Georgia Hoaxers Should Keep The Money
by Billy Joe-Bob
Sometimes fraud is not really fraud in the Silly South.
The law will determine whether California-based Bigfoot tracker Tom Biscardi gets back the $50,000 he paid to two Georgia hoaxers who claimed to have discovered a carcass of the thus far mythical man-ape in the North Georgia woods.
Regardless of how the issue is settled as briefs are filed and depositions and hearings are held, simple justice, at least as it is understood in much of the South, right now decrees one thing: Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer should be able to keep the money.
According to a report issued on Wednesday, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Searching for Bigfoot Inc. “paid for the rights to the men’s story and their find.” Further, according to a posting that was available on the Bigfoot search firm’s web site Thursday, Whitton and Dyer were paid before the company performed even the most cursory due diligence to determine whether the men had, in fact, found a Bigfoot.
The web posting, by Steve Kulls, executive director of Sasquatch Detective and host of a Sasquatch radio show, reports that Biscardi came to Georgia and was given some material for DNA testing Aug. 2. Eight days later, Biscardi received an e-mail from a University of Minnesota biologist noting, according to Kulls, that “the size of the DNA was consistent with human/ape DNA.” In actuality, the DNA came from a human and an opossum, according to media reports.
Kulls goes on to note that “on or about” Aug. 12, Whitton and Dyer requested an advance, which was paid two days later. It only was after the money was counted the two Georgia men led Searching for Bigfoot representatives to what Kulls described as “a freezer with something appearing large, hairy, and frozen in ice.”
It wasn’t until five days later, as the supposed Bigfoot was being thawed, that Biscardi was notified that he’d been hoodwinked. According to Kulls’ account, “As the team and I began examining an area near the feet, I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot.”
Certainly, the two hoaxers are not entirely without blame in this incident. While it’s understandable that Dyer, a used-car salesman, might not be particularly uncomfortable with stretching the truth, it’s a bit disconcerting that Whitton, a police officer, apparently also had no qualms about proceeding with the hoax. Whitton has, quite properly, been terminated from his position at the Clayton County Police Department.
That said, it’s clear from the timeline posted on his own organization’s web site Biscardi was more than reckless in transferring $50,000 to the two Georgia men without incontrovertible evidence he was getting what he was paying for, a Bigfoot corpse. For that reason alone, Biscardi deserves to lose the money to Whitton and Dyer.
But there’s something else at work here, too, something that will resonate with any Southerner who has dealt once too often with the all too widely held perception the land below the Mason-Dixon line is populated by nothing but clueless rubes.
Well, when a couple of good ol’ boys can wrangle a big payday out of a Halloween costume and some animal entrails, who exactly is the “rube” in that transaction?
And if it happens to cost a California Bigfoot huckster $50,000 to learn that lesson, well, that’s just a bit of elemental justice at work.
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Honest John on Saturday, August 23, 2008Was the amount of $50k officially announced?
“Tom Biscardi claims to have paid an undisclosed sum”
Some-where the $50k was thrown in, I think by a reporter, but it never came from Biscardy, yet.What ever the amount, could them boy’s really be in trouble?
They might have it made in the shade?
I’m sure there’s loop holes in every Bigfoot contract!The lawyers will also get their share.
