An expert on everything from the Grim Reaper to Mongolian death worms, Chorvinsky says "there are something like 900" Goatmanlike incarnations roaming around the world, from Aragon, Ga., all the way to Baulkham Hills, Australia. "I thought [Goatman] was a real interesting case," says Chorvinsky, who is currently working on in-depth investigations into the Patterson Bigfoot film (you know the one, where a big blurry-furry is seen hopping over a log) and whether there was a real, historical Merlin in King Arthur's court. "There's always been a case for [Goatman's] being an urban legend, or what should be called a contemporary legend. People love campfire tales; they are told in every subculture....[I think] 20 years from now, people will be still be talking about Goatman. Even more so than today."
Dr. Donald Dossey, author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias, and Fun, says humans develop urban legends—even the most violent ones—out of a need to feel alive and, more importantly, feel safe.
"Any kind of legend...generally starts out with something very novel, very horrific or weird; it may or may not be based on fact," he explains. "We human beings love excitement; we thrive on it on a subconscious level. We spend a lot of money to have the crap scared out of us. Urban legends start taking on lives of their own because of the excitement.
"But also, human beings are superstitious by nature; we're not logical," Dossey continues. "We're very superstitious because we have to make sense out of things. Something horrible we have to make sense out of. By filling in the gaps, we create urban legends. If it hadn't been Goatman, it would have been something else."
If Chorvinsky doesn't escort Goatman to the shelves of Blockbuster, then 21-year-old college student Josh Wimmer will be right behind him doing his level best to put Goatman's name in lights. Wimmer, who will graduate from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln this winter with a degree in journalism, created the intricate GoatLinks Web site in early '97 and has since then watched in amazement as his cyber-shrine has attracted thousands of dedicated Goatheads.
The man, the monster, the hermit is making the kind of comeback that might cause Elvis to spin in his grave. Goatman is hip again.
"There are already hundreds of sites devoted to Bigfoot," Wimmer explains when asked for his motivation behind the peculiar tribute. "Before GoatLinks, though, Goatman had no home on the Web....I don't think [Goatman's] more 'special' than Bigfoot or Nessie [the Loch Ness Monster], but I think he is scarier. The devilish resemblance has something to do with that, for sure; but it also has to do with the fact that people don't make goofy movies and stuff about Goatman, á la Harry and the Hendersons. Nobody thinks Goatman is cuddly."
Although Wimmer has never lived anywhere near Bowie, Md., the monster found him anyway: "I first learned about Goatman...in fifth grade. We had a book fair at school—they brought in a bunch of books and everyone could pick out two. Anyway, one of my choices was a rip-roaring adventure novella called Pursuit. Although entertaining, that book never held my attention like my other pick, Monsters You Never Heard Of by Daniel Cohen....That book was devoted to the monsters who are just as good as Bigfoot and the Yeti but never get the press—monsters like the Jersey Devil and the Tazelworm and, of course, Goatman."
Wimmer is clear-eyed enough to know that monsters exist most comfortably in the realm of imagination, but sometimes the legend seems close enough to spark a galvanic skin response. And he'll happily rest uneasily in that middle place until somebody comes along with sure-fire proof that Goatman is nothing more than the embodiment of overheated teen speculation.
"I have no trouble accepting that possibility," Wimmer says. "I'd be surprised if someone discovered hard, tangible evidence of Goatman's existence, but this world is too weird for me to discount his existence just because it's paranormal.
"My friends and I do get freaked out when we're thinking about Goatman and we're far from civilization, but it's kind of fun," he adds. "I think that's been the case ever since humans were evolved enough to tell ghost stories....I also think a lot of folks' lives are so mundane, it's a trip for them to believe that 'the truth is out there' or whatever. I know that's not profound, but I'd chalk up [Goatman's popularity] to just escapism."
And because Goatman has been handed down through a few generations, he is blatantly unaware of current sexual mores: "We at GoatLinks have reason to believe he steals young female virgins every so often; he chains them up, commits God knows what kind of ungodly acts, and then eats them." Although Goatman is kicking up a lot of new dust locally, Bigfoot is still the Hulk Hogan of hirsute humanoids. Opsasnick has an obscenely thick folder full of Bigfoot sightings—gathered from library archives, personal accounts, and buried blurbs in small-town rags—in and around the Baltimore and D.C. vicinities. (Northern Baltimore County and Harford County appear to be the more popular Sasquatch lodging sites nearest us.)
In the last few years, reports of unwanted, unknown creatures lurking in back yards have been called in everywhere from Annapolis ("lurking around the camper...9-10 ft. tall") to Frederick ("a massive creature, bigger than any human I've ever seen!") to Fairfax, Va. ("We were showered by large rocks and boulders falling all around us"). Bigfooters have immediately glommed on to these reports as their own, but let's be honest: This is Goatman country.
Unfortunately, Bigfoot aficionados are not a very sharing bunch. Scott McNabb is a 28-year-old self-employed Bigfoot researcher in Tennessee. He doesn't take kindly to the notion that some other woodsy golem could be lurking out there. "Goatman is not an interest of mine," McNabb's sniffs. "It's more of a modern myth than anything. Most parts of the legend are obviously contrived, as opposed to Bigfoot, which is more grounded in history and evidence and plausibility than Goatman is. The starting point of the Goatman myth reads like a Swamp Thing episode."
Imagine that: Goatman might be just a little too ornate to merit the attention of serious monster men.
"While the base stories are Bigfootlike in nature, and some quite interesting, the inclusion of the lab experiment gone wrong and the ax-wielding murderer taint the entire perspective of the legend....Several aspects of the Goatman speak of Bigfoot activity, such as bipedal gait, coarse hair covering the body, squealing sounds, and a seeming affinity for dogs," McNabb states academically, adding, "Bigfoot are notorious for attacks of, or dislike of, dogs."
Goatman, by McNabb's lights, is really just a local idiom for the main man: "It's not unusual for a regional name to pop up that is used for Bigfoot, such as Mo-Mo, Skunk Ape, Fouke Monster, etc. Even Bigfoot was originally a regional variant on the various names the creature went by, such as Sasquatch."
Ultimately, Bigfoot has been kidnapped by the locals, and the prickly McNabb isn't too happy with how the big man has been treated since. "More so than usual, the facts of this case are clouded by 'folklore' additions, namely the lab incident, insane scientist, and the ax murderer in search of lovers' lane victims. It seems as if the typical boogeyman stereotype was merged with authentic historic Bigfoot activity, and the conglomeration was so complete that to this day many researchers look over Goatman stories....I'd say that a closer look into the Goatman legend is justified, and in reality, Goatman may be a Bigfoot population with an unfortunate name and some unfortunate stigmas attached." Young punks like Opsasnick and Roman, Hayden and Gheen surely weren't as innocent and virginal as, say, Potsie and Ralph Malph, but there is just no goddamn way they were anything like 16-year-old Lanham resident Richard Ringeisen, either. The high school sophomore—his current place of study goes specifically unspecified—is the editor and publisher of "Mr. Fulci's Horror Site," a thoroughly alarming Web page. With his lanky gait, pale complexion, and straight brown hair parted down the middle and tucked behind his ears—and, of course, his unquenchable thirst for all things crimson, raw, and gutted—Ringeisen is the natural heir to the Goatman legend, and one of the very best reasons for why Strange's Chorvinsky believes Goatman will still be slicin' and dicin' his way through the public consciousness two decades from now.
Named after the late Italian blood 'n' guts director Lucio Fulci, Ringeisen's Web site is a sprawling endeavor of nasty links, gruesome film reviews, twisted quotes, and a complete list of his coveted movie collection—certainly a grimy window into his troubled mind—which include, in no particular order of importance, Cannibal Holocaust, Chopping Mall, The Mutilators, Ed and His Dead Mother, Buried Alive, Autopsy 2, Hide and Go Shriek, Autopsy 3, Rabid Grannies, Night of the Scarecrow, Ozone: Attack of the Redneck Mutants, and, perhaps not so out of place, three Gallagher comedy tapes.
Mr. Fulci's also includes a section titled Macabre Maryland—Ringeisen pronounces this "Mac-a-bray Maryland"—which focuses on the Free State's bloodiest murders and coolest urban legends. Goatman occupies hallowed ground here. Right next to Sam Sheinbein. "Yeah," Ringeisen says with fresh life in his eyes, "I'm trying to get some more Sheinbein stuff for the site right now."
The kind of kid who has a favorite true-crime psychopath—New York City's famed Zodiac Killer—Ringeisen also enjoys spinning a good, if a bit more violent than usual, Goatman yarn. His particular favorite, which he unveils while sitting hunched in a big booth in the very empty Ledo Pizza in Seabrook Station, goes something like this:
Two Shenandoah Valley mounted Park Police are patrolling their beat on a cold, foggy night. Eventually, the cops get separated. One pair of horse and rider reports back to their mountaintop station on time, but the other duo fails to show.
In the morning, a massive search party ventures out, and, after a few hours of traversing the tricky climbing terrain, one of the cops spots something off to the side of an overgrown riding path. At first he can't figure out what he's looking at, but the blood—and the entrails and the inescapable, vomit-inducing stench—tells him that whatever it is, it sure as hell ain't human. Then he makes out the horse's head, abuzz with flies and crawling with plump maggots. Nearby are the animal's broken, skinned legs. The torso is nowhere to be found. And neither is the missing cop.
Ringeisen was around 10 years old, either in elementary school or at summer camp, when he heard his first Goatman story. It was the lovers' lane classic, which concludes with an innocent young girl—despite the rumors—finding her very dead boyfriend hanging upside down above their car, blood dripping—tap-tap-tap—from his headless torso. Ringeisen grins and shakes his head: "I remember that scared me—not to death, but it scared me." Opsasnick pauses just a moment before the fence opening to check for oncoming trains and then strides in. But we're only allowed a quick perusal of the wide set of three tracks before a CSX coal run rumbles by as an ominous warning. Only the staunchest Goatman supporter would watch the locomotive creep on by and not do the math on the bodyless puppy story that begat Goatman in the first place: Puppy escapes from pen, puppy wanders toward train tracks, puppy meets her untimely end. Simply: Ten-month-old Ginger was not beheaded by a vicious suburban satyr, but was, sadly, shredded by a choo-choo.
Simple as that. Except. Except as we turn back toward his car, Opsasnick spots a rough-looking potbellied man walking toward us from Lacie Edwards' old home.
"I bet that's one of the Hayden brothers," Opsasnick murmurs under his breath. Suddenly, we're confronted by a real-life link to one of the progenitors of the Goatman story.
"Hello," I shout out like an all-too-friendly Avon lady. "We're here about the Goatman!"
Forty-eight-year-old Raymond Hayden, John Hayden's older brother, is neither surprised nor impressed by our presence. And, perhaps weary of the legend that just won't die—will probably, hopefully, never die—he plainly announces to a couple of wannabe believers, "The whole fuckin' thing was, the dog got hit by a train."
Just like that, Goatman is dragged out of the bushes of imagination and shot before our eyes.
Sensing his foothold on the legend slipping away, Opsasnick hits Hayden with the 1957 "Abominable Phantom" reports and the scores of sightings and all the important history, but Hayden politely declines to play along. Instead, he neatly and quickly ties one loose story into another: There was a man, he says, perhaps a bit mentally unstable, who lived nearby. "They called him the Goatman, basically. Nasty-looking old bastard...with a double-edged ax, who used to roam along the train tracks."
But he attacked cars, right? Scared horny high-schoolers and cloaked himself in only the freshest goatskins? "Nothing but a myth," Hayden says. "That man wouldn't hurt shit. Name was Albert. Albert Abel or Thompson, or something like that." Albert would mingle with the "hobos" who set up camps along the tracks, and the newfound friends would get along just fine. "The hobos were good people," Hayden adds. "Very gentle. They liked their wine. They're what you would call street people today."
Opsasnick just stares at Ray Hayden's mouth, which is intermittently being plugged with a bottle of Diet Pepsi. Piece by piece, the longtime Bowie resident, who now resides at 8510 Zug Road, finishes undressing the hoax, revealing how then-20-year-old troublemakers John Hayden and Willie Gheen made up the whole story to spook Mrs. Daniels. "They had that fat bitch fooled," Ray Hayden says, chuckling. "I haven't seen that fat bitch in I don't know how long." Hayden looks to the ground and shakes his head. "Man, this thing's been going on for some 20 years. The kids still show up down here when Halloween comes."
(Unfortunately, John Hayden, now 48, who once told everyone he could find—including Opsasnick in the Strange interview—how he spotted the beast, is strangely silent and extremely surly these days when asked about the urban legend: "Hey, listen, man, I don't have time for this now. I got my hands full of grease, and I'm getting ready to go on vacation." Uh, one quick thing, John: Your brother says you're full of shit. Hayden pauses then blurts, "He said that? Hell, he wasn't even around when this thing happened.")
With the hot July sun baring down on his ball-cappped head, Opsasnick presses Ray Hayden for more information, maybe to even corner him into buying into the Goatman legend just a bit. Finally, as Hayden finishes up a bizarre tangent that refuses to veer into the realm of Goatman, Opsasnick sidetracks him by asking after Albert, the hermit/mythic monster.
Hayden switches his bottle of pop to his other hand and extends a grimy arm and even grimier finger back up Zug Road. "Go up there," he says. "That's where Albert's buried. Right near his mother. He used to cry at her grave."
Ray Hayden is pointing to the Ascension Catholic Church cemetery—and all those white, bare crosses. "I don't know how we're going to do this without stepping on a lot of dead bodies," Opsasnick says, his fears of funereal desecration tempered by his suddenly renewed sense of adventure. "This is an experience: looking for the grave of the Goatman."
In front of us, to the side of the small brick church—where, eerily enough, a memorial service is about to begin and black-clad mourners are slowly entering the holy confines—is the modest graveyard, 50 yards wide, maybe 50 yards long.
For about 25 minutes, Opsasnick and I wander about the sacred grounds, heads bowed down not out of respect but out of investigation. Crumbling headstones, some dating back to the late 1880s, tell us we are walking over the remains of Clarks, Browns, and so on. But we never do find a Thompson or an Abel. In fact, we never even find an Albert.
There is the matter of those bare white crosses, each without a date or a flower or a name, but as the shadows grow longer and the sun on this gorgeous July day starts its slow descent, the search for Goatman, at least for now, is called to a close. Fresh, glistening questions hang in the early evening air like stars. Properly enough, we decide to leave before dark and let the legend live on.
Legend of Goatman
Chorvinsky, the 44-year-old editor and publisher of the glossy, beautifully illustrated Strange Magazine (subtitled Exploring Strange Phenomena), is an authority when it comes to the unexplained (not to mention the just plain weird). Equipped with both an L.A. and a New York agent, along with numerous consultant credits for Unsolved Mysteries, Chorvinsky is a spookmeister who knows a good tale (and a potential audience) when he sees one. With the help of Opsasnick, Chorvinsky is prepared to pen a screenplay (think "X-Files meets Candyman meets Scream," he says) about suburban D.C.'s infamous cloven-hoofed bad boy.
Part 2
(Source: Washington City Paper / By Sean Daly - Sept 18 1998)
