Thompson did things his own way even when it led him into trouble. He was just going off the deep end. Inside the barn Kopchak locked the doors, then telephoned his mother, sitting in front of the TV about a hundred yards away back in the house. "It's like Noah's Ark wrecking," he proclaimed, "right here in Zanesville, Ohio.". Occasionally there were reports of more unusual creatures running free but nothing too bad had ever happened. He was just a bit different from the other ones. She was my grandmother's sister, one of ten children who grew up in Muhlenberg County Kentucky. His death was part of a twenty-five-year plot to rid America of exotic animals. I set out to find some of them. 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. The local police confirmed deaths of 48 animals which included eighteen Bengal tigers, three mountain lions, nine male lions, eight lionesses, six black bears, two grizzly bears, two wolves, one macaque, one monkey and one baboon. I will hear confident estimates of the number of big catstigers, lions, and so onin Ohio that vary from the low hundreds to the low thousands. One time Thompson offered Dr. Smith a boat for half price. He would have no sense of 'Okay, this is too many.' (Everyone knows somewhere else worse.). View the profiles of people named Terry Thompson. He was released, forty pounds lighter than a year before, on the day of September 30. He was kind of a loner. In 1977, Thompson went to an auction for exotic animals and bought his wife a baby tiger cub called Simba for her birthday. Matthew Lutz, the Muskingum County Sheriff described him as "a like-to-live-on-the-edge type of person". Just sitting there on the ground, facing their way. As he neared the farm buildings he saw more animals. ), Spires is one of the best-known guitar teachers in this part of the country and was Thompson's teacher in his other great passion of these years. 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. "My animals were raised in a magnificent setting, creeks going through the place and everything was gorgeous. Where the Wild Things Were - The New Republic But maybe she was a little rattled. 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. Director Ramon Bloomberg Writer Ramon Bloomberg Terry Thompson - IMDb Inside the shop, along with the bikes and guns, were the kind of animals he favored in those early days. Neighbors describe Terry Thompson, the owner of the exotic animal farm where 56 animals escaped 10-19-2011. "So those animals were put down." 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. Nonetheless it was clearly impossible to allow a boisterous feline to clamber freely over someone who has just had major heart surgery. Thompson's sounds like an idyllic small-town-America '60s childhood: bicycles, Boy Scouts, loving parents, sporting triumphs, souped-up cars, girls. Questlove Revives 'Black Woodstock' In 'Summer Of Soul' Documentary According to investigators he has been cited in the past for animal abuse and neglect. Join Facebook to connect with Terry Thompson and others you may know. He didn't even trust his own wife. Terry in particular was always well dressed and in charge of whatever was going on. For a while he raced drag boats, and is said to have set a world record in his boat Master Blaster by going from zero to 158 miles per hour on a quarter-mile course in an open cockpit. "But you'll know when I go.". Maybe Marian understands. Personal testimonies from his closest staff and family tell a different story from the daily public barrage of criticisms by of the media. 1 distinct work Similar authors. The animal lovers are the ones that hurt them.' The road his and Thompson's properties abutted was named Kopchak Road after his great-uncle. A Mermaid's Tale (2017) - IMDb He said he didn't have any control over it. And it just broke his heartthis is what I think. "I think it's Terry," he said. On his way home from Vietnam, Thompson found himself in Columbus, Ohio. Never had to think twice about it. For a while there was a plane on the shop's roof. Zanesville's exotic animal massacre, 10 years later - Axios "He was tops in everything he did. TERRY THOMPSON - Author, Blogger, Christ Follower As Ed Hamell pointed . Thompson also used to insist that he never sold exotic animals, but many in the animal world are scornful at this suggestion. 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. When he walked into a room, everyone stood up. Along came a wolf. 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. It was decided that the dead animals be buried, there and then, on the property. 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. When you've been through a firefight and you've got that warm machine gun, that's all you got. ", "He had an ego that you wouldn't believe," says Stilwell. Cages only lead to more cages, unless a far worse reality awaits them. 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. "On the third night," says Spires, "this guy showed up, started beating windows out. Smith asked why it was only half price. . "So we shot them," says Polk. 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. The Mexican cartel. Menu. "I think people were afraid of Terry. On one of his last visits, Stilwell walked around the animal cages with Thompson. But I find a few. It broke my heart. 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. He wouldn't ever know where the bullet went, though he assumed he must have hit the brain. Before he retired four years ago, he used to teach seventh-grade science. ", 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. A nice girl." And I had to go and pick up the arm. 'Because I can. Aunt Iris was old the day I met her, or so it seemed. "), 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. The Crazy True Story of the Zanesville Zoo Escape | GQ "She was saying, 'Please, Mr. Hanna, don't take my children,'" says Hanna. That evening, the zoo assembled its capture-and-recovery team, armed with both tranquilizer-dart guns and regular weapons, and set out for Zanesville. He was pretty distraught." After the wolf went down, Merry fired a few more times to make sure. Shoot to Kill: The Ohio Animal Massacre - Terry Thompson's final day That was when he saw the black bear, at first facing him and then running straight toward him. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. We sent Chris Heath to Zanesville, Ohio, to find out where the wild things areand what the hell they're doing there. He was the type of person, you weren't real sure what he would do. I think he had a little touch of Agent Orange. That was Terry Thompson's final grotesque parting gifta last meal for one of his animals, sometime before it, too, met its death by bullet on the sad night of October 18, 2011, near Zanesville, Ohio. "His eyes were just beautiful." "And he always used to say, 'I don't like animals but I would never hurt one. "He raised Dobermans back then," says Stilwell. Every human who interacts with an animal and then makes claims about what that interaction means to the animalin backyards or zoos or even on the plains of Africais making a claim neither they nor anyone else can verify. "It was the most horrific smells," says Stalf. He had his pilot's license before he was 16. Even that statistic slightly obscures the situation. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. And of the time when he and Marianshe seems to have been a full and enthusiastic participant in many of these adventuresturned up with a baby bear at a friend's fiftieth birthday party, held in their friend's newly decorated basement where everythingcarpet, walls, furniturewas white, and seemed quite unperturbed by the upset caused when the bear did what bears tend to do on the nearest white rug. Marian became a well-respected local schoolteacher and a prizewinning rider. He shot the lion while some other deputies shot the cougar. 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? His gallbladder had been removed earlier in life, and he was suffering from severe atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. 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. It probably made all the difference. What did he ever do to his country?" 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. There are two mysteries about what happened along the driveway of 270 Kopchak Road that nobody has been able to explain. Her bond with them certainly seemed real. That's what happens when your death defines you. "I actually think that he expected this when he got home and kind of planned it," says Stilwell. Amazon.com: Documentary - Prime Video: Movies & TV And the straw that broke the camel's back was, when he went to jail, he came back and his wife had abandoned him. 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. It was presumed that the remaining two animals were eaten by some of the bigger ones. After the sheriff spoke with Hanna and talked him through what happened, he gave interview after interview. Terry Thompson - IMDb It wasn't quite that straightforward. 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. "Oh, he didn't like it at all," Polk remembers. T's World unpacks the events surrounding his 2011 animal release and suicide. 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? 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. After that, Merry went back for his rifle. And they have every right to think, 'Oh, here's Jack, he had his fun with animalsnow we can't have our fun.' 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. It kept him sane while he was there. Zanesville exotic-animal owner Terry Thompson lived and died on the The 62-year-old owner of an exotic animal farm freed his 56 wild animals on Tuesday (including lions, Bengal tigers, wolves and. 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. You finally just stop.". He was actually found with a pillowcase over his head and a gunshot wound to his stomach. And a second bear, this one much larger than the first. 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. MY 10 YEARS WITH ADAMS FAMILY; EXCLUSIVE An 'associate' lifts the lid When the ATF raided his home in 2008, they took away 133 firearms and 36 rounds of ammunition. 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. Terry Thompson is known for Murder Comes to Town (2014) and Not for Rent! And there was the lion he had seen before, now pacing back and forth. "Well," Thompson retorted, "find someone to file a complaint on me." ". "Why him? I was in a helicopter so I was a machine gunner with an M60that was on a bipod. "Yes, they have every right to be angry with me, but do they know that I lost everything I had?" There are plenty of colorful stories about his exploits. [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. An incredible true story from the March 2012 issue of GQ. How he was treated. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. (2017). By Ryan Gajewski Staff Editor, Digital "I'm not gonna lie, it . I saw a pair of pants on the ground and the belt was twine. Thompson did speak to other friends in those days. "I've had three bad things happen in my life," he says, and proceeds to describe them. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. "The Trump I Know" Documentary Film - TERRY THOMPSON Twenty-one other injuries, or clusters of injuries, were detailed just on the head and neck, the site of the most widespread damage. Terry Thompson died under the most dramatic of circumstances. Still, Lutz said he wasn't busy and would drive over. "Like riding on the end of a pencil, sitting on the hood ornament of your car as it accelerates from zero to 158 miles an hour," says Marshall. "Garbage, and feces. A lot of things seemed to be missing from the property and it was a mess: "The weeds were up over the cageshe couldn't even get in his house when he got home." 2011 Zanesville, Ohio animal escape - Wikipedia Lutz described Thompson as "a guy who kind of kept to himself, was always willing to push the envelope a little bit." He had these wild animals. He was upset with the army because he saw some horrible, ugly things." Because I can.' 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. Terry Thompson: Exotic animal preserve owner - YouTube One was that he had gone under the interstate bridge where it crosses the Muskingum River in the middle of Zanesville. Terry Thompson: Ohio Zoo Owner The Inside Story - People "And then," he says, "I saw a tiger. The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will resume in Santa Barbara, Calif., continuing to take . 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. John Moore mentally ran through the rows of cages he would feed. Red, a half-Arabian pinto, was acting skittish and had moved toward the far corner of the field. "And his answer, to the way I recall, was he didn't know whether she did or she didn't. And then, as Thompson would tell it, everything changed. And also a lioness, anxiously scuttering around. 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. But it doesnt seem to be the case as 5,000 to 10,000 tigers live in captivity in the country, while less than 4,000 remain in the wild. 4.74 avg rating 107 ratings published 2021 3 editions. The black bear fell about seven feet in front of Merry. "When he was in Vietnam," says Mike Marshall, "he told me that he was befriended by a little monkey. He hurried back. From $999 to buy. 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. 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. ("Ever been this close to a tiger?" The incident made global news. As for the enemy: "He said he just had to keep mowing them down. However, it was devastating to lose so many innocent lives, especially the Bengal tigers who are an endangered species. The solution was elegant, if unusual. A white tiger appeared to be eating it, and they couldn't get closer. He didn't trust anybody after that. 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. Sep 12, 2009. Maybe a mile away was a school soccer gamekids yelling and screaming in the open air. By the time he got there, the culling had begun. It had a special meaning." There was gray powder residue on his left hand that appeared to be from a gun being fired. 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. But I lean toward another theorythat in the end the animals were just what they've usually been in human history: incidental collateral damage. Okay, this is a .308, so I could have killed you when you came in the front gate. Usually he never hesitated. "That means they're happy," Stilwell says. And he was like, 'You know, I'm a lover, not a fighter.' His son and wife were off to a literacy night so he was on his own. The 73 acre farmland with the private zoo was owned by Terry Thompson. "They had split before he actually went to prison," says Huntsman. But the final blow was finding out that his wife, Marian, had left him. "He wanted people to know that he was there. Informant: You're crazy.Thompson: That's what they all say. There may still be a market for baby lions and tigers (the consensus seems to be that realistic prices are a little higher than Stalf's figure), but there is virtually no market at all for adult tigers and lions. Meanwhile, at the gateway of Thompson's property, the police were wondering how many animals might be loose. Forty miles away, at the Columbus Zoo, an event was being held for the International Rhino Foundation. I can see a logic in some kind of extreme libertarian position (people should be able to do what they want with animals unless they are clearly shown to be doing harm) and, conversely, in a hard-core animal-rights position (no animals should be used for any human purpose whatsoever), but the arguments for everything in between seem murky.
