Cocaine Bear: The True Story of a Drug-Fueled Forest Rampage

Andrew Thornton II was a regular kid from a Kentucky farm who got into trouble that led him to military boarding school in his youth. After graduating, he became an agent in the Lexington Drug Department (the irony will become apparent shortly).

After several years of chasing drug dealers, he even became a drug law attorney for a brief time. Many believe this was the period when he built multiple connections with the drug network of the southern United States.

The Fall of a Drug Smuggler

In 1981, he was charged with weapons theft and conspiracy to smuggle marijuana from a Navy base in California to the US. Somehow, he managed to get only six months in jail and paid a small fine.

In 1985, Thornton decided to enter the big leagues and was making smuggling flights from Colombia to the US (mainly cocaine).

One bright morning in Knoxville, Tennessee, a man stepped out of his house to collect the newspaper and found Thornton’s body, wrapped in a parachute. On Thornton were night vision equipment, a ceramic bulletproof vest, $4,500 in cash, and Gucci shoes.

Oh, and also a bag containing 34 kg of cocaine.

Thornton had a malfunction in his plane and decided to abandon the aircraft, but did so with too much weight and got tangled in his parachute on the way down.

And Here’s Where It Gets Weird

Three months after Thornton’s death, a crashed plane was discovered in the middle of a nature reserve in Georgia. Next to the plane: the body of a black bear.

Next to the bear’s body: 40 empty plastic packages with cocaine residue inside. The bear had consumed approximately 40 kg of cocaine. The autopsy report of the bear claimed the animal died from hypothermia, heart failure, kidney failure, lung failure, complete failure of everything. If there was a cause of death, this bear experienced it.

The Bear’s Bizarre Afterlife

The bear’s body was in surprisingly good condition, so the coroner brought it to his friend who dealt with taxidermy. After a long journey of changing hands between owners, the taxidermy traveled around the entire US (including a famous country singer and a Chinese spice shop owner).

Finally, an organization dedicated to preserving Kentucky’s heritage found it and placed it as a tourist display in a mall in North Lexington (pictured).

On the tag around its neck it reads: “Don’t do drugs, or you’ll die (and possibly be taxidermied) like this poor bear.”

This story proves that even wildlife can’t escape the consequences of the 1980s cocaine epidemic. At least the bear went out with what was probably the most intense final moments in natural history.