Four years after the terrifying standoff in the Tongass National Forest, Thomas traveled deep into the remote Copper River Valley to help his friend build a cabin on a Native allotment plot. The peaceful construction project took a dark turn when Thomas discovered his friend had been casually dumping food scraps behind the tree line, inadvertently feeding and habituating a local Hairy Man. Thomas immediately warned him about the extreme danger of creating dependency, but the warning came too late. The escalating situation quickly spiraled out of control, resulting in a fatal confrontation.
When the enormous creature finally succumbed to the gunfire, it let out a haunting, mournful death groan that shook Thomas to his core. Fearing the consequences of what they had done, the two men built a massive bonfire and burned the massive corpse to ash. After wheelbarrowing the remaining fragments—including a piece of the skull and a foot—to an abandoned excavation trench down an old logging road, they buried the evidence under a thick layer of gravel. Deeply traumatized by the horrific ordeal, Thomas's friend abandoned his lifelong dream, fleeing his allotment land forever and leaving the unfinished cabin to rot in the wilderness.
