Miller County 1969
On Hwy 71 North

We thought a long time before writing this, because I'm getting on in years and the memory might not be on target anymore.

I was a married man in 1969 with two strapping sons. Lonny was almost eleven years old, Seth had twelve years on him, big boys, old for their years.

It was the Christmas Season and as I remember, right cold and rainy that day that we all set out to go home from my mother's house in Ida, Louisiana where we spent those two weeks enjoying family over holidays.

My wife and I were in the pickup and the boys rode in the back, that was a treat back then, no laws about seat belts and such, so they rode in the bed of the truck under tarps and in sleeping bags, no room in the cab for them now that they got so big. We chopped a half cord of wood that afternoon and left Ida about 8 or 9 at night headed north on hwy 71 to Texarkana where we farm, the boys went to school there.

None of us remember exactly where we saw this thing only that we was driving along 71 north and there it was, walking the side of the road going south.

The road isn't that wide, I saw it a ways off in the distance of the high beams of the truck but didn't know what I was seeing. The closer we got, I started thinking "strange" and knocked on the window to the back of the truck to get the attention of my boys. My wife was asleep, but she woke up the more noise I made and sat up. Then she pounded on the rear window and the boys started yelling to slow down.

About then my wife says it's a man walking in a fur coat, (it was very cold that night) and in the midst of no place she thinks we should give this character a ride to town, it being Christmas & all.

It wasn't long before we got close enough to realize this was no man in a fur coat and no way were we stopping to give what ever it was a ride. As we passed it, the man or thing stopped walking and just stood there, dumb-like staring into the headlights. It couldn't have been startled because we were coming up on it for quite a distance. It raised its arm up to shield the light from its eyes, (I had the brights on still) --the arm and hand was thick, hairy and muscular. The big underside or palm of the hand shown pinkish brown towards us in the light, and pretty much blocked details of the face.

The boys stood up and peered over the cab of the truck & went silent; my mouth fell open. What was this? It had shaggy hair, all brown as I recollect, long over his face but seemed like a man's face what I could make out of it with hair or whiskers, shorter hair on the body. It had hair on the legs but had caked mud from the knees down like it had been wading through swamp or bayous or something.

I remember it being quite tall, huge in the chest area and as we passed this thing, it screamed, yelled like it was in pain or maybe terror. A strange noise I've never heard before.

My wife and I looked at one another and the boys screamed in fear and dove under the tarp. I remember thinking the rest of the drive home 'what was that thing?' We didn't talk about it anymore that night, if we did I don't remember what was said.

During milking the next day the boys did asked what that was we saw on the road last night but I had no answer for them and the subject was dropped for the next ten years 'til one day my bother and his crew came into visit and they mentioned the Fouke Monster.

I listened and asked him to describe what he had heard about the thing and then we told them what we saw in 1969. His mouth fell open, he said "you probably saw the Fouke Monster, you were on the right road to Fouke werent you?"

I don't know what else to tell you, the screamer on the road is all I know besides it was hairy and good sized. We retired and live near Blanchard now, there are rumors of the monster from years ago, but nothing in the papers lately, if you hear of something recent, we would like to hear from you, I hope this helps your research.

Kindly, John Copeland