Scroll down for first report...
LEE COUNTY, SC (WIS) - We have been following a renewed investigation into the "Lizard Man."
Thursday we have learned that two dead animals were found in a field near the home of Dixie and Bob Rawson. The Lee County Sheriff's Department says it could be linked to some pretty serious damage to the Rawson's van.
Last week, the Rawsons showed us how the van's front grill was chewed up, and how the wheel wells on both sides were bent. When some of the Rawson's cats went missing too, neighbors said the "Lizard Man" might be responsible.
Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin is out to inspect the field near the Rawsons on his four-wheeler. "Just going to ride the field, see if there are anymore animals laying out dead."
Already, they've found a cow and a coyote. It's significant in that they were both found only yards away from the Rawsons' car.
"This is out of a book," says Dixie Rawson. And now, Rawson doesn't know what's fiction and what's real.
WIS News 10 first showed you last week the bite marks and bends on her van. Neighbors told her it was the Lizard Man - a seven-foot green giant whose first reported sighting near Scape Ore Swamp 20 years ago entrenched him as a legend in these parts, a legend that's never been confirmed.
So investigators told the Rawsons not to worry, all that must have been done by some other animal - likely, a coyote. Now Dixie Rawson asks, "If the coyote did this damage, what killed the coyote and the cow? Was it the Lizard Man? I don't know."
Sheriff E.J. Melvin says, "I don't want to get anybody alarmed. But for some reason, I'm sticking with the coyote. But the coyote, that coyote is dead."
What's left now is more speculation. Authorities had hoped to extract some blood left on the van's hood, but the Department of Natural Resources says the sample taken was somehow contaminated. For the record, DNR believes the holes were made by a dog - a dog trying to get at cats underneath the cars.
About a half-dozen of the Rawsons cats are still missing nearly a week after the attack on their car. The passing time is doing little to answer their questions.
Dixie Rawson says, "We're here in this quiet little town and all of a sudden, this happens."
How this happened, no one is quite sure yet - making clear only that the Lizard Man mystery isn't ready to be solved.
video report
(Original headline: Dead cow, coyote found near site of "Lizard Man" mystery )
