Serpent Causes Car Crash
I was sent this by my friend Chris. He said he found an old, badly damaged newspaper clipping in a box of his mother's things after she passed. He thinks they're related to one of the people in the story. But he could barely read the article and has no idea when it's from or what paper it was published in, so if anyone has any idea please let me know and I will forward the info to Chris. Here is the story:
Lake Monster blamed in accident
Mr. Darryl Manchester of Tara appeared before the magistrate at the Owen Sound courthouse on Tuesday to answer to a charge of unsafe operation of a motor vehicle relating to an accident that had occurred in downtown Owen Sound last week.
Mr. Manchester did not deny that he caused the accident, which happened at the intersection of 10th Street and 1st Avenue West, when he failed to yield the right of way to Mr. Franklin White of Brooke, who had been in the city visiting his ailing father at the General and Marine Hospital and running some errands downtown
The magistrate, the honourable Mr. Harris Dodd, heard testimony from Constable Ernest Fucale as to the details of the accident, in which Mr. Manchester drove his Ford directly into the side Mr. White's new blue General Motors truck.
Mr. Manchester accepted responsibility for the accident, which occurred just after dusk last Thursday, saying that he had been distracted from the duty of driving while he was crossing the 10th Street bridge by something be saw in the water to his right.
“I was merely driving along when I caught a glimpse of something out on the water between the ships,.” Mr. Manchester said. “It was headed towards me, and I was thinking it was mighty close to the rail bridge, which led me to watch it more carefully and discern that it was in fact a large aquatic monster.”
Mr. Manchester described the monster as green with scales like a fish and a head “like that of a mythical dragon you'd read about in a child's book of fairy stories.”
He went on to say that the front end of the monster rose 15 feet out of the water and that he saw three humps in the water behind it, each one smaller than the last. Then he claims the monster “dove underwater and disappeared.”
Mr White was not present in court, but Constable Fucale told the magistrate that at the scene of the accident Mr. White told him that immediately following the crash Mr. Manchester ran up to Mr. White's truck and asked him excitedly if he too had seen the monster. Mr. White replied that he had not. Only then did Mr. Manchester enquire about Mr. White's well being.
Constable Fucale said Mr. Manchester was looking for others at the scene who might have also witnessed the monster when he arrived.
Local legend has it that a lake monster, often called The Owen Sound Serpent, lives somewhere along the Bruce Peninsula where the Niagara Escarpment meets Georgian Bay, possibly in an underwater cave. The monster has been seen across Georgian Bay and may have even been spotted in other parts of the Great Lakes, the last reported sighting coming from fisherman Captain Gerald Roger and two of his crew just off of Craigleith four years ago.
Mr. Manchester did not complain when magistrate Dodd ordered him to pay for the repairs to Mr.White's truck plus a twenty dollar charge for court fees.
“I didn't tell the court about the peculiar thing I saw in the harbour to get out of paying for the damage I'd caused,” Mr. Manchester told this reporter outside the courthouse, “I just wanted to clear up any notion that I am not an excellent driver under regular circumstances.”
