(Thompson was not unusual in routinely taking his cats to the vet for declawing.) Most seem to have stumbled into it, impulsively buying a bear or lion cub without thinking through how, as one puts it, "a year from now, it's not going to be so cuddly." As one friend puts it: "Who is the guy who would piss my dad off the most?" All evening it went on, the slaughter. ", A bond that tied two people for so long can take time to break completely. Those around him believed that he was changed man after he returned from war, that he never fully recovered from its trauma. He remembers Thompson picking up the bodies. But while it seems foolish to expect someone's actions on the verge of suicide to be consistent with their behavior before then, this actionthe cutting of the cagesdoes puzzle some for a different reason. Just sitting there on the ground, facing their way. "He felt betrayed by the government, by the army, by society in general," claims Marshall. Likewise, there is wide disagreement about what kind of human intervention or interaction can be beneficial or justified. Forty-nine animals would be confirmed dead. In the song, the house in question is a New Orleans brothel, and the name was borrowed for similar establishments in Vietnam. He wouldn't ever know where the bullet went, though he assumed he must have hit the brain. Never had to think twice about it. Secret plane trips. Not the weapon you'd want when you're facing down 350 pounds of charging bear. His wife-to-be, Marian Sharp, came from what was considered a good local family, and was an accomplished barrel racer and horsewoman. We sent Chris Heath to Zanesville, Ohio, to find out where the wild things areand what the hell they're doing there. I don't know what happened to it when he left.". There are plenty of colorful stories about his exploits. "They told me," says one owner, Cindy Huntsman, "there were no laws on the books that would allow him to confiscate.". All rights reserved. (Nearly everything. On his way home from Vietnam, Thompson found himself in Columbus, Ohio. 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. I think he had a little touch of Agent Orange. Given the situationfifty animals, mostly large and potentially aggressive carnivores set loose toward the day's endthings could have gone so much worse. Terry Thompson - IMDb The catastrophic incident that took place in Ohio should have served as a cautionary tale for others in America. Hanna acknowledges that he is not universally popular for supporting what happened that night, and for supporting the laws being drafted. One time Thompson offered Dr. Smith a boat for half price. Marian insisted on removing the macaques from their cages herself, waving off the zoo personnel's advice about the risk she was taking. That was when he saw the black bear, at first facing him and then running straight toward him. "He always bragged," says Marshall, "that when he sold his business he had 138 motorcycles, 138 cars, and 138 guns." Zanesville exotic-animal owner Terry Thompson lived and died on the Soon after, he bought himself a brand-new Corvette. ", "Terry, are you sick?" Merry didn't know what was going on, so he stopped. You know, I'm crazy, but I live in the big house on the hill with the biggest horse and the fastest boat, fastest bike. Director Ramon Bloomberg Writer Ramon Bloomberg A fully grown male African lion. This reality is revealed to us through Zanesville Animal Escape that briefly makes its presence felt during the first half of the series. "We didn't have any idea how many there were," Mrs. Kopchak would later reflect. It was his neighbour, Sam Kopchak, who first noticed that Terrys horses were unusually agitated. 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. 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. Terry Thompson. Kopchak had lived around here all of his life. The white tiger was atop him. It was this ATF raid that also forced real scrutiny for the first time on his exotic animals. "I don't know." Week after week. Terry Thompson - IMDb Patrolman: I don't knowprobably seventy-five. IMDbProStarmeterSee rank Add photos, demo reelsAdd to list View contact info at IMDbPro More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Known for X-Men: Days of Future Past 7.9 "It's like Noah's Ark wrecking," he proclaimed, "right here in Zanesville, Ohio.". he says. "Many of them I'm sure died right there in his arms." I'm Terry Gross. "My animals were raised in a magnificent setting, creeks going through the place and everything was gorgeous. This was his high school sweetheart. ", "No other law-enforcement agency in the world has faced thisit's not like there was a manual," says Deputy LeCocq. Zanesville Animal Escape: How Many Animals Died? Terry Thompson Zoo For a while there was a plane on the shop's roof. My guest, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, has made his directorial debut with the new documentary "Summer Of Soul." Questlove co-founded The Roots, which is,. Along came a wolf. He didn't know too much about lions, but he had heard that it was unwise to challenge them by looking them in the eye, and that if you ran away they had a tendency to chase you. And then, as Thompson would tell it, everything changed. And it planted the seed of caring for wild animals for the rest of his life. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Terry Thompson was born in Belfast, he grew up on the Castlereagh Road in East Belfast. Director Dustin Rikert Writers Fred Hogge Rafael Jordan Stars Caitlin Carmichael Sydney Scotia Jerry O'Connell See production, box office & company info Watch on The Roku Channel with subscription How could you blame a woman you have spent forty years of your life with for that, if you were sane? Neighbors describe Terry Thompson, the owner of the exotic animal farm where 56 animals escaped 10-19-2011. Books by Terry Thompson (Author of The Construction Zone) - Goodreads 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. "He always laughed and would be real pleasant before," says Polk. When Thompson said that as soon as he had some in his pocket he'd be back for more guitar lessons, Spires told him not to worry about that. . He shot the lion while some other deputies shot the cougar. MY 10 YEARS WITH ADAMS FAMILY; EXCLUSIVE An 'associate' lifts the lid ", "No," he replied. He was upset with the army because he saw some horrible, ugly things." Apply Bed Bath and Beyond Coupon and save 25% Off your entire purchase, Target Circle: up to 50% Off with Target promo code, Shop the new Polo Ralph Lauren x ASOS Exclusive Collection from $99, Michael Kors Promo Code: sign up for KORSVIP + Get 10% Off on first order, 2023 Cond Nast. And sometime in this period, Marian told Sam Kopchak that Terry was giving guitar lessons behind bars. Some owners took food down to Thompson's property themselves, some say they contacted the sheriff's department. . As Ed Hamell pointed . She would explain that she had spent $30,000 buying them, and that she used to sleep with the young female. T's World: The Over Identification of Terry Thompson - IMDb Documentary Animation Short Over the course of 15 years Terry Thompson collected tigers, lions, bears, and other exotic animals. Only three weeks after getting out, he released the animals, and shot himself. "Yes, they have every right to be angry with me, but do they know that I lost everything I had?" Only when the shape broke out of the circle could Kopchak see that it was a black bear. He was inspecting the body when word came over the radio that some colleagues had a lion cornered near the Thompson residence. Terry Thompson sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of John Hernandez. ", Toward the end, according to Cindy Huntsman, he seemed to treat his collection of animals in the same way. Nobody yet knew where Thompson was, and so there was concern for his safety. 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. He was pretty distraught." "You couldn't buy nothing off of him. By the time the Columbus Zoo team had arrived at the holding area, it was dark. ", Many of Thompson's friends believe that his time in Vietnam was the defining experience of his life. I saw a pair of pants on the ground and the belt was twine. There was now only one unaccounted fora macaque. He hurried back. ". It just broke my heart. 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. "When he was in Vietnam," says Mike Marshall, "he told me that he was befriended by a little monkey. ", 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. As they pulled up between the barn and a row of cages, two tigers started out of the barn toward them. When the ATF raided his home in 2008, they took away 133 firearms and 36 rounds of ammunition. Even that statistic slightly obscures the situation. "It kind of took us by surprise," says Kanavel. He then looked back for a moment at his wife and . I said that he never left Vietnam. 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. IE 11 is not supported. (Whose feelings, exactly, are being taken into account there?) Terry was Terry. Practical questions and answers regarding the gospel are presented at the Eternity page. "He would never sell anything," says Marshall. But, see, I just don't have that stuff, I've got the guts to use it.Terry Thompson and a government informant in conversation at his home, secretly recorded in May 2008. The strange truth is: Nobody knows. He had these wild animals. No one is sure how many there are, or where they are. The Crazy True Story of the Zanesville Zoo Escape | GQ Join Facebook to connect with Terry Thompson and others you may know. The truth is that while, on a practical level, we may feel as though we can distinguish between better and worse owners, it is logically impossible to know for certain what the animals are thinking or experiencing. Carried herself gracefully. Spires says Thompson told him that he only pleaded guilty because otherwise they were also going to charge his wife as a co-owner of the property; Thompson told the judge that he pleaded guilty because he and his wife couldn't afford further legal fees. The answer to the second question is: What laws? Informant: You're crazy.Thompson: That's what they all say. That's what it was like. She said, 'We have to goTerry Thompson's animals are out.' But for those who'd prefer a Rosebud moment, here's one more story from forty years earlier, from the time when an Ohio youth with beautiful blue eyes found himself forsaken and lost, deep in the kind of darkness and damage that some never completely escape. 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. Day after day. Maybe. He started snarling, and went after the horses.". I invite you to click around the site right now and come back . Kanavel's tactic was to shoot for the head a couple of times, and then move on to the body and keep putting rounds into it. But maybe she was a little rattled. "Back in the '70s," says Stilwell, "if you saw him with a toothbrush in his back pocket, you'd know he was going to go somewhere. Terry Thompson: Songwriter, Storyteller and Actor She was my grandmother's sister, one of ten children who grew up in Muhlenberg County Kentucky. They see hypocrisy in much of what he now says, particularly given his past use of animals from private owners as props on TV shows. But they assumed that these two runaways must have come from there, so the first thing Mrs. Kopchak did was to dial her neighbor's number. All he remembered was the sight of the bear's head coming at him, and he also remembered what had been drilled into him at weapons training: Shoot what you see. And they have every right to think, 'Oh, here's Jack, he had his fun with animalsnow we can't have our fun.' "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.". Ordinary Heroes. As for what actually happened on that day in October, I hear all kinds of theories, though most of them sound recklessly far-fetched. Terry Thompson's story went round the world, but it was also barely told at all. He was the type of person, you weren't real sure what he would do. Thompson was involved with bad people and had fallen out with them. To breed or exhibit or commercially transport animals across state lines he would need a USDA license, requiring that his facilities be inspected periodically to check that they met some basic standardsbut other than that there are no special checks or controls. "Remember, 1973 was much different than 2011. Matthew Lutz, the Muskingum County Sheriff described him as a like-to-live-on-the-edge type of person. "And, you know, I'm a cat person.". He liked speed." Whatever the dynamic that drew them together, for the next four decades they presented themselves as a formidable partnership. "His favorite song was 'House of the Rising Sun.' So, she hasn't told you that during her deposition, she told me that you weren't going to be living with her, you two were not going to be living together when you got out?No. I'm going to put it that way. 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. So he settled on what he considered a brisk walking pace for himself and Red. In 1997, Terry and Marian attended an exotic animal auction, from which Terry gifted an ailing baby lion to Marian as a birthday gift. From where they were, they could see the man's body, flat on its back. Thompson did speak to other friends in those days. An insightful documentary film has just been released that reveals the true Donald Trump contrary to the constant misleading portrayals by his opposition. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Ohio animal Terry Thompson owner shot himself - police - BBC News "Betrayed by his family. "So we shot them," says Polk. Hannafamous for his TV shows and his appearances on shows like Lettermanestablished his career at the Columbus Zoo and remains its director emeritus. He reported back to the sheriff that, whether the body was Thompson's or someone else's, it was deceased. Bo Keck, an officer who was there, told him he couldn't pull such a stunt. At the second-largest of these, the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in rural Indiana east of Terre Haute, where most of the 230 cats seem to come with their own tale of horror, the center's founder, Joe Taft, tells me an incidental story that won't leave my mind, because it seems to encapsulate, this time in a rather beautiful way, what people will do in the elusive pursuit of accord and communion between man and animal. The only reason I can think of is that it made it harder to undo what he had done, and so made it more of an act of irreversible destruction. The final total was fifty-six. Workin' Moms. Then he turned back, intending to deal with a black bear and a tiger along the roadway, but he was distracted by a cougar heading south, so he followed the cougar into another driveway where he met a male African lion coming the other way. ", As they passed by the lion cages Thompson talked about the split. He. Personal testimonies from his closest staff and family tell a different story from the daily public barrage of criticisms by of the media. According to investigators he has been cited in the past for animal abuse and neglect. The bigger the bang that takes someone out, the more likely it is that the person at its center will be obscured. Friends say that Thompson loved having something that nobody else had, and he industriously accumulated objects that might fit the bill.