The Minerva Monster: the Cayton Family Encounters

The Cayton home stood on Lincoln Street SE, about two miles west of Minerva, in Paris Township, Stark County, Ohio. Woods ran behind the house. Beyond them lay an old strip mine and gravel pit.

It began with the grandchildren seeing something hairy in the gravel pit. Rocks landed on the roof. At first the family blamed a prankster. Then one of their German Shepherds was found dead, still chained, its neck broken. A second shepherd behaved strangely and dug a hole about 8 feet deep.

August 21, 1978, about 10:30 PM. Family and friends were at the house. A figure appeared at the kitchen window, about four yards from the kitchen table. It stood there for close to ten minutes. Some accounts give the date as August 20.

Evelyn Cayton described it as about 7 feet tall and about 300 pounds. It had dark matted hair, no visible neck and short, stubby legs. The thick hair hid its arms and face. "Our dusk-to-dawn light is right overhead there and you could see it plain as day," she told the newspaper.

Near the old chicken coop, the witnesses saw two pairs of yellow eyes that seemed to be reflecting a porch light, and two large "cougar-type" cats were there. The upright creature stepped in front of them as if to protect them, then lurched towards Scott Patterson's car when the 18-year-old lit the area with his headlights. One witness said: "It doesn't seem to want to bother anyone. It was just curious. We all felt that it wanted to be friends."

The family called the Stark County Sheriff's Office. Deputy James Shannon arrived 15 minutes later and noticed a strong stench that smelled like "ammonia-sulphur." Deputies searched on horseback and in jeeps. One combed the area for 90 minutes and found what appeared to be bear tracks.

The creature kept coming, and Mary Ackerman saw it on August 22, standing atop a hill beside the strip mine. On August 23 it returned, and Howe Cayton fired a warning shot. Barbara Galloway of the Akron Beacon Journal and photographer Ted Wall camped on the porch. The paper ran the story on August 24. Reports continued into early September.

Ron Schaffner investigated with Earl Jones, Jim Carnes, Jim Rastetter and Iona Boyce. He found the Caytons credible and the independent accounts consistent. Tufts of fur from the coop and part of a skull from a pit behind the house were reportedly sent to Malone College. The college later said it had received nothing. The hair samples disappeared.

Deputies publicly suggested a bear to keep hunters and vigilantes out of the woods, according to one later account. Asked about bears, Evelyn Cayton replied: "No, not unless they were mutated." Schaffner rejected the bear explanation and admitted the big cats puzzled him. No hoax claim ever surfaced. Shannon reportedly believed the family saw something, though he was not convinced it was Bigfoot.

The attention came at a cost. Hunters and onlookers crowded in, and the family put up a fence. Seth Breedlove grew up hearing "Don't go out after dark or the Minerva Monster will get you." In 2015 his documentary Minerva Monster became the first film from Small Town Monsters.