Cocaine Bear

[CalMeacham]

This is too good – and weird – not to share:

Cocaine Bear was briefly famous in 1985, when it was found dead after eating roughly $15 million worth of coke from a duffle bag dropped from a drug smuggler’s airplane. The smuggler, Andrew Carter Thornton II, was the wealthy son of an elite Kentucky horse-breeding family. According to a display at Georgia Bureau of Investigation headquarters (famous for exhibiting the Monkey From Mars), Thornton fell to his death when he bailed out of the plane, “hit his head on the tail of the aircraft,” and didn’t open his parachute until it was too late.

Thornton’s body was found in a driveway in Knoxville, Tennessee. Nine coke-stuffed duffle bags were eventually recovered along his plane’s flight path. Cocaine Bear was found three months later, in the woods just south of the Tennessee-Georgia state line, sprawled next to the ripped-open 10th bag. All of its coke – about 76 pounds – was gone.
…

Griffin and Whit spoke with the medical examiner who’d performed the bear’s necropsy. Even after 30 years he remembered the bear. He told them:

“Its stomach was literally packed to the brim with cocaine. There isn’t a mammal on the planet that could survive that. Cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, heart failure, stroke. You name it, that bear had it.”
The bear looked good despite its catastrophic demise, so it was stuffed and put on display at a local recreation area – without reference to its awkward past. But the bear’s history was known to a few, and it somehow found its way into the hands of a Nashville pawnbroker. He sold the bear to outlaw country star Waylon Jennings, who gave it to a Las Vegas hustler who was familiar with Andrew Thornton. When both Jennings and the hustler died, the bear was bought by a Chinese herbalist in Reno.

When the herbalist died, his widow kept it – until she was tracked down by Griffin and Whit. She gladly gave them the bear, who arrived in the Fun Mall in August 2015.

“You wouldn’t think that a Cocaine Bear would be for all ages, but kids love it,” said Griffin. “Everybody wants their picture with Cocaine Bear.” The Fun Mall has a liberal policy with shutterbugs, who are encouraged to come into the store (a former parachute factory) and take as many photos with the bear in as many ridiculous poses as they want.

Cocaine Bear, Lexington, Kentucky

[purplehorseshoe]

Let’s see if linky works:

The Reverend Horton Heat - Bales of Cocaine

tip-tapping away by phone, but why would you care?

[Dewey_Finn]

I think “Andrew Carter Thornton II” is the WASPiest name I’ve heard in a long while.

[ioioio]

It’s the details that make this a great story. My favorite is 'When both Jennings and the hustler died, the bear was bought by a Chinese herbalist in Reno."

Is it actually possible to jump from a plane and hit one’s head on the tail of the plane? I’ve sky dived a couple of times and have my doubts. An unpowered jumper falls away from a powered plane real damned fast.

Also, is it common for drug smugglers to jump from airplanes? Wouldn’t it be easier to just land at a small airport?

Still it’s a good story and should be true, even if it isn’t exactly.

[bibliophage]

Parachuting to your death with bags of cocaine. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah: season 4 of Justified. Unfortunately no bear that I remember though. That would have made it more interesting.

[Sailboat]

The fact that the bear is now in “the store (a former parachute factory)” is eerily circular.

[Gatopescado]

No match for the PCP Hippo.

[Knowed_Out]

See? Coke adds life.

[Senegoid]

@ioioio

Is it actually possible to jump from a plane and hit one’s head on the tail of the plane? I’ve sky dived a couple of times and have my doubts. An unpowered jumper falls away from a powered plane real damned fast.

[side-track]
It may be possible to jump and conk one’s head on the tail. I spend a lot of time at an airport where there is a skydive operation, and I’ve heard talk of some of their standard procedures. Before the jumpers jump, the pilot slows the plane down to minimum controllable airspeed (which also reduces the backwash from the propeller stream), just to minimize the chances of this happening.
[/side-track]

[Doctor_Jackson]

@Knowed_Out

See? Coke adds life.

In this case, coke subtracts life.

[plankter]

Now he ded from coke.

[buddha_david]

@Gatopescado

No match for the PCP Hippo.

Meth Lab.

[Isamu]

@ioioio

Is it actually possible to jump from a plane and hit one’s head on the tail of the plane? I’ve sky dived a couple of times and have my doubts. An unpowered jumper falls away from a powered plane real damned fast.
.

If the plane was in decent.

[furryman]

Cocaine Bear, the black sheep of the Care Bears.

[Gorsnak]

@Isamu

If the plane was in decent.

According to Wikipedia, it was a Cessna 404, which were well known for their lewd and indecent behaviour.

[running_coach]

@Gorsnak

According to Wikipedia, it was a Cessna 404, which were well known for their lewd and indecent behaviour.

Every time i try to Google it, i get “page not found”.

[Sunspace]

None of the adults ever wanted to talk about old Cocaine Bear. When one of us cubs got close to the subject, the adult bears would flinch and then cuff the interloper into silence. But the lurid tales lived on, whispered from cub to cub in the back of the den when the adults were asleep, even though we didn’t know what cocaine actually was. Cocaine Bear was dead. Cocaine Bear was in hiding. Cocaine Bear was plotting a comeback. Cocaine Bear would come when his believers called. Cocaine Bear would defend his believers and wreak a terrible revenge. For the outskirters of the tribe, the cubs who always got the short end of the stick, it was a tempting narrative. And it would only lead to trouble…

[Machine_Elf]

@Gatopescado

No match for the PCP Hippo.

As if hippos aren’t aggressive enough without PCP…:eek: