Florida duo making film about area werewolves
From the Janesville, WI Gazette;
Monday, September 19, 2005
By Sue Yanny
Gazette Staff
ELKHORN-After setting up cameras and lights in the living room of Linda
Godfrey's home on Friday afternoon, Steve Grabo and Jan Day asked Godfrey
questions while capturing her responses on film. They asked her about a topic on
which she has become an expert-the man/wolf, as she prefers to call it. Grabo
and Day are members of the Misplaced Comedy Group, comic actors based out of
Sarasota, Fla. They're making a documentary through Grabo Productions based on
Godfrey's book titled "The Beast of Bray Road-Tailing Wisconsin's Werewolf."
But there won't be anything funny about it.
"We want to make this as scary and entertaining and awesome as possible," Day
said. Grabo and Day started filming their documentary on Friday with an
interview with Godfrey. They hoped to interview some people from Walworth and
Rock counties over the weekend who say they've seen men/wolves. They were
assisted by Day's sister, Maryanna Philippsen of Williams Bay. Godfrey is a
writer and artist who lives in rural Elkhorn.
In addition to "The Beast of Bray Road-Tailing Wisconsin's Werewolf," Godfrey
has written a book titled "The Poison Widow" and co-written a book with Richard
Hendricks titled "Weird Wisconsin." She is currently working on two new
books-one titled "Hunting the American Werewolf" and the other titled "Weird
Michigan." Godfrey first wrote about man/wolf sightings when she was a freelance
reporter for The Walworth County Week. Her article appeared in the paper on Dec.
29, 1991. "I never, ever expected it would lead to a career," she said. Godfrey
wrote in the article about people who had seen men/wolves in the vicinity of
Bray Road near Elkhorn. They described the creature as being 6- or 7-feet tall
with a wolf-like head and dark fur that walked on two feet like a person.
After the story was picked by The Janesville Gazette and then was picked up by
other newspapers, Godfrey started getting calls from other people in Wisconsin
and elsewhere who had seen similar creatures. "I became at once the keeper of
werewolf lore and a national werewolf expert through no intention of my own,"
she said. People typically see the men/wolves at night in late summer and into
fall, Godfrey said. They haven't been physically harmed by them, but they are
sometimes emotionally scarred by having seen them, she said. "They think about
it for the rest of their lives," she said. "Often, they're very traumatized by
it." People shouldn't go out looking for the men/wolves on Bray Road because
they haven't been seen there in nine years, Godfrey said. Those who go out
looking for them don't end up seeing them anyway, she said.
What made Grabo and Day want to make a film about werewolves in the first place?
An experience that Philippsen had recently piqued their interest. Philippsen
said she was in her small log cabin with a thatched roof in Williams Bay late
one night in April when she heard something jump on her roof. "It shook the
whole house and then it proceeded to run from the back of the house to the front
of the house," she said. "It sounded like a 180-pound man running across the
roof in gym shoes." Philippsen heard a crash and then silence. Her two dogs
jumped in her lap and shook with fear. They didn't bark-which was unusual for
them. The next morning, Philippsen found her flowerbeds a mess. And then she saw
the tracks in them.
"I saw these humongous tracks in the mulch of the flowerbeds-and that's when I
freaked out," she said. A Williams Bay police officer wasn't sure what kind of
animal had made the tracks. He speculated that it might have been a deer. He
also mentioned that a cougar had been seen in the area recently. Philippsen
contacted Godfrey, who made casts of the tracks and sent them to the state
Department of Natural Resources. The DNR couldn't identify them. Later, Day
found a tuft of dark fur in Philippsen's yard. The DNR said it likely came from
a wolf or a wolf hybrid. "I don't believe it was a deer," Philippsen said. "I
don't believe it was a cougar. It was definitely an animal that was running
around on two legs."