'Bigfoot Hunt' Goes Wrong... Horribly, Horribly Wrong

'Bigfoot Hunt' Goes Wrong... Horribly, Horribly Wrong

A casual Saturday night hunt for Bigfoot went horribly wrong after one "spooked" man accidentally shot his friend and three people were arrested following the hunt for the mythical creature.

Omar Pineda, 21, was arrested after he told Rogers County deputies that he shot his friend in the back when a "barking noise" scared him during the hunt for Bigfoot.

But the unimpressed authorities are sceptical of the tale and have accused the Sasquatch hunters of wasting their time.

"Any story that starts out that someone is on a hunt for Sasquatch (Bigfoot), we probably have problems with you from the get go," Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton told local media.

"To our knowledge, (there have been) no Bigfoot sightings in Rogers County.

"I think our focus is career criminals and thugs, and we're going to stay focused on that and let somebody else go after Bigfoot."

"If [they] had just been factual, upfront and truthful with us and explained that this was truly an accident, as strange as it might sound, we would have went ahead and investigated and probably nobody would have [gone] to jail," he told News On 6.

According to KFOR, the bullet entered the victim's back and went through his stomach. He underwent surgery at an area hospital and is expected to survive.

Omar Pineda (left), Perry Don James (center) and Lacey Pineda (right) were arrested in connection with a bogus Bigfoot hunt that ended in an accidental shooting.

Pineda's father-in-law, Perry Don James, 53, was also arrested in connection with the so-called "Bigfoot hunt." Police said that James, who is a convicted felon, threw a gun in a pond, which police dive teams then had to recover. He is charged with felon in possession of a firearm and destruction of evidence.

Lacey Jane Pineda, 22, the wife of the shooting suspect, was charged with obstruction after allegedly lying to police about the shooting. Omar Pineda is charged with careless use of a firearm.

Oklahoma is not known as a hotspot for Bigfoot sightings in the U.S., although more than a few encounters have been reported there over the years.

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