terry thompson documentary

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. Marian insisted on removing the macaques from their cages herself, waving off the zoo personnel's advice about the risk she was taking. A fully grown male African lion. "I think people were afraid of Terry. He didn't trust anybody after that. Tom Stalf at the Columbus Zoo suggests to me that you can buy a lion for $300cheaper than many pedigree dogs. And [Terry] just really beat him up so bad. Thompson clearly meant this as a testament to his popularity, though Keck wonders. 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 was not unusual in routinely taking his cats to the vet for declawing.) "Betrayed by his family. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. Nearly all of the exotic-animal owners I speak with, deeply skeptical of the official account, identify the same "true" culprit: animal-rights activists. "His favorite song was 'House of the Rising Sun.' Along came a wolf. When he arrived, he could see, just inside Thompson's fence, a tiger, a black bear, and two lionesses. He was actually found with a pillowcase over his head and a gunshot wound to his stomach. And also a lioness, anxiously scuttering around. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. That's where the famous, heartbreaking photo was takenit remains unclear who took itof all the bodies together in the early-morning light, the one that went round the world. The catastrophic incident that took place in Ohio should have served as a cautionary tale for others in America. He had a complicated relationship with the law, and his neighbours. 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. For the majority of Americans who know little about the world of exotic animals, the astonishing events in Zanesville begged some obvious questions. In 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison on federal weapon charges. He once told Spires about someone repeatedly breaking the windows of his shop and vandalizing the place, and how he'd waited for three nights to catch the culprit. Fast boats. "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. He started snarling, and went after the horses.". "He used to buzz my house," she says. The cats looked healthy enough, apart from one who had ribs showing, and they were rubbing their heads against the fences. Terry became so verbally abusive to Marian. 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. When the zoo people returned to the site at five-thirty the next morning, they had been joined by Jack Hanna. Carried herself gracefully. Surely he must have broken every law that prevents your next-door neighbor from secretly housing an ambush of tigers? Soon, their collection grew into a private mini zoo as the couple took care of rescued animals, and also bought some themselves. 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. John Moore mentally ran through the rows of cages he would feed. Maybe. By the time he got there, the culling had begun. The seven-part true-crime docuseries dives deep into the dark and meaty underbelly of tiger trade, exposing the devastating reality underneath the eccentricities of Americas so-called animal lovers. As he neared the farm buildings he saw more animals. Thompson did things his own way even when it led him into trouble. ", "Terry, are you sick?" Workin' Moms. "A little boy loses his arm to an African lion, 1972 or 1973, Tennessee," he remembers. It was also in Zanesville where he met his wife, Marian Sharp (Thompson), for the first time. He reported back to the sheriff that, whether the body was Thompson's or someone else's, it was deceased. The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will resume in Santa Barbara, Calif., continuing to take . They were circling, and in the center of their troubled orbit there was some kind of dark shape. He didn't know who was who. His friends and neighbour have revealed that he deeply loved his animals, which could explain why he set them free. "And his answer, to the way I recall, was he didn't know whether she did or she didn't. "He had been dragged," says Kanavel. While animal advocates have agreed that there was little the authorities could do in the matter, the brutal massacre serves as a reminder of why privately owned exotic animals are considered to be ticking bombs. ", 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. That's what happens when your death defines you. I'm not an expert. See, the guys who shot expert got killed in Vietnam.-Terry Thompson, secretly recorded in his home by a government informant, April and May 2008. "He threw up his arms," says Stilwell, "and said, 'She can just have it all.' 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. The strange truth is: Nobody knows. Drug smuggling. I don't know that.Okay. What, too, of this practice of removing cubs from their big-cat mothers soon after birth and hand-rearing them by humans? 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. 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. And finally, out back near the empty swimming pool, was a small grizzly bear, also in a birdcage. 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. 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. 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. "He had no reason why he was spared," says Cress. He would have no sense of 'Okay, this is too many.' 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. He'd already hung up his uniform and finished his dinner when, at around 5:20 p.m., he got the call reporting that Terry Thompson had an animal out. Thompson's wife, Marian, arrived around lunchtime. What about giving primates TV to watch? ", "No other law-enforcement agency in the world has faced thisit's not like there was a manual," says Deputy LeCocq. I asked, 'Why, Terry? The first involves his daughter and cancer. 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. There are two mysteries about what happened along the driveway of 270 Kopchak Road that nobody has been able to explain. 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 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. The third is what happened that night in Zanesville. "I actually think that he expected this when he got home and kind of planned it," says Stilwell. Documentary Animation Short Over the course of 15 years Terry Thompson collected tigers, lions, bears, and other exotic animals. Encounters with animals that would normally have been remembered for a lifetime were forgotten moments later as the next came along. The Trump I know Documentary Film An insightful documentary film has just been released that reveals the true Donald Trump contrary to the constant misleading portrayals by his opposition. 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. Kopchak had lived around here all of his life. ", As they passed by the lion cages Thompson talked about the split. Thompson told Spires of a visit on the day a friend of his had been killed. The last few years of Terrys life were when things started going downhill for him. It was about eighty yards away from him, but it fell at the first shot. He had his pilot's license before he was 16. 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. A big digger was brought in and a hole was dug maybe thirty feet deep. Not the weapon you'd want when you're facing down 350 pounds of charging bear. Forty miles away, at the Columbus Zoo, an event was being held for the International Rhino Foundation. They needed to find out for sure, and to see whether the person might still be alive. His farm was reportedly raided June 2008 . Some owners took food down to Thompson's property themselves, some say they contacted the sheriff's department. Whatever the dynamic that drew them together, for the next four decades they presented themselves as a formidable partnership. I said that he never left Vietnam. ", Her son remained trapped in the barn. Informant: You're crazy.Thompson: That's what they all say. ", When Deputy Todd Kanavel, who normally heads up the drug squad, arrived at the scene, Sergeant Blake told him about the body that they had spotted. Just sitting there on the ground, facing their way. T's World unpacks the events surrounding his 2011 animal release and suicide. Whatever people knew of the real situation, and of the hard decisions that had to be made, when you saw that image all you could think was: This is a photo of a place where dozens of big beautiful animals were massacred. "Garbage, and feces. Only when the shape broke out of the circle could Kopchak see that it was a black bear. "Why him? And I had to go and pick up the arm. (Everyone knows somewhere else worse.). In the bottom of my heart, I think Terry was thumbing his nose at everybody, and he wanted to destroy that which Marian loved the most. The only surviving animals from Terrys zoo were the ones that were still in the cage. [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. 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. 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. She said, 'We have to goTerry Thompson's animals are out.' 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. Near 5:30 p.m. on October 18, 2011 -- the day the world's remaining wildness seemingly died in Zanesville, Ohio, of all places -- Sergeant Steven Blake, of the Muskingum County sheriff's. Week after week. Practical questions and answers regarding the gospel are presented at the Eternity page. ", A bond that tied two people for so long can take time to break completely. He made mistakes, big mistakes, that the rest of us haven't made.". 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. This makes it all the more relevant to remember the tragic event that took place in Zanesville almost a decade ago. On one of his last visits, Stilwell walked around the animal cages with Thompson. He wouldn't ever know where the bullet went, though he assumed he must have hit the brain. The Mexican cartel. Thompson was a door gunner on a Huey helicopter; he told Marshall they had to soften up landing zones, drop soldiers off and pick them up under hostile fire, make emergency medical evacuations: "Dragged both bodies and wounded and maimed soldiers into the helicopter," Marshall says. What, then, about the way that male tigers are usually neutered in sanctuaries, but male lions are not, because when neutered they lose their manes? "Kind of classyyou know," says Jim Stilwell, a longtime friend of Thompson's who went to school with Sharp. When I interviewed Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson over the summer after the release of his documentary "Summer Of Soul," at the end of the. I don't know what happened to it when he left.". You finally just stop.". But I find a few. Thompson also used to insist that he never sold exotic animals, but many in the animal world are scornful at this suggestion. "Apparently," Tom Stalf theorizes, "he wanted the animals to eat him. I don't know how else to explain it." Want to Read. And a second bear, this one much larger than the first. 'Because I can. It was this ATF raid that also forced real scrutiny for the first time on his exotic animals. I'm Terry Gross. Secret plane trips. 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. The preserve is located in. "She was saying, 'Please, Mr. Hanna, don't take my children,'" says Hanna. You had to watch where you stepped." Lutz instructed that if there were animals outside Thompson's property they needed to be shot. 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? Three were leopards, still in their cages. The tigers are actually bigger than the lions if they're fully grown. ", Many of Thompson's friends believe that his time in Vietnam was the defining experience of his life. How could you blame a woman you have spent forty years of your life with for that, if you were sane? 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. "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." Over the days I spend visiting them I become strangely accustomed to the fact that, just around the back of an otherwise perfectly normal home in Ohio suburbia, there can be a tiger or a cougaror, in some cases, many of each. It was his neighbour, Sam Kopchak, who first noticed that Terrys horses were unusually agitated. Six of Terry Thompson's animals survived. ", "No," he replied. Before she opened the cage, she sang to them a lullaby, and they clung to her as she took them one by one to their carriers. Red, a half-Arabian pinto, was acting skittish and had moved toward the far corner of the field. "You couldn't buy nothing off of him. In Taft's living room, a fence was built around his couch, and that is where he spent most of his time as he recuperated: safely inside a cage inside his own house, man looking out, tiger looking in. The craziest, most tangentially related rumor that I hear in Zanesville: Jack Hanna was supplying Charlie Sheen's tiger blood. Terry Thompson's story went round the world, but it was also barely told at all. This was his high school sweetheart. But I lean toward another theorythat in the end the animals were just what they've usually been in human history: incidental collateral damage. But the horrific tragedy of Zanesvilles animal massacre is enough to haunt the viewers as they see what follows. The white tiger was atop him. And then there was what the coroner described like this: "a 5 3/4 x 4 inch gaping laceration involving the pubic region and bilateral medial thighs with the absence of genitalia, exposure of the pubic bones and adjacent soft tissue." "), 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. Or, to spell it out: By the time the body was recovered, no part of his external genitalia remained. Sep 12, 2009. Okay, this is a .308, so I could have killed you when you came in the front gate. ("Ever been this close to a tiger?" 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. Sams 85-year-old mother, Dolores, called 911, and soon the police were in the area.

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