Sams 85-year-old mother, Dolores, called 911, and soon the police were in the area. A white tiger appeared to be eating it, and they couldn't get closer. They'd never had kids. And finally, out back near the empty swimming pool, was a small grizzly bear, also in a birdcage. IE 11 is not supported. "Other things will happen, but this is never going to happen again.". "It stood up," says Kanavel, "and was standing there." Terry Thompson's story went round the world, but it was also barely told at all. Patrolman: Well, sir, this is not personal. I was in a helicopter so I was a machine gunner with an M60that was on a bipod. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has announced it will return Feb. 7-17. He said he didn't have any control over it. This was his high school sweetheart. This reality is revealed to us through Zanesville Animal Escape that briefly makes its presence felt during the first half of the series. Marian became a well-respected local schoolteacher and a prizewinning rider. "He was pretty dejected. When the zoo people returned to the site at five-thirty the next morning, they had been joined by Jack Hanna. The last few years of Terrys life were when things started going downhill for him. He told Spires that he was broke, that all he had was sixty horses, but Spires reassured him that he'd made money before and he could make money again. Three days before Thompson died, Chuck Spires, the guitar instructor, spoke with him for about twenty minutes. I wonder how I might bring up the dark moment that the exotic-animal owners think of as his great never mentioned dirty secret, but I don't need to. "He hesitated. "His eyes were just beautiful." Because she loved the animals as much as he did. (And continued to becounty records show at least seven citations for failing to wear a seat belt. The exotic-animal world is a close-knit one, and in the year before Thompson's death, after he was sent to prison, word spread that there were problems with his animals. There are two mysteries about what happened along the driveway of 270 Kopchak Road that nobody has been able to explain. Though ultimately no action was taken concerning the animals after Thompson moved to improve his facilities, Barrie had been horrified at what he saw up there in terms of security, cleanliness, and animal cruelty. "But you'll know when I go.". We didn't talk about the deposition.Okay. TERRY THOMPSON. "He would never sell anything," says Marshall. "He felt betrayed by the government, by the army, by society in general," claims Marshall. According to investigators he has been cited in the past for animal abuse and neglect. Mike Marshall, who later flew civilian planes with him, says Thompson brought it up frequently. Maybe something went very astray with Terry Thompson, and so of course it is now in the interests of the other owners to draw a firm line between what he did and what they do, but my hunch is that if one had visited him a few years ago, he would have expressed the same love and care and concern for his animals, and done so with conviction. Young Queen Charlotte's marriage to King George of England sparks an epic love story and transforms high society in this "Bridgerton" universe prequel. [In 1976] Terry joined the Army Everest Expedition where he met his tragic death in a crevasse accident in the Western Cwm." - Mike Banks The Climber's Club Journal (London) 1976. Nobody yet knew where Thompson was, and so there was concern for his safety. [7] In the years leading up to his death, he went to prison on federal gun charges, was heavily in debt, and his wife had left him. Terry Thompson's best friend Charlie Leasure reflects on his friend's final day. Aunt Iris was old the day I met her, or so it seemed. Merry drove back up the hill, until he came across a deputy running back and forth near Thompson's driveway. When I interviewed Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson over the summer after the release of his documentary "Summer Of Soul," at the end of the. "Everything he had was fast," says Marshall. "I've had three bad things happen in my life," he says, and proceeds to describe them. On the other side of the flimsy fence separating them from his neighbor Terry Thompson's property, Kopchak noticed that Thompson's horses seemed even more agitated. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. In this era there were also numerous complaints of loose animals. The common assumption after the catastrophe at Zanesville was that when it came to Terry Thompson and his animals, he must have been a terrible man doing a terrible thing. ", "He would not have his position now," echoes another, Evelyn Shaw (one cougar, two servals, one lemur, one macaw, one skunk), "if he had not started out as a private owner. Instead, he walked over to Walmart, bought a Schwinn cruiser bicycle and rode nearly fifty miles through the rainy night along the old Route 40 until he reached his home. His neighbor Fred Polk relates how two of Thompson's Rottweilers got out and killed a couple of Polk's calves. Mr Thompson had been released from federal prison three weeks earlier after serving a one-year term on firearms charges, according to the AFP news agency. After a while the four shooters ran low on ammo and called for more, and eventually they headed back toward where the body was. Practical questions and answers regarding the gospel are presented at the Eternity page. ", Many of Thompson's friends believe that his time in Vietnam was the defining experience of his life. The first involves his daughter and cancer. Encounters with animals that would normally have been remembered for a lifetime were forgotten moments later as the next came along. That's when you sleep with a machine gun. Ten years ago, after a heart attack, Taft had a quintuple-bypass operation. Read on to find out the details. Thompson also used to insist that he never sold exotic animals, but many in the animal world are scornful at this suggestion. He was actually found with a pillowcase over his head and a gunshot wound to his stomach. Thompson did things his own way even when it led him into trouble. She sounded calm when she reported what her son had seen, as though there was really nothing too strange or alarming about a lion and a bear running loose on an October afternoon in Ohio. "I actually think that he expected this when he got home and kind of planned it," says Stilwell. They needed to find out for sure, and to see whether the person might still be alive. And it planted the seed of caring for wild animals for the rest of his life. You've had no conversation with her about that at all?No. It was presumed that the remaining two animals were eaten by some of the bigger ones. Or $0.00 with a Prime membership. "It was the most horrific smells," says Stalf. Terry William Thompson grew up just east of Zanesville on his parents' farm, close to the airport. one owner nonchalantly inquires, as it nestles up against the fencing inches away from me in his garage.) First they had to deal with a male African lion that managed to run between some junk cars after the first shotthere were dozens and dozens of old cars and RVs and tractors parked in clumps of rusted metal around the hillside, weeds growing around them. "He never really got over it," says Marshall. As they moved toward other escapees spread over the hillside, they used the truck to give themselves elevation, trying to engage the animals from seventy to a hundred yards away, firing on them two at a time until they went down. His wife-to-be, Marian Sharp, came from what was considered a good local family, and was an accomplished barrel racer and horsewoman. From $999 to buy. And he never differentiated between themhe kind of liked the notoriety." Bo Keck, an officer who was there, told him he couldn't pull such a stunt. As for the enemy: "He said he just had to keep mowing them down. You finally just stop.". "Oh, he didn't like it at all," Polk remembers. My blog posts are this Christ follower's perspectives on important issues facing our blessed America. Fred Polk, a farmer and scrap dealer who was one of Thompson's neighbors and sometimes tangled with him, also knew him before and after he went away to war. Likewise, there is wide disagreement about what kind of human intervention or interaction can be beneficial or justified. It was his neighbour, Sam Kopchak, who first noticed that Terrys horses were unusually agitated. Nearby, they found bolt cutters and a stainless-steel Ruger .357 magnum revolver. He really became a hoarder of the animals. He eventually sold his bike shop and, for the rest of Thompson's life, his hobbies and whatever he did to make a living seemed to mingle in ways that were sometimes ill-defined. Terry Thompson died under the most dramatic of circumstances. During the altercation, Thompson's wife, Chauna Thompson, a Harris County Sheriff 's deputy, arrived and called for assistance. His friends refer to other such outingsa shoot with Newt Gingrich, for instanceand say that he took animals on two different occasions to a Bloomberg corporate summer picnic in New York. Thompson's body was taken from the scene for an autopsy at the Licking County Coroner's, where it revealed a few of its secrets. Neighbors describe Terry Thompson, the owner of the exotic animal farm where 56 animals escaped 10-19-2011. What did he ever do to his country?" He was caught up in dangerously illegal black-market animal sales, dead or alive. Terry Thompson is known for Murder Comes to Town (2014) and Not for Rent! Some owners took food down to Thompson's property themselves, some say they contacted the sheriff's department. I mean, he was a gun man. . Where do you plan to live when you are released?At my house.Okay. And you've not spoken to your wife since her deposition [five weeks earlier]?No. "When he would go into the house another buddy would hold an M16 out, protecting him, and then when he came out he would hold the M16, protecting his buddy. Sitting up there, rusting away, is a brand-new '34 Ford steel body. The sentences that go round my brain are ones that were said to me by one of the animal owners I spoke to, Nancy Wider. The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will resume in Santa Barbara, Calif., continuing to take . Thompson, 61, was recently released from prison after serving one year on federal weapons charges. The government stole his heart. View the profiles of people named Terry Thompson. As one friend puts it: "Who is the guy who would piss my dad off the most?" In 1997, Terry and Marian attended an exotic animal auction, from which Terry gifted an ailing baby lion to Marian as a birthday gift. The lion was in the same place as a moment ago, still on the other side of the fence, though it was quite obvious that the animal could get over the fence anytime it wanted to. Maybe the animals had somehow busted out, and he was injured, in need of help. He just couldn't keep his brain on the right track. At the time there was a young tiger cub living with him and when Taft returned from the hospital he was unwilling to displace it. There was gray powder residue on his left hand that appeared to be from a gun being fired. Terry Thompson sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of John Hernandez. Thompson was involved with bad people and had fallen out with them. In the song, the house in question is a New Orleans brothel, and the name was borrowed for similar establishments in Vietnam. But Thompson explained how upset he was that he used to be able to go around his own private zoo and call his animals by name but could no longer do so. No one is sure how many there are, or where they are. Soon, their collection grew into a private mini zoo as the couple took care of rescued animals, and also bought some themselves. After Deputy Merry headed down the road in pursuit of a wolf, Sergeant Steve Blake, who'd been first on the scene, decided he should drive up to Thompson's house. "He wanted people to know that he was there. As he neared the farm buildings he saw more animals. And he said, 'Well, I got through Vietnam' ", When John Moore told the police about a letter accusing Marian Thompson of adultery that Thompson had received on the day before his death, the implication seemed to be that he had received some fresh, devastating news about his marriage. He. He never left it.". But what about declawing cats, something considered quite acceptable in parts of the exotic owners' world? When the owners I meet with talk about the proposed new laws (which, in their most inflexible draft versions, would effectively close down everyone in Ohio whom I speak with, and so would inevitably lead to massive animal euthanization), there is one other common target of their ire, aside from Terry Thompson: Jack Hanna. He was like royalty." The family stayed at the top of London's criminal tree for so long thanks to a string of extraordinary acquittals by juries. "They had split before he actually went to prison," says Huntsman. Garbage bags filled with garbage that were knocked over, and the filth. It didn't seem that big a dealthey all knew Thompson had animals and they'd been called out there again and again, mostly for loose horses. The white tiger was atop him. "I think people were afraid of Terry. Thompson did speak to other friends in those days. On the worst days, there were more people to be rescued than they possibly could. Month after month. Thompson was a collector of exotic animals, who grew up in Zanesville, and was well-known around the area for the wild things he did. Thompson let the animals loose then killed himself. Want to Read. Their assumption was that he had been thinking about the animals, and they couldn't work out his train of thought. Well, let me tell you, if you want to kill a bunch of kids you take that camper and run into a schoolyard full of kids, you'll kill about a hundred of them. Thompson almost collapsed to his seat. "Well," Thompson retorted, "find someone to file a complaint on me." The 62-year-old owner of an exotic animal farm freed his 56 wild animals on Tuesday (including lions, Bengal tigers, wolves and. Matthew Lutz, the Muskingum County Sheriff described him as a like-to-live-on-the-edge type of person. But I lean toward another theorythat in the end the animals were just what they've usually been in human history: incidental collateral damage. Frequently these are based on a confident assessment of the animals' happiness (a thorny notion), and on the pragmatic need to save animals from a place worse than where they are. "Apparently," Tom Stalf theorizes, "he wanted the animals to eat him. I think that was a lot of it. Surely he must have broken every law that prevents your next-door neighbor from secretly housing an ambush of tigers? View all posts . Thompson told Spires of a visit on the day a friend of his had been killed. Rhino experts from around the world had gathered, and the zoo was throwing a cocktail party on the grounds of the polar-bear exhibit. Lutz instructed that if there were animals outside Thompson's property they needed to be shot. Usually he never hesitated. He was charged with animal cruelty relating to some livestock he kept on his parents' old property on the other side of town after three cows and a buffalo were said to have died of starvation and was sentenced to six months' house arrest. "One of our vets came into the cocktail area," says Tom Stalf, the zoo's chief operating officer, "and you could see the panic on her face. "They could only get so many on the helicopter," says Cress, "and they actually had to pry their fingers off the helicopter so they could get off the ground." On his way home from Vietnam, Thompson found himself in Columbus, Ohio. The wounds mentioned in the autopsy report, aside from the gunshot wound, begin with "a 2 1/4 inch vertical laceration on the right lower forehead and along the spine of the nose." TV Shows. Only three weeks after getting out, he released the animals, and shot himself. As time passed, people got used to the way he might turn up at the local airfield, say, with a baby bear or lion. "He always bragged," says Marshall, "that when he sold his business he had 138 motorcycles, 138 cars, and 138 guns." Perhaps it is obvious to you that removing a monkey's teeth and dressing it up in pseudo-human-children's clothing (Hanna "Monk"tana two-piece panne velvet dress, $38) and diapers (infant starter pack, $35) is wrong? The police took guidance from wildlife expert Jack Hanna, who insisted that killing the animals was a necessity in order to ensure the safety of the public. Never had to think twice about it. Whatever the dynamic that drew them together, for the next four decades they presented themselves as a formidable partnership. ". Even when a tranquilizer dose is successfully administered it needs about ten minutes to take effect, and great care is required to establish that it has done soimpossible with so many animals running around. My guest, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, has made his directorial debut with the new documentary "Summer Of Soul." Questlove co-founded The Roots, which is,. Terry Thompson is known for Red Phone 2 (2003), The Red Phone: Manhunt (2002)and Planespotting (2005). Deputy Tony Angelo, a sniper on their SWAT team, had a bolt-action rifle, Deputy Ryan Paisley had a nine-millimeter HK MP5 submachine gun, Deputy Jay Lawhorne and Kanavel had assault rifles. Starring: Zac Aynsley , Craig Golias , Janea Kroc and Jeff McDunough. Netflixs Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness offers an expansive portrayal of private ownership of exotic animals in America. Together, they returned to the house, finding nothing but two monkeys and a dog in cages. In the end, as his friends point out, Thompson was only convicted for ownership of a gun without a serial number (he said it was too old to have one) and the possession of a single machine gun. Terry in particular was always well dressed and in charge of whatever was going on. Some people just said, 'Oh, that's T.' ". "It's only half a boat," Thompson explained. Directed by: Vlad Yudin. After all, this is not the life they are meant to lead, and certainly not the one they deserve. The catastrophic incident that took place in Ohio should have served as a cautionary tale for others in America. to my website where you will find interesting information and inspiration. Lutz described Thompson as "a guy who kind of kept to himself, was always willing to push the envelope a little bit." Terry Thompson, a Vietnam War veteran, was a lifelong collector of exotic animals. I just know that I learned the lesson the hard way, that's all.". Thompson was a collector of exotic animals, who grew up in Zanesville, and was well-known around the area for the wild things he did. "), That was all the five of them could learn for now because they were urgently redeployed to the southern end of the property where some cats had been spotted readying to cross the boundary fence. They agreed on 25 years. One of the surprising facts about owning animals like these in America right now is that while keeping them may not be cheap, buying them frequently is. When it turned up toward a house, Merry got his rifle from the trunk and followed on foot. Occasionally there were reports of more unusual creatures running free but nothing too bad had ever happened. The house itself was disgusting. IMDbProStarmeterSee rank Add photos, demo reelsAdd to list View contact info at IMDbPro More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Known for Red Phone 2 5.7 TV Movie Writer 2003 The Red Phone: Manhunt 4.2 TV Movie Writer 2002 Planespotting 6.5 But the final blow was finding out that his wife, Marian, had left him. They were told that it wasn't safe for them to try to tranquilize anything because so many animals were circulating and others were scattering outward. But people will believe what they need to believe. Forty miles away, at the Columbus Zoo, an event was being held for the International Rhino Foundation. Hannafamous for his TV shows and his appearances on shows like Lettermanestablished his career at the Columbus Zoo and remains its director emeritus. ("Ever been this close to a tiger?" Byline: By TONY THOMPSON . Actor: Murder Comes to Town. "And, you know, I'm a cat person.". By now the order had come over the radio: Put the animal down. They are effectively worthless, because there are usually more people trying to unload them than wanting to purchase them, which is also why across America there are a surprising number of sizable big-cat sanctuaries, several with over a hundred animals. The bigger the bang that takes someone out, the more likely it is that the person at its center will be obscured. That's when Moore told Deputy Jeff LeCocq something that would later appear in the official police report and came to be taken as a kind of explanation for what had happened, albeit one that prompted many further questions. Six of Terry Thompson's animals survived. He and his wife liked to drive a decommissioned fireman's truck around town until one night he wrecked it. The guy was able to stumble to his feet and try to run, and Terry caught up to him, so at that moment he took off to run it was no longer self-defense." Because he wouldn't take any clothes with him." It was very sad to seehow someone clearly had lost their mind. Animal attacks are terrible tragedies but so are attacks on animals and none more so than that which transpired in Zanesville, Ohio in 2011.On October 18th 2. I always thought that was pretty funny." That was when he saw the black bear, at first facing him and then running straight toward him. Maternity leave is over and it's time for these four moms to return to work while navigating kids, bosses, love and life in modern-day Toronto. he says. An incredible true story from the March 2012 issue of GQ. Others were noted on his torso and his legs. Dr. Michael Barrie, the zoo's director of animal health, had been up at Thompson's property to inspect his large private collection of animals in 2008, accompanying an ATF raid that eventually led to Thompson's imprisonment for a year on gun charges. After that, Merry went back for his rifle. A fully grown male African lion. He made mistakes, big mistakes, that the rest of us haven't made.". ", After it happened, one thing everyone wanted to understand was how a man who had loved animals enough to have gathered so many grand creatures could then have condemned them to what he had to know was certain death. In the later years it became very overwhelming because Terry went a little off the deep end. "So we shot them," says Polk. I asked, 'Why, Terry? (Tigers are reputedly worth as much as $20,000 dead when their body parts are illegally sold off.) (Everyone knows somewhere else worse.). (Whose feelings, exactly, are being taken into account there?) Informant: You're crazy.Thompson: That's what they all say. Her bond with them certainly seemed real. The miracle of the great Zanesville zoo escapewhich began last fall when a depressed, desperate man named Terry Thompson set free his vast collection of exotic animalswas that not a single. Thompson opened a bike shop in town. Day after day. This plan soon had to be revised. ", I reiterate how angry animal owners are with him. You'll never kill one hundred with an AR because the gun will jam or you'll run out of ammo or someone will shoot you before.Terry Thompson, secretly recorded in his home by a government informant, April 2008. Moore said that he had last spoken with Thompson at nine o'clock the previous evening, and that Thompson, who was 62, had told him about a letter he'd received from an unnamed author saying that his wife, Marian, had been unfaithful. Personal testimonies from his closest staff and family tell a different story from the daily public barrage of criticisms by of the media. Maybe a mile away was a school soccer gamekids yelling and screaming in the open air. Why do you need so many?' Jack Hanna's lion, at Jack Hanna's animal farm. "Beautiful blues eyesthat's what you noticed first," says Christine Perone, who dated him for some time in high school. The white tiger had gone. In Vietnam we were so much more interested in lightweight because we were on the move a lot. It took his heart. "She was saying, 'Please, Mr. Hanna, don't take my children,'" says Hanna. This is FRESH AIR. They were circling, and in the center of their troubled orbit there was some kind of dark shape. "Some of them were untrue. Even that statistic slightly obscures the situation. It was beyond anything that you would ever want to experience. "Our role in life is to care for animals and to educate and inspire people about these great creatures," says Stalf, "and to see them piled in the mudit was just a bad day, you know.". "Some of them were true," says Marshall. The only notable substance in his blood was Benadryl. The first came in 1985 when Tommy Adams . Now, the thing is, you know when everyone says this guy went into a schoolyard and kills a bunch of kids and he had an automatic rifle? He was just a bit different from the other ones. 4.74 avg rating 107 ratings published 2021 3 editions. Deputy Jonathan Merry was two hours into his shift, serving a court summons a couple of miles away in Zanesville, when the call came through about a lion and a bear on the loose. He reported back to the sheriff that, whether the body was Thompson's or someone else's, it was deceased. "My father's gun," he told a government interviewer, "brought home from World War II in Germany, never been shot, never been cleaned, never been handled." After returning from war, Terry opened a motorcycle shop which he ran till the 90s, and then sold licensed firearms for some years. Terry Thompson. ), Thompson flew regularly for a local millionaire, including a vintage World War IIera Stearman biplane, and also kept some of his own planes on the Kopchak Road propertyhe had the electric company move the power lines so that he could take off and land there. Twenty-one other injuries, or clusters of injuries, were detailed just on the head and neck, the site of the most widespread damage. ", A bond that tied two people for so long can take time to break completely. The cause of death seemed to be a gunshot to the head. It was also in Zanesville where he met his wife, Marian Sharp (Thompson), for the first time. Up near the house, where no media could see them, the officers laid the dead animals out in rows, by species, to ease the counting. On May 31, 2017, John Hernandez was murdered by Terry Thompson during a fight outside a restaurant in Sheldon, Texas, part of the Greater Houston area. He wouldn't ever know where the bullet went, though he assumed he must have hit the brain. Not the weapon you'd want when you're facing down 350 pounds of charging bear. Daniel: Prophet at the King's Command, a Novel.
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