THE WEREWOLF OF DEFIANCE: Terror in the Railroad Towns of Northwest Ohio

THE WEREWOLF OF DEFIANCE: Terror in the Railroad Towns of Northwest Ohio

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THE WEREWOLF OF DEFIANCE: Terror in the Railroad Towns of Northwest Ohio

In the summer of 1972, something walked upright through Defiance, Ohio, wielding a two-by-four – and it was just the beginning of decades of encounters across northwest Ohio.

Those freight trains still roll through Defiance, Ohio after midnight, their whistles slicing through the darkness exactly the way they did back in the summer of 1972. But talk to anyone who lived through that season, and you’ll hear about something else moving through those shadows. Something that carried a weapon. Something that wore torn clothing. Something that turned a quiet railroad town into a place where people were genuinely afraid.

What happened in Defiance wasn’t some isolated weirdness. The encounters on those train tracks represent one piece of a much larger, much more disturbing pattern that’s been unfolding across northwestern Ohio and the broader Great Lakes region for decades now. Creatures spotted in Napoleon. Terrifying confrontations near Paulding. A sheriff’s encounter at an abandoned farmhouse. A hunter’s nightmare deep in the woods. The pattern suggests something walks these lands on two legs, possessing human intelligence combined with predatory ferocity.

What follows comes from newspaper archives, police files, witness testimony, and academic collections. This documentation represents one of America’s most persistent and deeply unsettling cryptid phenomena.

Part I: The Summer of Terror – Defiance, 1972

The First Attack

Ted Davis was doing routine work on July 25, 1972. Nothing special about the night. He’d connected air hoses between train cars hundreds of times during his overnight shifts for the Norfolk and Western Railway. That particular night found him working near Fifth Street in Defiance, his attention focused downward on the coupling mechanism between two cars. Then something appeared in his peripheral vision. Two massive, hair-covered feet. Standing directly in front of him. On the railroad tracks.

Davis looked up slowly. The thing standing over him measured somewhere between six and eight feet tall, its body covered in dark, matted hair. It hunched forward slightly, holding itself more like a person than an animal. What scared Davis: it gripped a large wooden board in what looked distinctly like hands rather than paws. The board appeared to be roughly two-by-four dimensions.

Davis didn’t get a chance to speak or think. The creature swung. The board caught him square on the shoulder. Davis stumbled backward. The thing bolted into the darkness, disappearing into brush along the Maumee River.

Shaken and nursing what would become a serious bruise, Davis reported the attack to Defiance police. The response was predictable skepticism. Werewolves existed in movies like the 1941 film The Wolf Man, which The Crescent-News would later reference in their coverage of the incidents. Police filed the report but didn’t take immediate action.

When the Skeptic Became a Believer

Tom Jones heard about the alleged attack from his coworker Davis. Like most people would, Jones assumed either a prank or maybe Davis had encountered someone in a costume. Jones even gave his colleague some grief about “seeing monsters in the night.”

That changed five days later on July 30. Both Davis and Jones were working the overnight run when they spotted the creature again. This time it appeared at a safer distance, moving through bushes near the main track. The thing stood upright on two legs. Later, speaking with The Toledo Blade, both men described the movement as going “from side to side, like a caveman in the movies.”

The creature’s appearance matched what Davis had seen before. Both men gave reporters nearly identical descriptions: between six and eight feet tall, covered in thick dark fur, with a distinctly wolf-like head featuring prominent canine teeth. They described “huge hairy feet, fangs, and ran from side to side.”

Jones could account for every single member of the rail crew that night. Everyone was present and working. Whatever prowled out there in the darkness wasn’t a coworker pulling some elaborate joke. Both men watched the creature for several moments before it seemed to sense their presence. Then it startled and fled into the woods with remarkable speed.

The two railroad workers heard screaming coming from a car stopped on a nearby road. Someone else had seen it too.

Davis later told The Toledo Blade: “I was connecting an air hose between two cars and was looking down. I saw these huge hairy feet, then looked up and he was standing there with a big stick over his shoulder. When I started to say something, he took off for the woods.”

Jones added his own chilling observation to reporters: “At first I thought the whole thing was a big joke, but when I saw how hairy and woolly it was, that was enough for me.” He noted that he’d laughed at Davis earlier in the week, “but when I could account for all the railroad workers at the time, I knew it wasn’t a crewman’s joke.”

Jones concluded: “That thing’s going to hurt somebody someday.”

The Moon Connection

Both men emphasized one particular detail in their testimony: the moon. Davis told reporters: “When we leave here the moon is usually about a quarter full, but about 4 a.m., when we’re working Defiance, the moon is full.”

July 25, 1972—the night of that first attack on Davis—fell one day before the full moon. To anyone looking up that week, the moon would have appeared completely full. The Crescent-News tried to discount the werewolf theory by noting that “none [of the sightings] has happened during a full moon,” but the timing aligned perfectly with traditional lycanthropy lore.

The Third Witness

Police Chief Donald Breckler couldn’t ignore the reports anymore. Multiple witnesses were coming forward. The third sighting involved an unnamed grocery store employee driving home from a late shift around 4 a.m. The man reported that an impossibly large, dog-like creature matching the earlier descriptions ran directly in front of his vehicle before disappearing into the darkness.

All three witnesses described a bipedal creature standing between six and nine feet tall—though Chief Breckler later suggested these height estimates were “a little exaggerated”—covered in dark hair with huge hairy feet and prominent fangs. Some accounts mentioned the creature wore torn dark clothing. One witness claimed to have seen it wearing ragged blue jeans.

Chief Breckler told reporters: “We don’t know what to think. We didn’t release it to the news media when we got the first report about a week ago. But now we’re taking it seriously. We’re concerned for the safety of our people.”

He went on to describe what witnesses had reported: “Very hairy is the first description given by each person who saw it. I think it’s a person wearing some disguise, such as a mask – but there’s a lot of natural hair too.”

The Toledo Blade and The Defiance Crescent-News picked up the story. Panic started spreading through the community.

Media Coverage and Public Response

The Crescent-News opened their August 2 coverage with that famous verse from The Wolf Man: “Even a man who is pure of heart, And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, And the moon is clear and bright.”

The article then noted, with obvious amusement, that Defiance Police were “possibly armed with silver bullets and sharpened stakes” as they searched for “a wolfman, who on three occasions, has accosted persons near the Norfolk and Western railroad tracks in the vicinity of Fifth Street and Swift and Co.”

Journalist Ellen Armstrong’s coverage added dark humor to what was genuinely terrifying many residents. The fear rippling through town was real, spreading faster than the actual sightings.

A Town on Edge

For several weeks after those initial sightings, Defiance existed in a state of heightened anxiety. Parents kept children indoors after sunset. Residents made certain their doors were locked at night. Some armed themselves. At least one resident, Rupert Figg, told reporters: “If I see him – the werewolf – the police are going to find out who he is. That’s because they’ll have to take him to the hospital to get the buckshot out.”

Additional reports flooded the police station, though many seemed driven more by panic than actual encounters. On August 3, The Crescent-News reported that three people sought police protection from “the thing,” though none had actually seen it.

One man arrived at the police station at 1:24 a.m., nearly hysterical, claiming something had followed him on foot from Deatrick and South Clinton Street to the Hotel Henry. He never saw what was following him but insisted he could feel its presence—described as “a crawly feeling up the back of his neck.” The report noted the man was “near hysteria” and spent the remainder of the night in the hotel lobby.

A north side resident called police around 2 a.m., terrified because someone or something had been rattling her doorknob at the same time every night. She told officers she’d read about “the thing” and was “scared to death.”

Another woman called to report scratching sounds at her door, warning officers that “if anything came through it I will shoot it.”

Will Brown, a railroad employee who cleaned out boxcars on the day shift, told reporters he’d heard the talk among nighttime workers. “They say he has hair all over and he’s about seven feet tall,” Brown said. “From what I’ve heard, I can say this guy is ugly as hell.”

The Official Investigation

Chief Breckler admitted the department was completely baffled. He speculated that the “disguised person”—as police were now calling it—might either live in the neighborhood or be “riding in on one of the trains each night from another town.”

The police investigation focused on two main theories: either someone in an elaborate costume, or someone with serious mental health issues who’d acquired or created some kind of animal disguise. The consistency of the descriptions suggested a single entity, but the wide patrol area and multiple sighting locations made surveillance difficult.

Residents interviewed by newspapers showed a range of reactions. Richard Ott, a local resident, told reporters: “I haven’t heard anybody talking about it. But I make sure my doors are locked at night.”

Kathy Kehnast expressed skepticism: “It just doesn’t sound like something that would happen in this neighborhood. This is probably the safest neighborhood around.”

Another resident acknowledged the fear’s impact on children: “I don’t think the adults are scared, but it’s scared a lot of children. I’ve got kids, and they’re on the lookout for him.”

One woman living right next to the train tracks hadn’t seen the creature but told police the reports had put her “in a state of shock.”

The Silence That Followed

The sightings stopped as suddenly as they’d started. By mid-August 1972, no new reports came in. The creature—whatever it had been—vanished as mysteriously as it appeared. The railroad yards returned to normal operations. The panic subsided. Life in Defiance went back to its regular rhythm.

Police never made an arrest. No physical evidence was recovered beyond those consistent eyewitness accounts. Chief Breckler admitted that “descriptions are too vague” to identify any specific person. The official police theory settled on a person in disguise, possibly someone with mental health issues or simply a prankster who’d taken things too far.

The mystery remained, though. Who would orchestrate such an elaborate and sustained hoax? Why target railroad workers specifically? And the most puzzling question: why did it end so abruptly?

Part II: The Tiffin Connection

Harold Annon’s Encounter

The Defiance werewolf wasn’t happening in isolation. During that same summer of 1972, Harold Annon of 155 Thomas Street in Tiffin—about 30 miles southeast of Defiance—reported seeing an “ape-like animal” while walking along a wooded area on River Road north of town.

According to the Seneca County sheriff’s report, Annon described the creature as “covered in hair with wolfish ears and fangs.” It stood six or seven feet tall and was hunched over. When the creature spotted Annon, he ran for his car and drove away.

Seneca County game warden Weldon Neff investigated the area around 6 p.m. but found no tracks or signs of disturbance. The similarity to the Defiance encounters seemed more than coincidental: the bipedal posture, the height, the wolf-like features, the timing.

Some researchers have speculated that the same creature or creatures moved between locations along the railroad corridors connecting northwestern Ohio communities. Others suggest multiple entities operating in the region simultaneously.

Part III: Four Decades of Terror – The BGSU Archives

In 2025, researchers at Bowling Green State University’s Archives and Special Collections uncovered four detailed firsthand accounts from Ohio residents who encountered werewolf or dogman creatures in northwestern Ohio between 1989 and 2014. These accounts, preserved in personal journals and witness statements, paint a disturbing picture of ongoing encounters spanning multiple decades.

The Napoleon Incident (1989) – Bill Kowalski

Bill Kowalski’s account begins simply: “Never been much for putting things down on paper, but my daughter Amy got me this journal after what happened. Says it might help. Maybe she’s right.”

Kowalski had worked maintenance at Campbell Soup for 23 years. He was a reliable, working-class man with three grown children. He’d driven the same route home from his night shift for years—County Road P between Napoleon and Florida, running along the Maumee River. He knew every curve, every landmark.

October 17, 1989 changed everything.

“It was around 3 AM,” Kowalski wrote. “Air was crisp, leaves were falling. Full moon made the river look like silver. I’d just finished a twelve-hour shift. Was thinking about Linda’s pot roast in the fridge when my headlights caught something by the water.”

He thought deer at first. Common enough in that area. Then it moved. The thing had been drinking from the river like a dog, but when it stood up, Kowalski’s heart stopped.

“Had to be eight feet if it was an inch,” he recorded. “Built like those wrestlers my boy Tommy watches, but covered in this dark, matted fur. Not black exactly, more like dark brown with gray patches. Its eyes though… Jesus, those eyes. Reflected amber in my headlights, but they weren’t animal eyes. Had intelligence in them. Malice too.”

Then Kowalski’s 1982 Chevy died. “Engine just cut out, radio too. Started pumping the gas, turning the key, whole time watching this thing in my rearview.”

The creature approached the truck with what Kowalski described as “kind of a rolling walk on its back legs, arms – and they were arms, not front legs – swinging at its sides. Had these massive hands with claws that looked like black daggers.”

When it pressed its face against the driver’s side window, Kowalski could see teeth “longer than my fingers.” The creature’s breath fogged the glass. Spider-web cracks began spreading through the window under the pressure.

“I’m not ashamed to say I was crying, praying to God and promising everything under the sun if He’d just let me start that truck,” Kowalski wrote. “The window was starting to bow inward when the engine finally caught. Never hit the gas so hard in my life.”

Looking back as he fled, Kowalski saw the creature standing in the middle of the road, watching him go.

The encounter haunted him permanently. He quit working night shifts immediately, taking a significant pay cut. He started drinking heavily for a time before his wife Linda helped him through it. He began attending church regularly again, seeking spiritual comfort.

“Tried telling a few people at work, but you know how that goes,” he wrote. “Some laughed, some shared their own stories in whispers.”

Kowalski discovered he wasn’t the first to see something unusual in that location. “Found out I wasn’t the first to see something out there,” he noted. “Old-timers at the VFW, they knew. Talk about things they saw in the ’60s and ’70s, same area. Similar descriptions too.”

Twenty-five years later, when he wrote his account, Kowalski still drove that stretch of road sometimes—but never at night. “When my grandson Timmy begs to go camping by the river, I make up excuses,” he admitted. “Linda says I’m being silly, that whatever I saw must’ve moved on. Maybe she’s right.”

He didn’t believe it, though. “Sometimes, driving that road in broad daylight, I catch myself looking at the tree line. And sometimes, just sometimes, I swear something’s looking back. My hands shake so bad I can barely hold the wheel. Because deep down, I know what’s out there. Know it’s still watching, still waiting. And I pray my grandkids never have to see what I saw that night by the Maumee River.”

The Paulding Woods (1995) – Derek Weber

Derek Weber’s encounter came on a September afternoon in 1995. As a land surveyor for the county, Weber had spent most weekends hunting or fishing. He knew the woods of northwestern Ohio intimately. Or thought he did.

“I never meant to spend that night in the woods,” Weber’s account begins. He was mapping properties east of Paulding where developers were planning new construction. Usually he worked with a partner, but Steve had called in sick that day.

“Should’ve waited for him, but I had deadlines,” Weber wrote. “Figured I could handle the basic measurements myself.”

He got a late start, arriving around 4 p.m. The property consisted mostly of old-growth forest, thick with oak and maple. The sun set faster than expected, but Weber wanted to finish surveying the northeast corner. His measuring wheel got stuck in some brambles.

While untangling it, Weber heard “this weird sound – like somebody dragging something heavy through the leaves. Thought maybe it was a deer at first, but it was too deliberate, too rhythmic.”

Then came the smell. “Anyone who’s ever been around dogs knows that wet dog smell – this was similar but wrong somehow. Musky, wild, with something else underneath. Something that made my lizard brain scream ‘run.'”

Weber clicked on his heavy-duty Maglite and swung it toward the sound. At first he saw nothing, just trees and shadows. Then something moved behind a big oak.

“The height’s what got me first – had to be over seven feet,” Weber wrote. “Built like a bodybuilder but covered in this thick, grayish-brown fur. Its head was massive, shaped like a wolf’s but bigger than any wolf should be. Eyes reflected green in my flashlight, and they were focused right on me.”

The creature stepped out from behind the tree, moving on two legs “like it was the most natural thing in the world. Its hands – and they were hands, not paws – had these long fingers with black claws.”

Weber dropped his equipment and ran. Behind him, he could hear the creature moving through the woods, keeping pace easily. “Didn’t sound like it was chasing me exactly, more like it was herding me. Every time I tried to angle back toward my truck, there’d be a crash of branches from that direction, forcing me to change course.”

He spent six hours lost in those woods, running until his legs gave out, hiding, then running again whenever he heard it moving nearby. He finally stumbled onto County Road 176 around 3 a.m. and walked three miles back to his truck.

His equipment was there the next morning, “neatly piled. Nothing broken, nothing missing. But there were prints in the soft earth around it – huge canine prints, but the weight distribution was all wrong, like something that walked on two legs.”

Weber quit his job the following week. “Couldn’t handle being in the woods alone anymore,” he admitted. “Took a pay cut to work construction in Fort Wayne.”

His wife—then girlfriend—found him crying in their bedroom one night. When he told her everything, she believed him. Or at least believed that he believed it. Weber began researching similar stories, discovering the Defiance werewolf sightings from the 1970s, just thirty miles away. He talked to old-timers who had their own encounters. “Most wouldn’t say much, just shook their heads and changed the subject.”

Twenty years later, Weber still struggled with the memory. “I still wake up sometimes, heart pounding, thinking I smell that weird musky odor. My kids don’t understand why I won’t go camping with them. How do you tell your children that there are things in this world that science can’t explain? That somewhere in the woods of Northwest Ohio, there’s something that walks like a man but isn’t one?”

Weber kept a loaded rifle by his bed. “Some nights, when the wind blows just right, I swear I can hear howling from the direction of Paulding. Those nights, I lock the doors, close the curtains, and try to convince myself that what I saw was just a trick of light and shadow. But deep down, I know better.”

The Defiance Connection (2008) – Mike Sullivan

Perhaps the most credible account comes from Mike Sullivan, a career law enforcement officer with the Defiance County Sheriff’s Department. His grandfather had been chief of police in the 1960s, and Sullivan grew up hearing the old stories—including the 1972 Defiance werewolf cases.

“When I first joined the force, the old-timers would talk about the ’72 incidents – what they called the ‘Defiance Werewolf’ cases,” Sullivan wrote. “Chief Morris had a whole file on it. Multiple sightings, livestock killings, weird tracks. Back then, I thought it was just local legend, something to scare rookies with.”

July 16, 2008 changed his mind.

Sullivan was working third shift when he got a call around 2 a.m. about suspicious activity near the old Miller farmhouse off County Road 424. The property had been abandoned since the 1990s and occasionally attracted teenagers looking for a party spot.

“The Miller place has history,” Sullivan noted. “During the ’72 incidents, there were multiple sightings around that property. Old man Miller claimed something killed his cattle, left weird tracks. The papers blamed it on a bear, but my grandfather told me different. Said he’d seen something out there that didn’t have a name.”

Sullivan pulled up with his lights off, using just his spotlight to check the perimeter. The farmhouse was falling apart—broken windows, collapsing roof, nature reclaiming the structure. His flashlight beam caught movement through one of the broken windows. Then he heard it: “this deep, rumbling sound, like a growl but bigger somehow.”

Protocol dictated waiting for backup on suspicious calls, but Sullivan felt compelled to investigate. “The old wooden porch creaked under my feet. That’s when I saw it through the doorway – this massive shape, hunched over what I later confirmed was a fresh deer carcass.”

The creature “must’ve been seven, maybe eight feet tall. Built like a linebacker but covered in dark fur.” When Sullivan’s light hit it, the thing turned and looked directly at him. “Those eyes… they weren’t animal eyes. They had intelligence, awareness. The snout was wolf-like but bigger, with teeth that would put a timber wolf to shame.”

The creature stood up straight and simply stared at Sullivan for what felt like hours but was probably thirty seconds. “I had my hand on my Glock, but something told me it wouldn’t have helped.”

Then it moved. “The speed was impossible. One second it was there, the next it was crashing through the back wall of the house like it was made of paper.”

Sullivan pursued on foot and watched the creature running on all fours across the field “hitting 40 mph easy. The way it moved… nothing that big should be able to move that fast.”

He called it in. Captain Phillips reviewed his grandfather’s old case files. “The photos from ’72 matched what I saw. Same description, same location. The old-timers weren’t crazy. The thing had been here all along.”

Sullivan visited his grandfather in the nursing home the next day. For the first time, he saw genuine fear in the old man’s eyes. His grandfather told him things that never made the papers in 1972—about tracks, cattle mutilations, officers who quit rather than work nights, and howls “too deep and loud to be normal wolves.”

“Started carrying silver bullets after that,” Sullivan admitted. “Not department issue, of course. Had them custom made. Other officers joke about it, but a few of the veterans quietly asked where I got them. We don’t talk about it officially, but we know. Something’s out there.”

The Miller place burned down in 2010. The official report said vandals, but Sullivan was first on scene. “Found tracks leading away from the fire – huge canine prints, but the stride length was all wrong, too long. Like something that normally walked on two legs had dropped to all fours.”

Now a sergeant working mostly day shifts, Sullivan still patrols that area around sunset. “Sometimes I hear howls out there, during the full moon. Not normal wolf howls – we don’t even have wolves in Ohio anymore. These are different. Deeper. Wrong.”

His oldest son planned to join the force. “I haven’t told him everything, but I’ve made sure he knows which areas to avoid at night.”

Sullivan concluded: “Because the thing about the Defiance Werewolf? It never really left. We just stopped looking for it.”

The Last Hunt (2014) – Ray Hutchins

Ray Hutchins had hunted the woods of Wyandot County for thirty years. He owned a sporting goods store in Upper Sandusky and had a reputation as the guy to call when someone needed help tracking a wounded animal. “Knew these woods better than I knew my own house,” he wrote.

November 12, 2014 was supposed to be a perfect hunting day. Hutchins had been tracking a massive fourteen-point buck for weeks, had him on trail cameras. The weather was ideal: light snow, temperature around 30 degrees, no wind.

Around noon, Hutchins found fresh tracks—the buck he’d been stalking. He followed the trail, moving slowly, reading the story in the snow. “That’s when I noticed the other tracks.”

At first he thought wolf, which was impossible—Ohio hasn’t had wolves since the 1800s. But the tracks were wrong. Too big, stride too long. “And they were following the same trail I was, tracking my buck.”

Hutchins should have turned back then. Thirty years of hunting experience told him something was wrong. But he pressed on. Around 1 p.m., he found blood sign. “Something had taken down my buck – there was a struggle area in the snow, drag marks leading into thicker cover.”

The drag trail led to an old drainage culvert, maybe eight feet in diameter. Blood and fur marked the entrance. Inside, Hutchins could see what remained of the buck. “Something had torn him apart.”

He heard it moving behind him then. “You spend enough time in the woods, you develop instincts. Mine were screaming.”

Hutchins turned slowly, nocking an arrow out of pure muscle memory. The creature “was standing on two legs, at least eight feet tall. Built like something that bench-pressed trucks for fun, but covered in this thick, dark fur. The head was wolf-like but massive, with teeth that would make a grizzly nervous. But the eyes… the eyes were almost human. Intelligent. Aware.”

His bow “felt like a toy.” The creature watched him, head tilted like it was curious. Then it smiled. “Actually smiled, showing all those teeth.”

The creature was holding something—Hutchins’s trail camera. “Must’ve found it when it was tracking the buck.” It dropped the camera and crushed it under one massive foot. The message was clear: no evidence.

“I’d like to say I stood my ground, but that’s not what happened. I ran.”

The creature followed, keeping pace easily. “It was playing with me. Could’ve caught me any time it wanted.”

Hutchins got lost for the first time in his life, stumbling through creek beds and thickets until he found Route 23. He called his wife to pick him up, unable to stop shaking enough to drive.

He went back the next day with three armed friends. They found the culvert, “but everything was gone – no deer, no blood, no tracks in the fresh snow. Like it never happened. But my trail camera was there, crushed flat.”

Hutchins began asking around. He discovered the Napoleon incident from 1989, the Paulding sightings from 1995, the Defiance reports. “All describing the same thing. All within fifty miles of each other.”

He sold his sporting goods store in January. “Couldn’t handle being around hunting gear anymore. My hands shake too bad to draw a bow now anyway.” He took a job at his brother’s insurance agency in Columbus.

His wife thought he’d had a breakdown. “Maybe she’s right.”

But Hutchins knew what he’d seen. “I’ve spent my life reading sign, understanding predator behavior. What I saw that day wasn’t just some animal. It knew what trail cameras were. It wanted me to know it was hunting me right back. And it’s not just one. The patterns, the sightings over decades… there’s more than one of them out there.”

Hutchins kept one old compound bow by his bed, “fitted with special broadheads – silver alloy. Cost me a fortune to have them custom made.”

Sometimes he wakes at night, “thinking I hear howls from the direction of those woods.” On bad nights, “I swear I can smell wet fur outside our bedroom window.”

He concluded with a disturbing thought: “The worst part isn’t what I saw that day. The worst part is knowing it saw me too. And remembering that smile, that terrible, knowing smile. Like it was saying, ‘Welcome to the bottom of the food chain.'”

Part IV: The Great Lakes Pattern

The Ohio encounters don’t exist in isolation. Cryptozoologists and researchers have documented similar sightings across the entire Great Lakes region, suggesting either a widespread cryptid population or a phenomenon that transcends simple biological explanation.

The Michigan Dogman

The Michigan Dogman has been reported since the late 19th century, with concentrated sightings occurring in seven-year cycles. An 1887 encounter by two lumberjacks near Wexford County represents one of the earliest documented cases. The creature was described as a seven-foot-tall wolf-like biped with blue eyes—a detail that recurs in many Michigan sightings.

In 1938, Paris, Michigan became the site of another encounter. A local resident reported seeing a creature “standing on its hind legs like a man, but with the head of a dog.” The witness described feeling paralyzed with terror as the creature stared at him before disappearing into the woods.

The 1987 sighting near Luther, Michigan sparked renewed interest in the phenomenon. Multiple witnesses described a creature that matched historical descriptions—bipedal, wolf-headed, muscular build, approximately seven feet tall. These sightings occurred near areas with Native American burial mounds, leading to speculation about connections to indigenous legends.

The Beast of Bray Road

Perhaps the most well-documented modern dogman case comes from Wisconsin. In late 1989 and through the early 1990s, Elkhorn and the surrounding Walworth County area experienced a wave of encounters centered on Bray Road.

In December 1991, the sightings caught the attention of Linda Godfrey, a reporter for the Walworth County Week. Her editor assigned her to investigate rumors of a “wolfman” near Elkhorn. Initially skeptical, Godfrey became convinced of the witnesses’ sincerity after interviewing dozens of people who described nearly identical creatures.

On a crisp fall night in 1989 around 1:30 a.m., Lori Endrizzi was driving home when she saw what she initially thought was a person crouched by the side of Bray Road. As she slowed down, her headlights revealed something else entirely—a muscular, fur-covered creature with a wolf-like head, approximately six feet tall, hunched over what appeared to be roadkill. The creature’s eyes reflected her headlights as it turned to look at her vehicle. Endrizzi accelerated away, badly shaken.

Two years later, on Halloween night 1991, bus driver Doris Gipson had her own encounter on the same stretch of road. Driving through heavy fog, she hit something that lifted her car’s front tires off the ground. When she stopped to investigate, she saw nothing but heard what she described as a “huffing” sound from the nearby cornfield. On her return trip that night, with another passenger in the car, they both saw a large, hairy, wolf-like creature moving through the corn.

Multiple witnesses described the Beast of Bray Road as standing between six and seven feet tall with gray and brown fur, a wolf-like face with yellow eyes, pointed ears, and a muscular, humanoid body. Unlike typical four-legged wolves, this creature was consistently reported as bipedal, though some witnesses saw it drop to all fours when running at high speed.

Animal control officer Jon Fredrikson opened a manila folder labeled simply “Werewolf” to collect the growing number of reports. The file grew thick with witness statements, though no physical evidence ever materialized.

A 1936 account resurfaced during Godfrey’s research. Night watchman Mark Shackleman encountered a dog-like creature digging at a Native American burial mound near the St. Coletta Convent in Racine. When Shackleman’s flashlight hit it, the creature stood upright—approximately six feet tall with visible fangs and pointed ears. Most unsettling, when Shackleman began praying aloud, the creature reportedly uttered a single word that sounded like “Gadarrah” before walking away on two legs. The biblical reference wasn’t lost on the deeply religious Shackleman—Gadara was the place in the New Testament where Jesus cast demons into swine.

The Silver Creek Sightings (2013)

Ohio remained relatively quiet for years after Ray Hutchins’s 2014 encounter, but that doesn’t mean the sightings stopped. In autumn 2013, two separate witnesses reported encounters near Silver Creek, close to Norton, Ohio.

A night worker named Andrew regularly drove Johnson Road, which borders Silver Creek Metro Park. One night, two deer dashed in front of his car, running as if pursued by something. Andrew stopped near Medina Line Road, surprised not by the deer but by what was chasing them.

The creature that emerged from the tree line stood approximately six feet tall with grayish-pink skin and long ears resembling a Doberman’s. The witness, startled, said the creature was “muscular as hell.” He only saw the creature’s back as it ran—describing human-like buttocks and legs. “The only thing dog-like was the head,” Andrew reported. To him, it looked more like a werewolf than a dogman.

The Germantown Phenomenon

Germantown, Ohio developed such a concentration of sightings that locals gave the creature its own name: the Butter Street Monster, after a well-known encounter on Butter Street.

In August 2020, a deer hunter named Caleb was scouting his step-grandfather’s farm early one morning. He expected to see deer grazing on soybean leaves but instead spotted what he first thought was a coyote. As he watched through his binoculars, the animal stood up on its hind legs.

“None of the animals in the area around the farm looked like a werewolf,” Caleb later told researchers. “This creature did!”

The thing had a distinctly canine head with a muscular, humanoid body covered in dark fur. It moved with intelligence and purpose, scanning the area before dropping back to all fours and disappearing into nearby woods.

Caleb returned to the show “Dogman Encounters” after having a second sighting of what he believed was the same creature, this time closer to his home. The repeat encounter convinced him that the Butter Street Monster wasn’t just passing through—it lived in the area.

Part V: The Questions That Remain

The Weapon-Wielding Anomaly

The Defiance werewolf stands apart from most dogman encounters in one crucial way: it carried and used a weapon. Ted Davis wasn’t just attacked—he was struck with a two-by-four, a distinctly human action requiring planning and tool use.

This detail has divided researchers. Some argue it proves the encounters involved a person in a costume. After all, what animal would think to pick up a board as a weapon? The counterargument points to the other physical evidence: the consistent descriptions across multiple witnesses, the creature’s size and speed, the apparent intelligence in its eyes, and the way it moved.

If it was a person in a costume, it was someone who maintained the disguise across multiple weeks, appeared in different locations at unpredictable times, moved with impossible speed, and vanished without leaving conventional evidence. More puzzling—what motive explains such elaborate and sustained deception?

Some cryptozoologists suggest the weapon use indicates a more advanced intelligence than typical animal behavior. They point to chimpanzees and other primates that use tools, arguing that an upright canid might develop similar capabilities. Others invoke more supernatural explanations—shapeshifters, cursed individuals, or entities that exist partially outside our normal understanding of biology.

The Railroad Connection

Multiple researchers have noted the curious concentration of dogman sightings near railroad tracks. The Defiance werewolf appeared exclusively along the Norfolk and Western rail lines. Bill Kowalski’s 1989 encounter occurred on a road paralleling railroad corridors. Other sightings across the Great Lakes region often involve rail lines or their associated infrastructure.

Railroad tracks cut straight paths through wilderness areas, creating what anthropologists call liminal zones—transitional spaces between civilization and wild nature. These corridors offer clear sight lines, relatively smooth traveling surfaces, and ready access to both human activity and deep forest.

Some theorists propose that cryptids use established human pathways for the same reason people and animals do—they provide efficient routes through difficult terrain. Railroad embankments, in particular, offer elevated positions with good visibility and drainage.

Others point to the timing factor. Sightings cluster in the early morning hours between 1 and 4 a.m.—precisely when railroad work crews are active but general human activity reaches its lowest ebb. This creates the perfect opportunity for nocturnal creatures to encounter humans in otherwise isolated areas.

The Smell

Witnesses across decades and multiple locations consistently report a distinctive odor. Bill Kowalski described “that weird musky odor” that he still sometimes smells in nightmares. Derek Weber noted the “musky, wild” smell “with something else underneath” that made his “lizard brain scream run.”

Humans can’t easily fake smells, and false memories typically don’t include specific, unusual scents. The consistency provides compelling evidence for a genuine phenomenon.

The described odor shares characteristics with known animal scents but with something “wrong” or “other” added. Bear hunters recognize bear smell. Deer hunters know deer. These witnesses—many of them experienced outdoorsmen—couldn’t match what they smelled to any known animal.

The Intelligence Factor

The evidence of intelligence in these encounters stands out. The creatures don’t simply react on instinct—they seem to plan, evaluate, and make decisions.

Ray Hutchins’s creature recognized and destroyed his trail camera, understanding that it posed a threat to concealment. Mike Sullivan’s creature timed its attack to coincide with night shift hours at an abandoned location, suggesting knowledge of human patterns. Derek Weber described being deliberately herded away from his truck, cut off each time he tried to change direction.

The encounter where the creature reportedly smiled and spoke a single word represents communication crossing the species barrier—or evidence of something that exists between human and animal.

The Pattern of Disappearance

The Defiance sightings stopped abruptly in mid-August 1972, shortly after police announced they were taking the reports seriously. One theory holds that if it was a hoaxer, the threat of real consequences scared them into ceasing. But the pattern repeats across other locations—waves of sightings that suddenly stop, only to resume years or decades later.

This episodic nature suggests either territorial animals passing through specific areas, or something even stranger—entities that exist only periodically in our reality, appearing and vanishing according to rules we don’t understand.

Part VI: The Academic Perspective

Werewolf Shamans in Ancient Woodlands

Archaeological evidence suggests the werewolf phenomenon has deep roots in Ohio and the broader Eastern Woodlands. Dr. William F. Romain’s research on “Werewolf Shamans in the Ancient Woodlands of the Eastern United States” documents physical evidence of wolf-human hybrid rituals dating back thousands of years.

During the Glacial Kame culture (approximately 5000-1000 BC), modified wolf skulls were found at the Clifford Williams site in Logan County, Ohio. The wolf skulls had been carefully cut to fit human heads and used as masks. The areas around the eye sockets and lateral aspects were cut away to allow the wearer to see.

Even earlier evidence comes from the Adena culture (approximately 1000-200 BC). At the Ayres Mound in Kentucky, archaeologists discovered a burial where the deceased’s upper incisor teeth had been removed during life—the bone had healed completely. In their place, a cut section of wolf maxilla with prominent canine teeth had been inserted into the oral cavity. The man had apparently worn these wolf teeth protruding from his own mouth for years before his death.

These archaeological findings demonstrate that the concept of human-wolf transformation has existed in this region since time began. The cultural memory of such transformations may inform modern sightings, or perhaps the practice of creating wolf-men shamans was a response to something already present in the landscape.

The Cryptozoological Debate

Mainstream science dismisses dogman sightings as misidentification, hoaxes, or psychological phenomena. Skeptics point to the lack of physical evidence—no bodies, no clear photographs, no DNA samples, no tracks that couldn’t be attributed to known animals.

Believers counter with the sheer volume and consistency of reports. Linda Godfrey documented hundreds of sightings across Wisconsin and neighboring states. The North American Dogman Project has collected over 700 member reports from credible witnesses including law enforcement officers and military personnel.

The cryptozoological community itself divides over these creatures’ nature. Some argue for an undiscovered primate species that evolved bipedal locomotion. Others suggest surviving dire wolves or other prehistoric canids. Still others embrace paranormal explanations involving shapeshifters, interdimensional entities, or cursed individuals.

The impact on witnesses tells a different story. These aren’t attention-seeking individuals spinning campfire tales. Many are reluctant to share their experiences, knowing they’ll face ridicule. Bill Kowalski kept silent for years. Derek Weber quit his job and moved. Ray Hutchins sold his store. Mike Sullivan carries silver bullets.

People don’t typically upend their lives over a misidentified dog.

Part VII: The Current Situation

Ongoing Sightings

The sightings haven’t stopped. Online platforms like the Dogman Encounters website receive regular reports from Ohio and neighboring states. Most witnesses request anonymity, fearful of ridicule or not wanting to draw attention to their property.

Social media groups dedicated to cryptid sightings show a steady stream of new accounts. Hunters encounter strange tracks. Motorists see things crossing rural roads at night. Property owners find livestock killed in ways that don’t match known predators.

The North American Dogman Project continues investigating reports, collecting data, and attempting to establish patterns. With over 700 members including many with law enforcement or military backgrounds, they represent a serious attempt to study the phenomenon scientifically.

The Silver Bullet Market

A cottage industry has emerged: custom silver ammunition. Multiple witnesses mentioned keeping silver bullets, including law enforcement officer Mike Sullivan. Online retailers now openly market silver-tipped rounds and specialty ammunition for “cryptid defense.”

Whether this represents genuine belief in supernatural entities or simply catering to a paranormal-interested market remains unclear. What’s certain is that enough people take the threat seriously to invest in expensive custom ammunition.

Tourism and Pop Culture

Defiance has embraced its werewolf legend, if somewhat reluctantly. Local ghost tours mention the 1972 incidents. The railroad area where the initial sightings occurred attracts occasional cryptid hunters armed with cameras and recording equipment.

Elkhorn, Wisconsin fully commercialized its Beast of Bray Road, with signs, merchandise, and annual events. The creature appears on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and tourist brochures. What began as genuine terror has transformed into economic opportunity.

Ohio has been slower to capitalize, perhaps because the sightings continue. When something might actually be out there, turning it into a cartoon mascot feels less appropriate.

The Legacy

More than five decades have passed since Ted Davis was struck with a two-by-four by something that shouldn’t exist. The freight trains still rumble through Defiance in the early morning hours. The Maumee River still reflects moonlight. The woods of northwestern Ohio still stand thick with oak and maple.

And sometimes, people still see things.

The old case files remain somewhere in Defiance police archives, along with Chief Breckler’s official reports and witness statements. The railroad workers’ testimony is preserved in newspaper microfilm. The BGSU archives hold the handwritten accounts of Bill Kowalski, Derek Weber, Mike Sullivan, and Ray Hutchins.

These aren’t just stories. They’re documentation of encounters that changed lives, ended careers, and left permanent psychological scars. They represent a mystery that mainstream science won’t touch and law enforcement can’t solve.

Something walks the liminal spaces of northwestern Ohio. Something intelligent, powerful, and apparently impossible. Whether it’s flesh and blood or something beyond biology, whether it’s native to our world or visiting from somewhere else, it remains elusive, terrifying, and undeniably real to those who’ve encountered it.

The next time you’re driving through rural Ohio in the early morning hours, when the moon hangs full and bright, when the road runs straight and empty through a corridor of trees, spare a thought for Ted Davis and Tom Jones, for Bill Kowalski and Derek Weber, for Mike Sullivan and Ray Hutchins.

They saw something. They know what’s out there.

And on certain nights, when conditions are right, you might see it too. That’s when you’ll understand why rational people believe in monsters. Why experienced law enforcement officers carry silver bullets. Why hunters sell their stores and refuse to enter the woods.

Because once you’ve locked eyes with something that exists in the space between human and animal, between flesh and legend, between our world and something darker—you never forget. And you never stop checking the tree line.

The werewolf of Defiance may be gone. Or it may simply be patient, waiting for the right moment to walk those railroad tracks again, a two-by-four gripped in its massive hands, its eyes glowing amber in the moonlight.

Either way, the legend refuses to die. And maybe that’s because it isn’t just a legend at all.

References

Primary Historical Sources

Academic and Archive Sources

  • Bowling Green State University Archives and Special Collections – Northwestern Ohio Dogman Encounter Documentation (1989-2014)
  • Romain, William F. “Werewolf Shamans in the Ancient Woodlands of the Eastern United States” – Archaeological evidence of wolf-human transformation rituals

Beast of Bray Road Sources

Contemporary Research and Documentation

Organizational Resources

  • North American Dogman Project
  • Dogman Encounters Radio – Episodes 384 (“When the Butter Street Monster Comes Around”) and 406 (“I Saw the Butter Street Monster Again”)

Additional Great Lakes Cryptid Documentation

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.

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