A 55-year-old man from Oklahoma has been sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of his friend, claiming he did it because the victim had "summoned Bigfoot" to kill and eat him.
On Tuesday, Judge C. Steven Kessinger of Pontotoc County District Court sentenced Larry Doil Sanders to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This judgment was for the 2022 murder of Jimmy Knighten.
This decision came after Sanders was found guilty of first-degree murder in April, following a bench trial before Judge Kessinger.
Sanders had confessed that he and Knighten were "noodling" in the South Canadian River on July 9 when a confrontation broke out.
He admitted to striking and strangling Knighten, leading to his friend's death.
Noodling is a fishing method where a person submerges themselves in water and uses their bare hands to catch fish,
This involves inserting their arm into the fish's mouth, typically to catch catfish.
This technique is mainly practiced in the southern United States.
When sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene on July 9, they found Sanders telling a family member that he had just killed Knighten.
Sanders then spoke to detectives, explaining that he attacked Knighten because his friend had summoned Bigfoot to kill him.
Sheriff John Christian recounted, "His statement was that Mr. Knighten had summoned 'Bigfoot' to come and kill him, and that's why he had to kill Mr. Knighten."
During the murder trial, Sanders testified in his defense.
He claimed that while they were in the river, he saw a 12-foot Bigfoot downstream and that Knighten kept urging him to go after a fish.
Sanders believed this was a ploy by Knighten to drown him and feed him to Bigfoot.
Later that afternoon, the two men got into a physical fight that ended with Knighten dead.
Sanders' defense attorney argued that Sanders acted in self-defense, trying to regain control of the situation rather than intending to kill Knighten.
District Attorney Erik Johnson, speaking to CBS affiliate KXII after Sanders' conviction, stated, "Yes, there was a monster in the woods that night, but it wasn't Bigfoot, it was Larry Sanders."
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