"Hawley is about seven miles north of Abilene in southern Jones County,
Texas. Roger Downing of the Abilene Reporter-News wrote the first story of
the Hawley Him, a creature described as a 7-foot, hairy, long-armed monster, which reportedly attacked three youths at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday,
July 6, at Bob Scott’s ranch. All three youths saw the creature before it
departed the scene and disappeared into thick underbrush. The alleged
attack occurred while two of the boys, Tom Roberts and Larry Suggs, were
clearing brush for Scott. Scott was superintendent of Abilene Boys’ Ranch,
where the two youths lived.
"While taking a break from the hot, dusty work, the pair were startled by
the breaking of tree limbs and a shower of rocks. One boy said he was hit
in the leg by one of the stony missiles and displayed a bruise on his right
calf to Downing. The other boy said a projectile just missed his head. The
youths quickly retreated from the scene, running to the safety of Mr. and
Mrs. McFarland’s nearby home. 'We got three good glimpses of him, I call
it him—whatever it was,' one of the boys said. 'It was kind of an ape, but
still a man,” he added. “He had huge arms. They hung to his knees. You’d
have to see it to believe it.'
"The boys soon decided to return to the work site on Scott’s ranch.
Going with them in the McFarland’s van was McFarland’s daughter Renee
and her 30-30. 'It’s a good gun. It’s got a boom like a cannon and a kick
like a horse,' she told Downing. After they arrived at the site, a rock was
reportedly thrown at the McFarland’s van and all three youths were able to
see the creature standing about 40 yards away in the brush. One of the boys
took up the 30-30 and fired a shot, but decided he missed his target. 'She
was going to shoot it until she saw it. Then she crammed the gun at me and
said, "You shoot it,"' the young marksman said. After squeezing the trigger,
the weapon’s recoil floored the boy and he never got off a second shot. The
creature melted into the brush, as it 'glided' through the mesquite and
sagebrush tangle. 'That stuff (the brush) is so thick you have to know where
you’re going and he just glided through it,' one of the boys said.
"One of the boys told Downing that a rotten odor was smelled prior to
the attack. In the area the boys worked for Scott was near where the rancher
had lost twenty-one penned goats without a trace. Several carcasses were
later found in the brush. Scott told Downing that Jones County Sheriff’s
officials told him coyotes got his goats, a claim which he remained skeptical
of. None of the goats were apparently killed in the immediate vicinity of the
pen but were seemingly taken from the pen location. McFarland’s daughter
claimed she and two friends had seen Hawley Him in October during a
slumber party. When she told her parents of the creature’s presence lurking
about their home they dismissed it as a 'trick of the night.'
"Hawley Him’s appearance roughly coincided with the Stilwell Incident as
reports from eastern Oklahoma of a tall monster with red eyes and covered
in brown hair like a bear appeared in newspapers. 'The ones who’ve seen it
say it has a flat face and doesn’t appear to be a bear,' said a spokesman for
the sheriff’s department. 'We’ve had about five or six different calls and they
all pretty much give us the same report. I guess there’s something to it. We
just haven’t been able to get close enough to find it,' the spokesman said.
"Hopeful monster hunters coalesced into several groups to find Hawley
Him. Scott said that he had received calls from people all over the state re
questing information about the creature. A monster-hunting group of three
Abilene college students and another group led by Ed Nash, who claimed he
had his own face-to-face encounter with a similar creature in the woods of
West Virginia in 1964, had solicited Scott’s permission to hunt for Hawley
Him on his ranch. Believing Hawley Him to be nocturnal, Nash said he in
tended to start his investigation at dawn—the ideal time to find traces of the
creature’s passage. One of those signs, aside from the wide trail through the
brush which it leaves in its wake, was its horrible smell. 'You talk about the
odor. It’s worse than any rotten meat odor. It will turn your stomach,' Nash
said; Nash was actually drawn to investigate Hawley Him when he read of
the terrible odor noticed by Roberts."
