Powered by WordPress.com VIP. There are plenty of colorful stories about his exploits. "I think it's Terry," he said. Now he only had his Glock. "He would sometimes step on other guys' girlfriends. "Kind of classyyou know," says Jim Stilwell, a longtime friend of Thompson's who went to school with Sharp. His gallbladder had been removed earlier in life, and he was suffering from severe atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. ", "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. The black bear fell about seven feet in front of Merry. The craziest, most tangentially related rumor that I hear in Zanesville: Jack Hanna was supplying Charlie Sheen's tiger blood. [Talking about the property on which he lived and died]It's the high ground. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. "Betrayed by his family. Neighbors describe Terry Thompson, the owner of the exotic animal farm where 56 animals escaped 10-19-2011. As one friend puts it: "Who is the guy who would piss my dad off the most?" "Why him? Terry Thompson died under the most dramatic of circumstances. 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 son and wife were off to a literacy night so he was on his own. "That means they're happy," Stilwell says. Garbage bags filled with garbage that were knocked over, and the filth. "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." Netflixs Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness offers an expansive portrayal of private ownership of exotic animals in America. He set down his clipboard on the porch, where it would remain for the next few hours, ran to his patrol car, and followed the wolf. Marian insisted on removing the macaques from their cages herself, waving off the zoo personnel's advice about the risk she was taking. "He sold the monkey outside of the auction, because it wasn't legal to sell inside, for $3,500.". Sams 85-year-old mother, Dolores, called 911, and soon the police were in the area. By the time the Columbus Zoo team had arrived at the holding area, it was dark. 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. Here in the field. He had these wild animals. Friends talk of driving to Columbus, a baby bear with them in the front cab, or having naps at his house with baby lions asleep on them. Somehow, no one was hurt. (And continued to becounty records show at least seven citations for failing to wear a seat belt. Hanna was a trusted animal advocate, and as he emotively articulated his pain at the deaths that had taken place, his unequivocal insistence that the sheriff's department had no other option than to act as they did served as a powerful antidote to the other obvious narrativethat a thoughtless small-town law-enforcement brigade had murdered dozens of noble beasts because they were too dumb and trigger-happy to think of a better alternative. (At 6:04 p.m., Lutz shared this information on the police radio: "Okay, we have located the owner. A white tiger appeared to be eating it, and they couldn't get closer. Ten years ago, after a heart attack, Taft had a quintuple-bypass operation. ", Many of Thompson's friends believe that his time in Vietnam was the defining experience of his life. They need people to know that not everybody who has a tiger or three tucked away behind their house is a Terry Thompson. As he neared the farm buildings he saw more animals. Smith asked why it was only half price. What did he ever do to his country?" All the Under-$20 Style, Tech, and Home Goods We're Feeling This May, 62 Excellent Gift Ideas to Spoil All the Deserving Guys Out There, 51 Non-Boring Wedding Gifts for All Kinds of Cool Newlyweds, Why NBA MVP Voter Fatigue Is (Mostly) a Myth. As Tiger King reaches its gnawing conclusion, it makes us aware that not a single animal benefitted from all the greed, rivalries and betrayals that unravel in the series. It was very sad to seehow someone clearly had lost their mind. Meanwhile, at the gateway of Thompson's property, the police were wondering how many animals might be loose. Whatever the exact truth, it wasn't that simple, though different people suggest different time frames. In the fifteen minutes it took him to get to the scene, as the reports he was receiving over the radio escalated, the seriousness and strangeness became clear. There was gray powder residue on his left hand that appeared to be from a gun being fired. Terry Thompson - IMDb Soon he was instructed to patrol the border between the Thompson property and Interstate 70, and over the evening he shot another wolf, two more lions, a tiger, andlater on, after its hiding place was revealed by a fireman's thermal-imaging cameraa grizzly bear. ". Even if many of the animals were confused or scared, and not bloodthirsty for human flesh, some of the friendliest might have been expected to want to "play" with Thompsonand when a cat this big decides to play with you, you are in little less peril than when it decides to attack you. Thompson apologized and told Polk that he'd never see those dogs again, but three days later they were back and killed two more calves. 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. But if afterward Thompson would try to present his year of incarceration with the same old bravado, telling people that he was voted "Most Interesting Person in prison," the events in his marriage clearly had taken a toll. Though sanctuaries try to avoid pregnancies, sometimes new arrivals are pregnant and occasionally accidents happen, and when there are baby cubs they are hand-raised by humans. Menu. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Ohio animal Terry Thompson owner shot himself - police - BBC News "My father didn't like animals," she told me. "But you'll know when I go.". "That's when Terry actually goes to [Moore] and asks him about Marian having cheated on him while he was in prison," says Deputy LeCocq. When he arrived, he could see, just inside Thompson's fence, a tiger, a black bear, and two lionesses. "On the third night," says Spires, "this guy showed up, started beating windows out. "You couldn't buy nothing off of him. Unfortunately, one of the animals, a leopard-jaguar mix, was euthanized after he was severely injured from a cage door that fell on its neck. And I had to go and pick up the arm. And they have every right to think, 'Oh, here's Jack, he had his fun with animalsnow we can't have our fun.' His friends, and there do seem to be many of them, talk of Thompson with a deep devotion, and testify at length to his goodness, generosity, and freeness of spirit, though they concede that he was certainly no lover of authority, and would maybe even go out of his way to rub up against it. T's World unpacks the events surrounding his 2011 animal release and suicide. When a state patrolman stopped him for having a taillight out, this is how Thompson described to Spires what happened next: Patrolman: Oh, by the way, you don't have your seat belt fastenedI've got to ticket you for that. But of course I've never killed anyone in civilian life.I understand.I don't even kill flies.Terry Thompson and a government informant in conversation at his home, secretly recorded in April 2008. Red, a half-Arabian pinto, was acting skittish and had moved toward the far corner of the field. "He hesitated. Only then did she call 911 and alert the world. These days many exotic-animal owners have learned to keep what they do to themselves, to avoid the unwanted attention of unhappy neighbors, animal-rights activists, and journalists who treat them as scary eccentrics or worse. 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. And he was like, 'You know, I'm a lover, not a fighter.' "My animals were raised in a magnificent setting, creeks going through the place and everything was gorgeous. She also helped with the feeding, and reminded him of some recent arrivals. He was caught up in dangerously illegal black-market animal sales, dead or alive. "He couldn't understand," says his friend Phil Cress, "why he got taken away from his life here to be drafted to go to Vietnam. He was the type of person, you weren't real sure what he would do. Terry Thompson's best friend Charlie Leasure reflects on his friend's final day. This 95-minute documentary follows Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence. Some people just said, 'Oh, that's T.' ". Likewise, there is wide disagreement about what kind of human intervention or interaction can be beneficial or justified. It is believed that in 2012, Marian Thompson retrieved the surviving animals from the Zoo. Personal testimonies from his closest staff and family tell a different story from the daily public barrage of criticisms by of the media. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. Or taking them to the McDonald's drive-thru? (Whose feelings, exactly, are being taken into account there?) Given the situationfifty animals, mostly large and potentially aggressive carnivores set loose toward the day's endthings could have gone so much worse. "His eyes were just beautiful." Apparently it worked. "He always laughed and would be real pleasant before," says Polk. By the time he got there, the culling had begun. He only looked back once, when they were about a third of the way to the barn. "He had no reason why he was spared," says Cress. He had acted as an animal handler on Wild Kingdom in 2008, and provided a lion cub to a photoshoot with Heidi Klum. Wayfair Huge Deal-A-Thon - Up to 60% off everything! ", I reiterate how angry animal owners are with him. Jack doesn't need to be telling me anything. He just couldn't keep his brain on the right track. All evening it went on, the slaughter. It just broke my heart. 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. The incident made global news. Movies. His death was part of a twenty-five-year plot to rid America of exotic animals. The third is what happened that night in Zanesville. Drug smuggling. He remembers Thompson picking up the bodies. Due to the dangerous circumstances, the police spent nearly seven hours hunting the animals, and shot nearly all of them. "He always bragged," says Marshall, "that when he sold his business he had 138 motorcycles, 138 cars, and 138 guns." On one of his last visits, Stilwell walked around the animal cages with Thompson. "And he did it. Okay, this is a .308, so I could have killed you when you came in the front gate. One time Marshall discovered that Thompson had some convertibles in the barn next to two kangaroos: "a boat-tailed roadster, a Duesenberg or something like that, covered with dust and crap. 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. This is a [Mannlicher-Schoenauer]see the twists in the barrel.I do see that.Okay, hand built in Austria. Terry Thompson: Exotic animal preserve owner - YouTube Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. ". 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. Zanesville Animal Escape: How Many Animals Died? Terry Thompson Zoo In 1977, Thompson went to an auction for exotic animals and bought his wife a baby tiger cub called Simba for her birthday. Thompson would speak of his grand plans for what he liked to call T's Wild Kingdom: a large octagonal building, a pond for the bears. The charge didn't stick. "Very depressed. From where they were, they could see the man's body, flat on its back. Thompson let the animals loose then killed himself. But an accident happened. It broke my heart. Sep 12, 2009. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 14, 2012 6:27 AM ZANESVILLE, OHIO -- Residents in this small, struggling town knew a few things about Terry Thompson for sure: He was once an Eagle Scout. "Jack needs to step back, take a breath, and look at Jack's history. "He said, you stand in line for two hours to get to the phone," remembers Stilwell, "and then you call home and there's no answer. View the profiles of people named Terry Thompson. I hear different versions of what was being said: dead catsa white tiger and a cougarobserved lying on the property; animals getting loose; a 2-year-old lion being allowed to run around in the open; multiple animals in such bad health that they would have to be euthanized. By Ryan Gajewski Staff Editor, Digital "I'm not gonna lie, it . He shot the lion while some other deputies shot the cougar. He had a complicated relationship with the law, and his neighbours. The cause of death seemed to be a gunshot to the head. "Many of them I'm sure died right there in his arms." Without a USDA license, he wasn't allowed to supply animals for photo shoots and commercial events, though he sometimes got around it by using fellow owner Cindy Huntsman's animals and accreditation.