Local paper looks back at Lizardman Phenomenon

With the murder of Chris Davis, the South Carolina community where Davis lived looks back and reflects on Mr Davis and the Lizardman. This is a thoughtful summation of the Lizardman Phenomenon told from a local perspective.

Finding the “founding father” of the Lizard Man
Jun 20, 2009  |  www.theitem.com

Since I started working full time at The Item in November 2001, I can personally say that I’ve fielded calls several times from national and even international media looking for images on one of two things, Lee County’s Lizard Man and Pee Wee Gaskins.

Thursday morning on the way to work I was called and told that we had a shooting overnight on DuBose Siding Road. I was tasked with getting a picture of the house where the shooting took place. During my search and communication back with the office I was told that we thought the individual that was shot and killed was Chris Davis. The Item’s Lee County ace reporter Randy Burns had brought up the point that he thought this very well could be the Christopher Davis that had a run in with the Lizard Man. I’m not sure when the connections were made and the fact checking was complete, but in the end, one thing was for sure — this was indeed our man.

As I was preparing to leave this evening I was informed that we were in search of head shot of Mr. Davis.

My initial reaction was, AHA! I had heard our newsroom clerk Sandra Holbert talking about a folder that she inherited when she started working here that contained articles about the Lizard Man. So I went in search of it. I found it along with photograph depicting a young, 17-year-old Davis standing near the site off Browntown Road where he says he was attacked – the article was titled “Bumps in the night?” from July 20, 1988.

To make a long story short, as I scanned in Davis’ photo I began looking and scanning over the various articles that had been amassed in this folder, written during the past 20-plus years. I then kept finding things I thought you, our readers, might be interested in seeing. I was consumed!

I’ve now spent the last two hours – when I was supposed to be finalizing another project for today’s online edition – reading, scanning, making PDFs and retyping excerpts from some of the articles that were written.

Being a homegrown Sumterite and the fact that I was a child during the time that the Lizard Man was “hot” — I even remember a song about him too — it was interesting to make this connection. I’ve photographed Sheriff Truesdale, the law enforcement half of this equation, a man I’ve talked to on a number of occasions about the Lizard Man. I’m sorry to say that I never got to personally meet Mr. Davis and hear his story firsthand. Somehow though I feel that I learned a lot about a young man turned legend just as much as the Lizard Man himself — I’ll be sharing this with my little guys here in a few years.

Attached to this article you will find an in-depth article titled “Bumps in the night?” from July 20, 1988, that I have made into a PDF for your enjoyment. I’ve also attached a number of links and videos that feature Lee County’s international celebrity, the Lizard Man.

I hope you enjoying reading and looking over this information as much as I have.

Now I think I’m going to run on down to the South Carolina Cotton Museuem and see Janson Cox so I can get my very own Lizard Man T-shirt that they sell in their gift shop … Goodnight!

Spanky

Excerpts taken from “A year later, folks still wonder” that was published on July 16, 1989.

One guy’s Lizard Man can be another’s treasure. Just ask Chris Davis.

The merchants of Bishopville and other cities and media worldwide might well agree with the taciturn, soft-spoken 18-year-old. They beat a path to his door to turn profit and news stories out of what was apparently a genuinely terrifying experience for a teenager – the first sighting of the since-lionized Lizard Man.

But Chris, whose report of a slimy green devil chasing him near Scape Ore Swamp turned worldwide attention on Lee County in July 1988, doesn’t care anymore.

After a year as a celebrity, he just wants to go his own way.

“I wish it had never happened,” he said this week in his third interview in two days with media checking on his year in the fast lane.

“I had no free time. I had to do interviews,” said the Bishopville High School senior, who hopes for a career in the Air Force.

“By the time school started, most of it had started to die down. I was able to concentrate on my school work,” he said.

Until then, and at intervals since, Chris was a hot media property, fielding questions from people in places such as Australia, Sweden, China – and his own school.

…. Chris was dubbed the “founding father” of Lizard Man folklore …

But he has no doubt that what Chris Davis saw at 2 a.m. early July, 1 1988, was genuinely frightening.

“Whatever it was put the fear into him,” Truesdale said, recalling his initial interviews with Davis about the sighting.

The teenager reported that he was changing a tire on Browntown Road when he saw a lizard-like creature with searing red eyes and along, ape-like arms pounding toward him on its hind legs from a field. He said the beast grabbed the car door just as he sped off. When he reached 40 mph, he noticed it had caught up with the car, but he escaped with no more than a scratch on his fender, Davis said.

Also I ran across this information while scanning the stack of old articles in the “Lizard Man” file here at The Item, just thought I would share.

Excerpt taken from “Television crew tracks Bishopville’s Lizard Man” that was published on July 16, 1989.

But what he might not know is that unusually large creatures that traverse Lee County at night aren’t that uncommon.

In her History of Sumter County, Ann Gregoire gives this account of the Bishopville Giant who apparently reigned in May 1871.

“The Sumter News described a monster in human form, about 30 feet tall, which walked through the night in Bishopville, plucking fence rails from the roadside to scratch is head. Around the neck was an iron chain from which hung a blacksmith’s anvil and sledge hammers, jangling as it moved, breathing like the wind in the tree tops and, at intervals, emitting sounds like the loud pouring of liquid from a bottle”

According to Gregoire, the creature was reported to have disappeared in a well at the Manning courthouse square soon after the sightings began.