(Infamous) Justin Smeja
For many in the field of bigfooting, Justin Smeja has become a controversial subject. He has been labeled everything from a hoaxer, an attention seeker and in some rare cases, a bigfoot expert. His story received worldwide attention after the release of the online documentary "I Killed Bigfoot". The event has become known as "The Sierra Kills" amongst those in the sasquatch world in which Justin supposedly shot and killed two juvenile Bigfoot.
After interviewing Justin Smeja for the movie 'I Killed Bigfoot', filmmaker Ro Sahebi initiated the polygraph exam featured in the short film," The Examination". This would eventually lead to the feature documentary 'Dead Bigfoot: A True Story'.
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Steven Streufert Yeah, Derek Randles was the first Bigfooter to contact Smeja from the Taxidermy board, and to nurture that contact to get at the hopeful evidence. Money was offered to Smeja, $500 if I recall correctly. I think that's what put the fire into the hoax and stepped out up to a several-year lying game. Meldrum and a bunch of the west coast squatchers joined in. At least he didn't win the $10 Million Bigfoot Bounty, eh? But it sure wasted a lot of our time, and even fooled Melba Ketchum. For years afterwards, W. Hersom financed Justin's "research" around the "Sierra Kills" site, probably resulting only in a whole lot of poaching.
Mike Schuetz Steven Streufert I found an interview with Ro sahebi where he mentioned that the producers paid both of them 15,000 dollars to appear on that show each. Due to their “fame.” All the other contestants got paid approximately 800 dollars per episode.
