Mount Vernon

Anyway, throughout 1973, residents across southern Illinois began reporting encounters with a strange creature unlike anything they had seen before.

Sightings started surfacing in and around communities including Murfreesboro, Mount Vernon, Edwardsville, and Enfield, Illinois.

So if you're looking at where Enfield, Illinois is, it's literally like, you know how Illinois kind of comes down, not to Tennessee, but like directly above Tennessee? And then what is right there, Kentucky? It's like a direct line from like Clarksville, like above Tennessee.

nashville what's the town in the top left corner between nashville memphis jackson bill maybe you just look it up on a map i'm gonna pull it up

Right.

But they found nothing.

By July 2nd, the reports had moved north to Mount Vernon, Illinois, an area roughly between Enfield and Murfreesboro.

Six teenagers and a 24-year-old man reported seeing what locals were calling the pump house monster around the wooded areas near Casey Fork Creek.

I was a youth pastor for a couple of years in undergrad.

Then in grad school, I took over pastoring a little bitty church in Mount Vernon, Illinois that had about 50 people on an average Sunday when I took over.

Back in 2006, and then I was there for 17 and a half years, and the 50 became 30, and the 30 became 10, and we had six or seven on some good Sundays.

So we decided to close our doors about two years ago in July of 2024.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I love seeing that 'cause, uh, seeing Mr. Iguana pop up on there when, you know, a couple years ago I was at the same show with him in Mount Vernon, Illinois.

Like, you know.

And now I'm like, all right, lucha's starting to get the recognition and that's why I've...

Sometimes it starts in a recruiter's office, sometimes on a battlefield.

But for Marine veteran Hector and his wife Mary, [instrumental music plays] it started in a crowded bar in Mount Vernon, Illinois back in 2006.

[instrumental music plays] Mary had just moved to town celebrating her birthday when a guy who didn't quite know how to take a hint was trying to get her number, and then the door swung open.

Next thing I know, this good-looking guy walks through the, through the door and yells, "Yo, TJ, get me a beer." And I spun around and I'm like, "Who is that?" [laughs]