Creature record / 1972
Spring 1972. Cole Hollow Road, in the wooded bluffs between East Peoria and Pekin, Illinois. An 18-year-old named Randy Emert said something was out there. Something white and hairy, between eight and twelve feet tall. It let out a long screech, he said, like an old steam engine whistle, only more human. The papers called it Cohomo. By late July the reports had reached the Illinois River. More than 200 calls jammed the East Peoria police switchboard. About 100 armed volunteers combed the woods. Then a gunshot ended the hunt. Nineteen years later, Emert picked up the phone with a confession.
Tazewell County, Illinois. 1972. A year earlier, Missouri had its own monster, and reports of Momo had filled the news. Now the woods along Cole Hollow Road, in the bluffs between East Peoria and Pekin, were about to produce one of their own.