Wexford County, Michigan - 1997

Late one night in July of 1997, Veronica Freels was roaming the backroads of northern Wexford County, searching for a highway. She found something quite different.

Freels and her daughter Amanda, then 15, had left a concert at Interlochen Arts Academy just after 11pm. Rather than follow the traffic heading north toward Interlochen Corners, Freels chose to attempt navigating the country roads to the south, a more direct route to her home.

In a very short time, they became hopelessly lost. One of the roads she took went from paved to gravel to a twisting two-track in less than a mile. As the woods closed in and branches began scraping against the side of her nearly new SUV, Freels began to feel panicky. At a spot where one two track crossed another, she attempted to turn around and head back out of the forest. As she backed up, her daughter let out a scream.

"What!?" Freels said, spinning to look out the windshield. Amanda pointed down the dark road. Freels remembers the hair on her neck beginning to rise.

"Whatever it was was walking calmly down the road, away from us." Freels said later, "It was on two legs, very tall, but hunched over. I flicked on the bright lights, and it turned its head to look at us. It was covered in thick black hair. The eyes reflected the light, just like a racoon or dog's eyes would."

Freels didn't wait to make a better identification. She shifted into gear and bounded off the two track road at full speed. When she told her husband about the sighting, he joked that it must have been the dogman. Never having heard the song, Freels didn't get the humor. But when she heard "The Legend" that October on WTCM, she became convinced that's precisely what she had seen.

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