terry thompson documentary

Maybe there's a letter or a note that explains it all. The craziest, most tangentially related rumor that I hear in Zanesville: Jack Hanna was supplying Charlie Sheen's tiger blood. Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. The strange truth is: Nobody knows. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, thenView saved stories. He was released, forty pounds lighter than a year before, on the day of September 30. The wounds mentioned in the autopsy report, aside from the gunshot wound, begin with "a 2 1/4 inch vertical laceration on the right lower forehead and along the spine of the nose." 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. A little before five o'clock on the evening of October 18, 2011, as the day began to ebb away, a retired schoolteacher named Sam Kopchak left the home he shared with his 84-year-old mother and headed into the paddock behind their house to attend to the horse he'd bought nine days earlier. From there, he walked the fifty or so miles east to his parents' house. "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." . 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. The only notable substance in his blood was Benadryl. "He forgets where he came from," says one owner, Michael Stapleton (five tigers, four bears). And you've not spoken to your wife since her deposition [five weeks earlier]?No. 'Because I can. (Whose feelings, exactly, are being taken into account there?) And then Terry makes this statement back to him: 'Well, I have a plan to find out, and you will know it when it happens.' He was inspecting the body when word came over the radio that some colleagues had a lion cornered near the Thompson residence. After returning from war, Terry opened a motorcycle shop which he ran till the 90s, and then sold licensed firearms for some years. Along came a wolf. ), Thompson flew regularly for a local millionaire, including a vintage World War IIera Stearman biplane, and also kept some of his own planes on the Kopchak Road propertyhe had the electric company move the power lines so that he could take off and land there. "He loved blues more than anything," says Spires. That's when Moore told Deputy Jeff LeCocq something that would later appear in the official police report and came to be taken as a kind of explanation for what had happened, albeit one that prompted many further questions. The tigers are actually bigger than the lions if they're fully grown. Jack Hanna's lion, at Jack Hanna's animal farm. 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. Inside the shop, along with the bikes and guns, were the kind of animals he favored in those early days. "That means they're happy," Stilwell says. Maybe Marian understands. "He had no reason why he was spared," says Cress. Though no trace would be found of it, dead or alive, it was eventually decided that it had most likely been eaten by one of the cats. "And then," he says, "I saw a tiger. Whether he was a daredevil hero or an idiot or an animal lover or an animal hater or a victim or a recluse or a good man betrayed, he was assumed to be a cartoon of a man whose whole life could be extrapolated from its final minutes. "Apparently," Tom Stalf theorizes, "he wanted the animals to eat him. He took care of that monkey most of the time he was over there. ", 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. When I interviewed Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson over the summer after the release of his documentary "Summer Of Soul," at the end of the. The previous day he was doing an event at Penn State, and although he'd just had knee surgery, he drove straight here "a hundred miles an hour." "He would never sell anything," says Marshall. You've had no conversation with her about that at all?No. It was presumed that the remaining two animals were eaten by some of the bigger ones. The cause of death seemed to be a gunshot to the head. "His eyes were just beautiful." 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. After all, this is not the life they are meant to lead, and certainly not the one they deserve. Vince Gill, Verlon Thompson, and Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, as well as record executive Barry Poss. (Even Mr. Kopchak, forgotten in his barn, safely managed to make his way unescorted back to his house at nightfall.) Forty-nine animals would be confirmed dead. I always thought that was pretty funny." The white tiger was atop him. While he was waiting for Mrs. Kopchak to answer the door, he saw a large gray wolf running southward along the road behind him. Read on to find out the details. IMDbProStarmeterSee rank Add photos, demo reelsAdd to list View contact info at IMDbPro More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Known for Red Phone 2 5.7 TV Movie Writer 2003 The Red Phone: Manhunt 4.2 TV Movie Writer 2002 Planespotting 6.5 And that's when he then said, 'I'm gonna die.' 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. Terry Thompson is known for Red Phone 2 (2003), The Red Phone: Manhunt (2002)and Planespotting (2005). Fred Polk, a farmer and scrap dealer who was one of Thompson's neighbors and sometimes tangled with him, also knew him before and after he went away to war. ", Many of Thompson's friends believe that his time in Vietnam was the defining experience of his life. He. But the horrific tragedy of Zanesvilles animal massacre is enough to haunt the viewers as they see what follows. 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. "One of our vets came into the cocktail area," says Tom Stalf, the zoo's chief operating officer, "and you could see the panic on her face. It was beyond anything that you would ever want to experience. "I don't know." He had a complicated relationship with the law, and his neighbours. The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will resume in Santa Barbara, Calif., continuing to take . They need people to know that not everybody who has a tiger or three tucked away behind their house is a Terry Thompson. "I asked him what he was going to do when they turned the key on him," says Spires. "You got cancer or something? 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. Even that statistic slightly obscures the situation. "I got death threats and everything else," he says. Jim Stilwell only found out that Thompson was back by accident when he drove up to the house in early October, expecting Marian to be there. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. I think he had a little touch of Agent Orange. 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 is believed Thompson released nearly all of his 56 animals, following a mental breakdown which led him to take his own life. "That's what happens when they send a guy to prison that don't deserve to go there. 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. They needed to find out for sure, and to see whether the person might still be alive. (Tigers are reputedly worth as much as $20,000 dead when their body parts are illegally sold off.) ", "No," he replied. 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. Thompson had only returned from his prison sentence three weeks before. 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. His probation officer also visited, and Thompson told him how distraught he was at the prospect of being hooked up for a year's electronic home confinement. The miracle of the great Zanesville zoo escapewhich began last fall when a depressed, desperate man named Terry Thompson set free his vast collection of exotic animalswas that not a single innocent person was hurt. This makes it all the more relevant to remember the tragic event that took place in Zanesville almost a decade ago. Cages only lead to more cages, unless a far worse reality awaits them. 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. Bob Thompson Trailer from Jeffrey Cooper on Vimeo.. Facebook; Twitter; RSS; Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress Young Queen Charlotte's marriage to King George of England sparks an epic love story and transforms high society in this "Bridgerton" universe prequel. And there was the lion he had seen before, now pacing back and forth. "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 just couldn't keep his brain on the right track. What if some of the cats were drawn toward them? 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. "Why him? "There was never just one girl in his life," she remembers. Because he wouldn't take any clothes with him." The 73 acre farmland with the private zoo was owned by Terry Thompson. The government stole his heart. We sent Chris Heath to Zanesville, Ohio, to find out where the wild things areand what the hell they're doing there. Hanna acknowledges that he is not universally popular for supporting what happened that night, and for supporting the laws being drafted. He was devastated to find the poor condition of the zoo when he returned, and was also heavily in debt. 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. The animals were only about ten or twelve feet away. "So we shot them," says Polk. "I actually think that he expected this when he got home and kind of planned it," says Stilwell. He knew that his colleagues would only have the two standard-issue weaponsthe .40-caliber Glock 22 they wear at their side and the shotgun that is locked above their heads in the patrol carsand that he was the only one with a rifle. A big digger was brought in and a hole was dug maybe thirty feet deep. Terry Thompson sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of John Hernandez. The guy was able to stumble to his feet and try to run, and Terry caught up to him, so at that moment he took off to run it was no longer self-defense." 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. Actor: Murder Comes to Town. A twelve-year-old girl befriends a quirky teenage mermaid who's anything but mythical, and their friendship could heal an age-old feud. 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. Kopchak wasn't overly alarmed by this sight, unexpected as it was, maybe because the bear wasn't too big as black bears go, and maybe because it was running away from him. Informant: You're crazy.Thompson: That's what they all say. At first the number of animals he came up with was forty-eight, but then his fiance arrived. Thompson's sounds like an idyllic small-town-America '60s childhood: bicycles, Boy Scouts, loving parents, sporting triumphs, souped-up cars, girls. Three days before Thompson died, Chuck Spires, the guitar instructor, spoke with him for about twenty minutes. Deliberately or not, he seemed to imply that Thompson's body was, aside from the gunshot wound suggesting a barrel placed in the mouth, otherwise fairly untouched. [From a court deposition Thompson gave while incarcerated on March 28, 2011] Okay. The animals were scooped by the bucketload, placed in the hole, and earth backhoed over them. A nice girl." The white tiger had gone. I said that he never left Vietnam. Bo Keck, an officer who was there, told him he couldn't pull such a stunt. "I was at an auction and he had a tiger that had ringworm and he had a baby monkey," says Nancy Wider, another owner. 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. He was pretty distraught." (2017). "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." 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. Patrolman: I don't knowprobably seventy-five. The answer to the second question is: What laws? His wife-to-be, Marian Sharp, came from what was considered a good local family, and was an accomplished barrel racer and horsewoman. 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? 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. He had these wild animals. Only three weeks after getting out, he released the animals, and shot himself. He had been wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and white briefs. Okay, this is a .308, so I could have killed you when you came in the front gate. Or taking them to the McDonald's drive-thru? I hear many tales of devotion and care that try to emphasize the ordinariness of what is being done ("We live a very normal life," one mother tells me, "besides the fact that I have alternative animals"); I hear from a man who had a bear escape and only averted disaster by luring it back into its cage with a trail of vanilla-cream cookies; I hear from a man who shared his house and bed with a leopard for nineteen years ("I know certainly if I would have done the wrong thing when she was getting possessive about things, she would have certainly killed me"); I hear from a couple who have not been on holiday for seven years because they won't abandon their six bobcats and who are planning to leave the state rather than be separated from their animals; I hear from a woman who says she will do absolutely anything"shoveling shit in hell, sucking cock for fifty bucks"to feed and protect her cats. _Thompson: _You might as well keep writing, because when I leave here I'm not fastening my seat belt. He lived in a hardback tentyou know, a wood frame and a wood floorand apparently a monkey kinda befriended him. 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. I don't know how else to explain it." His friends and neighbour have revealed that he deeply loved his animals, which could explain why he set them free. A white tiger appeared to be eating it, and they couldn't get closer. Join Facebook to connect with Terry Thompson and others you may know. The Aftermath From top: a nearby highway sign warns drivers; the gathered bodies of the slaughtered animals. He remembers Thompson picking up the bodies. "It's only half a boat," Thompson explained. "He had been dragged," says Kanavel. 1 distinct work Similar authors. 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. When the zoo people returned to the site at five-thirty the next morning, they had been joined by Jack Hanna. 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. "He was a broken individual," says Phil Cress. You had to watch where you stepped." "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. IE 11 is not supported. But I lean toward another theorythat in the end the animals were just what they've usually been in human history: incidental collateral damage.

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