportedly have plans to return to the area in the near future for a more extensive search for the elusive creature.

Despite those initial reports that the blood sample had been contaminated, apparently some samples were still valid. On May 15, a veterinary lab based out of California announced the results of their testing and pinpointed the culprit as a domestic dog. The findings did little to satisfy the Rawsons, who expressed disbelief that a normal dog could cause as much damage as was done to the vehicle, while also doubting that a "7-foot green man" caused it. Sheriff Melvin also had his reservations, sticking with his initial theory of a coyote or wolf.

Bishopville Today
There have been no further reports of damage to vehicles or sightings of either lizard or Bigfoot-like creatures in or around Bishopville. Still, the recent case has renewed an interest in the story of the Lizard Man of South Carolina, so there may be future developments. Today, the town still takes pride in their cryptid neighbor and a faded sign still reportedly sits on the edge of town that declares, "The Home of the Lizardman."