NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE: America’s most prolific Bigfoot hunter, who even sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to prove the mythical beast’s existence, has been found dead in her home. Claudia Ackley, 55, was found dead in her bed during a welfare check on July 3, her partner, Ed Brown revealed.
It was reported that Ackley died of a heart attack. Brown told The Sun that the Bigfoot hunter community had “lost a soldier” with her death. The husband was out of town on a business trip when he became worried after failing to contact Ackley between Thursday and Sunday. "I had a friend of mine check on her who said the dogs were barking but nobody answered the door, then he looked through the window and saw her lay on the bed like she was asleep," he said. After noticing that she was not moving, the friend called the police, who discovered that she had died.
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Who is Claudia Ackley?
“It could be caused by hypertension or an issue with her medication. But there is nothing to suggest anything untoward or anything related to any conspiracy theory,” Brown said, adding, “It is so important to me that is made clear." Ackley is survived by her two daughters.
The prolific hunter made headlines in 2018 when she sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife after claiming she had witnessed a Sasquatch during a hike with her daughters near Lake Arrowhead in March. At that time, she claimed that her family was at a trailhead with their dog when one of her children allegedly spotted something that caused her to stop cold in her tracks.
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Ackley claimed to have caught on camera an alpha male Sasquatch staring at her from behind a tree. "I swear to God...Mom?" one of her daughters, who was recording the video, said to which Ackley replied, "I swear to God, on my life, we ran into a Sasquatch." She called the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which dispatched a detective, who told her that she had merely seen a bear. However, she rejected the officer’s assertion, stating, "My daughters have seen bears. They're not scared by bears."
The lawsuit was dismissed a little more than a month after it was first filed. “Her lawsuit’s goal was to force the state of California and the fish and wildlife authority to take sightings seriously and investigate them properly, rather than just say, ‘It was a bear,’” Brown said, adding, “The goal was to get them to do real investigation and research."
'She wanted to protect people'
Ackley previously claimed that this was not the first time she has encountered the beast. According to her, she had first encountered the creature in Washington State in 2014 during a Bigfoot journey she organized as a holiday with her then-husband. She saw what she thought was a small, five-foot tall Bigfoot in the trees and locked eyes with it. She even created an actual footprint using a plaster mold. "They're supposed to be there to protect the public. They're not doing their jobs. If I can save one life, it will be worth it," she told the NY Post.
Ackley dedicated her life to proving the existence of the infamous creatures. "I want to protect her legacy, she was a great person with a heart the size of Texas and she wanted to help everybody,” Brown said, adding, "She wanted to protect people and she was doing something no one else was doing by speaking out about these creatures and listening to others.”
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