Chupacabra Hunter
Featured on the cover of my book The Mystery Chronicles (2004) and discussed further in my Tracking the Man Beasts (2011) is the fabled vampiric creature that appeared in Puerto Rico in 1995. On November 20, 2011, while in Springfield, Missouri (to speak at SkeptiCon), I learned of a young man, Dalton Pennington, having bagged a suspected Chupacabra (Spanish for "goat sucker"). This transpired on his family's farm near Strafford. (The strange looking, yellow-eyed animal had cost them a chicken a day and was heading for the goat pen when Dalton killed it with a single shot.) I tracked down the critter and examined it: It proved to be a mangy coyote—as real, apparently, as the Chupacabra gets. (The April 14, 2011, episode of Bones featured the mysterious death of a chupacabra hunter, a character that seemed to be based on my work and writings.)
