One of the strangest stories in a while comes from Pontotoc County in southern Oklahoma. There, 53-year-old Larry Doil Sanders confessed to killing fellow 53-year-old Jimmy Glenn Knighten. The two of them were on a catfish noodling trip (a type of fishing done by hand) Saturday, but only Sanders (seen above in a Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation mugshot) returned. He told his daughter and then law enforcement he killed Knighten after Knighten tried to feed him to Bigfoot, then provided a map that led to the discovery of Knighten’s body. Here’s more on that from Nolan Clay of The Oklahoman:
In the interview Sunday, he claimed he discovered while at the river that Knighten “intended to feed him to sasquatch/Bigfoot,” [OSBI] Special Agent Justin Brown wrote.
“LARRY advised he believed JIMMY was trying to get away from him so that the sasquatch could eat LARRY,” the agent wrote. “LARRY would not let JIMMY get away. LARRY punched JIMMY and struck JIMMY with a stick. LARRY and JIMMY fought for an extended amount of time on the ground.
“LARRY confirmed he killed JIMMY by choking him to death near the river.”
The suspect’s daughter also said he told her he killed Knighten for trying to feed him to Bigfoot, according to the affidavit. She said he was frantic and mentioned something about strangling Knighten, “and possibly firing two shots from a pistol.”
The suspect’s daughter is the girlfriend of the victim’s son, according to the affidavit. The victim’s son said Sanders admitted to getting into a fight over being fed to Bigfoot.
As Clay’s story also notes, the Pontohoc deputy sheriff who arrested Sanders on an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines in drug cases Saturday (after Sanders told his daughter about the killing and she reported that) said he “seemed to be under the influence of illegal drugs.” Sanders was placed on five-year probation in 2019 after he was caught bringing methamphetamine into the Pontotoc County jail after a public intoxication arrest. Pontotoc County Sheriff John Christian told media Sanders seemed under the influence when he was arrested, as relayed by Tulsa’s Fox 23:
“He [Sanders] appeared to be under the influence of something. His statement was that Mr. Knighten had summoned ‘Bigfoot’ to come and kill him; that’s why he had to kill Mr. Knighten.”
That’s certainly a tragic story.
[The Oklahoman; image from Fox 23]