Matt Whitton

Matt Whitton is a former police officer from Clayton County, Georgia, USA. He briefly gained worldwide notoriety when he and accomplice Rick Dyer claimed to have found the body of the legendary bigfoot in June of 2008. The "discovery" was covered on BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7564635.stm] , CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/bigfoot.body/] , ABC News [http://a.abcnews.com/Technology/story?id=5590180&page=1] , and FOX News [http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug16/0,4670,BigfootClaim,00.html] , among many others. Whitton and Dyer claimed to have found the corpse of the animal in the woods of north Georgia, and had stashed it in a freezer.

The "discovery" was later discovered to be a fraud, when the group Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. of Menlo Park, California purchased the frozen "body" for $50,000 and thawed it out, discovering it was nothing more than a rubber suit. [cite news|url=http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/clayton/stories/2008/08/19/bigfoot_hoax.html|publisher=Cox News Service|title=Bigfoot’s body a hoax, California site reveals|first=Bob|last=Keefe|date=2008-08-19] Whitton was then fired from his position with the Clayton County Police Department. [ [http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7242528&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1 MyFoxAtlanta.com: Clayton County Officer Loses Job Over Bigfoot Hoax, August 21, 2008] ] The group that purchased the "corpse" has filed a lawsuit against Whitton and Dyer. [cite news|url=http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/clayton/stories/2008/08/20/bigfoot_hoax_lawsuit.html|title=Searching for Bigfoot group to sue Georgia hoaxers|publisher="Atlanta Journal Constitution"|date=2008-08-20|first=Christian|last=Boone|coauthors=Kathy Jefcoats]

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