Larry Doil Sanders (Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation)
A 55-year-old man in Oklahoma will spend the rest of his life behind bars for beating and strangling his friend to death, claiming he did it because the victim had “summoned Bigfoot” to kill and eat him.
Pontotoc County District Court Judge C. Steven Kessinger on Tuesday ordered Larry Doil Sanders to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the chance of parole for the 2022 slaying of Jimmy Knighten, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Sanders in April was found guilty on one count of first-degree murder in Knighten’s death following a nonjury bench trial before Kessinger.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) on July 10 responded to a request for assistance from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and the Pontotoc County Sheriff’s Office regarding a possible homicide. Authorities said Sanders had confessed that he and Knighten on July 9 were noodling in the South Canadian River when “a confrontation ensued.” Sanders allegedly admitted to “striking and strangling” Knighten, ultimately killing the other man, who was reportedly his friend.
“Noodling” is a type of fishing in which a person submerges themself in a body of water and uses their bare hands to catch a fish — typically a catfish — by sticking their arm into the fish’s mouth. The method is primarily practiced in the southern United States.
Sheriff’s deputies said that when they first responded to the July 9, call they arrived as Sanders was telling a member of his family that he had just killed Knighten. Sanders then spoke to detectives and blamed the attack on Knighten calling upon Bigfoot.
“So, his statement was that Mr. Knighten had summoned ‘Bigfoot’ to come and kill him, and that’s why he had to kill Mr. Knighten,” Sheriff John Christian said.
Sanders took the stand in his defense during the murder trial. He testified that he and Knighten were in the river when he saw a 12-foot Bigfoot downstream. He claimed that Knighten kept telling him to go after a fish, which made Sanders think Knighten was going to try to drown him and feed him to Bigfoot.
Later on the afternoon of July 9, Sanders and Knighten then got into a physical altercation that ended with Knighten dead. Sanders’ defense attorney argued that Sanders was acting in self-defense and merely trying to regain control of the situation, not end Knighten’s life, according to a report from Oklahoma, CBS affiliate KXII.
“Yes, there was a monster in the woods that night, but it wasn’t Bigfoot, it was Larry Sanders,” District Attorney Erik Johnson told KXII after Sanders was convicted.
David Harris contributed to this report.
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