Insanesville ////// 268 | Forensic Files

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enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime n Zanesville Ohio a little before 5:00 p.m. on October 18th 2011 Sam copek walked to the paddock
behind his home to attend to the horse he bought 9 days earlier the horse was acting skittish and moved toward the far
corner of the field on the other side of the fence separating them from his neighbor Terry Thompson's property copu
noticed Thompson's horses seemed very agitated they were running in a circle and in the center there was some kind of
dark shape only when the shape broke out of the circle could copek see it was a black bear the bear was small and ran
away from copek copek planned to put his horse in the barn and go back inside his
home he walked over to his his horse and started guiding the animal to the barn when something caught his
eye just on the other side of the fence and staring right at them was a fully grown African lion copek continued with
his horse to the barn even though the lion could easily clear the fence separating them it just sat there
watching him and the horse as they hurriedly walked toward the barn Sam cobek and the horse made their
way inside and Sam locked the doors behind them once there Sam grabbed the phone and
called his home where he knew his 84-year-old mother was sitting watching TV she picked up the phone and Sam
explained what he saw Mrs cek telephoned the home of Terry Thompson her neighbor
but no one answered inside the barn Sam copek kept a watchful eye on the events just
outside to his astonishment he spotted a tiger the Tiger spotted the horses and quickly went after
them with no one answering the phone at the Thompson's house Mrs copek called 911 the emergency dispatcher picked up
Mrs copek said yes this is dores cop on cop road we live next to Terry Thompson and there's a bear and a lion out the
dispatcher questioned further there's a bear and a lion out Mrs cek replied yeah
right up behind us that would be the call that set the whole town on edge for with that 911
call postal delivery was suspended and the Zanesville City Schools were closed and thus began the search for lions
tigers and [Music] bears Deputy John Mary was serving a court summons a couple of miles away when the
call came through about large and dangerous animals in the area of the Thompson and copek properties he
responded immediately arriving a short time later there he could see just inside Thompson's fence a tiger a black
bear and two lions while he was waiting for Mrs copek to answer the door he saw a large gray wolf running Southward
along the road he ran to his patrol car and followed the wolf after following the animal for a while the wolf veered
from the road and started running toward a house the officer pulled over abruptly
parked the cruiser and popped the trunk keeping his eyes on the wolf officer Mary retrieved a rifle from the trunk
and set out on foot following the animal along the way he called in each observation and action to police
dispatch do you understand how big a wolf is right well yeah I mean they're it's not like he's tracking a big dog
this is like a dog times a 100 yeah it's not not like a coyote like you're picturing in your mind right now picture
that but times it by about three cuz they're giant so he's keeping his eye on this animal he's got the rifle now that
he got from the trunk of his car and he's following this wolf on foot and he said he was about 80 yards away when an
order came over the radio to put the animal down officer Mary fired a sing shot and dropped his Target after the
wolf went down Mary fired a few more times to make sure the animal was dead he was inspecting the body when a call
came over the radio some officers cornered a lion near Thompson's residence so he hurried back Mary drove
up the hill and stopped near the Thompson's driveway there he saw a black bear officer Mary got out of his Cruiser
and facing him and running straight toward him was the bear armed with only his standard issue weapon the officer
fired a single shot before the charging bear could reach him just in a short time officers saw several lions at least
one tiger a cougar a black bear and a Grizzly the officers were ordered to patrol the borders of the Thompson
property so he's ordered to take down the wolf but as far as patrolling the property were they told to also take
down anything that they saw at the time yeah I believe that anything that they spotted you know they wanted to
basically form a perimeter around this property and if any of these animals are trying to leave the property their
orders were to shoot the kill MH um so here's the situation Captain we have the Thompson property he was known Terry
Thompson was known to have exotic animals and so this wasn't like something that was unknown to the
Sheriff's Department or to the local police they knew about this the problem here is the these animals are loose they
believe they're coming from Thompson's property and when they get to the property they can see Lions cougars M
you know multiple bears oh my and the question here is how many of these animals does he have and how many of
them are loose and why are they loose right because this is this is a private property this isn't like a zoo right
where a bunch of locals have gone through and said hey I've been there before we know that there's 40 animals
or 100 animals m nobody knows how many animals there are at 5:35 p.m. The Man In Charge Sheriff Matt Lutz arrived on
the scene in the 15 minutes that it took him to get there the reports over the radio escalated the seriousness became
very clear there were several large and dangerous animals on the loose now in the immediate area surrounding the
Thompson property there's an apartment building soccer fields and Interstate 70 no one seemed to know where property
owner Terry Thompson was or what was really going on Sergeant Steve Blake decided he should drive up to Thompson's
house so we know that there's animals all over this property and this guy decides hey I'm going to drive up to the
house mhm and who cares if there's Lions there or Tigers there yeah they need to
locate Terry Thompson and they need to speak with him to figure out what's going on I mean it takes somebody with
some big konas yeah to do that or or a lot of uh he trust his vehicle you know what I mean like he's like who cares
about the vehicle you have to still get out of the car and go to the door well as he neared the farm buildings he saw
more animals uh their cages had either been cut through or left open mhm the officer honked the horn several times
but no one came out of Thompson's house back near the road John Moore arrived Moore worked on the Thompson property
for Terry and took care of the land and fed Thompson's exotic animals John Moore
went with officer Blake back up to the Thompson House along the way they saw nothing when they arrived near the home
Moore pointed out some cages the cages contained two monkeys and a dog still no sign of Terry Thompson they turned
around but before they could reach the road they spotted a large white tiger near the barn mhm at the tiger's paws
there was a lifeless human body and the tiger appeared to be eating it okay so eating the body eating the body the
human body mhm mhm so this is a crazy scene right I mean we've talked about a lot of strange scenes uh throughout the
years on this show some would say it's a typical Thursday this has got to be one
of the craziest scenes that we've ever discussed and and we've we've often spoke about how easy it is for armchair
detectives or people watching TV at home to go well why did the police do this or
why didn't they do that and we've always tried to remind everyone that often they
don't know what they're walking into when they arrive on a scene sometimes they get a domestic call or sometimes
they get a call about you know a strange vehicle somewhere and they arrive and they don't know what's going on or two
drunk guys in a garage doing a podcast the thing here is they at least get the call that there's a a lion and a bear
out wandering around but when they get to the scene they're spotting all kinds of animals now MH since law enforcement
could not get in touch with Terry Thompson and it was likely his body they spotted near the barn they needed to get
some Intel from Mr John Moore so they did an impromptu interview with Moore and Moore's fiance at the foot of
Thompson's driveway after some back and forth they determined that there were 56
animals on the property I'm unclear Captain if this includes the two monkeys and the dog found in the cages near the
home or if this is from another portion of this very large property M meanwhile while the authorities phoned the
Columbus Zoo the Columbus Zoo is is pretty welln I mean it's nationally known opened up in 1927 the Columbus Zoo
is considered to be one of maybe even the number one zoo in the United States it is I mean sometimes it goes Falls to
number two but when I rank call the zoos it's the best there you go the the nonprofit Columbus Zoo houses thousands
of animals and hundreds of different species from all over the world the zoo is about 40 m away from the Thompson
property the zoo's Chief Operating Officer was alerted by a staff member who told him we have to go to Terry
Thompson's the animals are out now the COO didn't know who Thompson was but others at the zoo did M Doctor Michael
Barry the zoo's director of Animal Health was up at Thompson's property to inspect his large private collection of
animals in 2008 Barry said he was horrified at what he saw there in terms of security
cleanliness and animal cruelty it wasn't like this guy had this facility that was
nice for the animals these were small cages for big animals there was I mean it was dirty it looked like they weren't
fed properly but the laws being so I guess you'd say loose in Ohio that all they could really do is do these checks
on these individuals and then maybe find them or have a permanent violation but even that wasn't even a big fine the
Columbus Zoo assembled its capture and Recovery team armed with both tranquilizer dark guns and regular
weapons and they set out for Zanesville continuing the interview with Moore he told police he last spoke with
Terry Thompson the night before at 9:00 p.m. the officers needed to get back on Thompson's property and move to see what
was really going on the plan one officer would drive a pickup truck while four armed officers would sit together in the
bed of the truck M and they were told to neutralize the animals on the loose if they saw any they drove back to where
the lifeless body was spotted two tigers surprised the crew charging the bed of the truck the officers were forced to
shoot them the Tigers were put down from where the truck was the men could see a
man's body flat on his back a white tiger was on top of him the tiger stood up and was staring at the truck they
believe the body was that of a deceased Terry Thompson mhm the unit received a call to respond to another portion of
the property when they returned the white tiger was gone at the spot of the body they found bolt cutters and
stainless steel Ruger 357 Magnum Revolver the cause of death seemed to be a gunshot to the Head the gunshot wound
suggested a barrel placed in the mouth there was a sizable laceration on Thompson's head that was consistent with
a big cat's bite the body had laid in one spot for some time and then it was dragged some
distance Away by his arm the body had been chewed on there were also pieces of raw chicken scattered around the body
well that's interesting cuz you wonder where this raw chicken is coming from was Thompson carrying it well here's the
thing one of the experts from the zoo theorized that Thompson probably used the raw chicken to entice the animals to
eat the chicken but also eat his body so let's talk more about the zoo's involvement right because I remember
hearing this on the radio and thinking cool they're bringing in the experts from the zoo they're they're doing the
right thing right but by the time the Columbus Zoo team arrived it was dark out well we already have a bunch of dead
animals well 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 well and let's break
this down because what I heard was first of all when you hit the animal with a tranquilizer it works best if you hit it
in not a fatty area but a a muscle area mhm so in the dark you want to know did you get a good shot or a bad shot and if
it hits a muscle it's going to take 5 to 10 minutes but now that animal is going
to be irritated and those animals are around other animals so do you irritate that animal and have it attack another
animal MH or again if you have a bad shot it could take 10 minutes 15 minutes or not completely work so then you have
the fear of you have four tranquilizer guns you start shooting these animals and they start after 5 10 minutes they
start dropping and and going to sleep I guess right but then you could approach them and all of a sudden boom they're
back up mhm so this this becomes uh a hazard more so because of because of the time of day and not being able to see
where you're shooting the animal at yeah and this was covered this story was covered really well by a lot of our
local media coming from Columbus but one of the best uh sources for information on this case comes from GQ Magazine they
did a a big story on this about a year after it took place around the one-year anniversary mhm and according to that
article even when a tranquilizer dose is successfully administered it about 10 minutes to take effect and there is
great care that is required to establish that it was done correctly right so as you were pointing out and as this
article points out it is impossible with so many animals running around to to do
it this way to to correctly administer a tranquilizer when the zoo people returned to the site the next day this
was 5:30 a.m. and they were joined by Jack Hannah now Hannah is is famous he is famous for his appearances on shows
like the David Letterman show and he established his career at the Columbus Zoo the previous day he was doing an
event at Penn State and although he had just had knee surgery he drove straight there he says 100 miles an hour zville
is Right Between The Wilds in the Columbus Zoo mhm so I think that become it makes it more his problem even though
it's not his problem if that makes any sense and Zanesville holds a a special significance for Jack Hannah he went to
school around there he enlisted in the Army there m I guess he spent his honeymoon night there as well and Hannah
was a trusted and still is a trusted animal Advocate and zanville only being an hour from us I mean it was a place
that my cover band played all the time I mean those people there they love G Brooks and they love in sync MH I've
played there so often probably every 6 weeks or so and so when this hit the news it was like it could have been the
weekend I was there yeah and let me just say if I saw a lion I'd straight ship my pants and the
really sad thing here is by the time that the zoo was on the scene the following day at 5:30 a.m. when you know
when they had sunlight to work by this point 49 animals were confirmed dead there was only one unaccounted for
animal this was a monkey though no Trace would ever be found of it Dead or Alive
it was eventually decided that it most likely was eaten by one of the cats right like once um he was letting all
the animals out that during that time it was attacked by one of the cats so six of Terry Thompson's animals survived
three were leopards they were still in their cages two more were monkeys kept in the living room of the house in two
small bird cages and finally out back near the empty swimming pool was a small grizzly bear also in a bird cage the
house itself was disgusting one person on scene said it was the most horrific smelling house they had ever been in
there was garbage and feces all over the place garbage bags filled with garbage that was knocked over and I mean the
place was just filthy yeah his wife is going to arrive at the scene around lunchtime yeah Thompson's wife Maran uh
she gets to the home now she had to be convinced that the survivors these animals that survived this whole
nightmare situation they had to convince her that they needed to take them to the
zoo for safekeeping right she was saying please Mr Hannah don't take my children Maran insisted on
removing the monkeys from their cages herself she was waving off the zoo's personnel and getting these monkeys out
of the cages she explained that she spent $30,000 buying them and it seemed that she did have a real bond with the
animals before she opened the cages she sang to them like a sing a lullaby or something right so before she opened up
the cages that weren't the right sizes for those animals and the filth that was on her property before all that stuff
she had a real bond with them that's what people reported at the scene yes and they said that the the filthiest
house they ever seen scene the monkeys clanged to her um and she took them one by one out of the cages it was decided
that the dead animals were to be buried uh there and then on this property and Mrs Thompson chose the spot where they
buried the animals so the simplest and shortest version of this story is we have a man Terry Thompson who on this
second day of these events they firmly believe law enforcement firmly believes this man took his own life but before
doing so he opened or cut open several of these cages letting out 49 animals mhm and these exotic animals as we said
lions tigers bears cougars were roaming this property yeah a lot of people think
there was two agendas here one for to set him free but then like you said before after he committed suicide that
they would eat his body but that also maybe that the second reason for this was that he wanted the animals to wreak
havoc onto Zanesville yeah and the thing here is regarding the cages some of them
being open some of them being cut MH I don't know enough about it to speculate what was going on there you would think
he would just open the cages but one person on the scene said that they believed the cages were cut so that he
couldn't reverse what he was doing right like that you know he's he's setting this action forward and it's going to go
down no matter what once he cuts that first cage well a lot of people speculate too that he didn't release the
leopards because they would have killed him before he would been able to kill himself
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visit angie.com today you can do this when you Angie that want to get to the very latest now on a
story that has captured the attention of the nation coming out of Zanesville Ohio
that's where a man who had a menagerie of wild exotic animals on his property more than 50 of them apparently opened
their cages to set them free before taking his own life on Tuesday a number of those animals 48 of them were killed
uh and there is a lot of question this morning as to why they were killed why they could not have been tranquilized
perhaps moved to a zoo joining us to help answer some of those questions this morning is Jack Hannah director ameritus
of the Columbus Zoo in aquarium he worked tirelessly with police as they tracked down those animals Jack good to
have you with us this morning and it is obvious to so many just in watching you over these last couple of days how hard
all of this has been on you as an animal lover it's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me in 40 years of this
career 40 years but you know I sat there yesterday when I got there and at daylight and saw the Carnage of the
animals and I go why couldn't we have tranquilized them but then when I was with the veterians and the sheriff you
only only had four we had four trampil ler guns that got there now once they got there we're 50 miles away on each
side Darkness was about 45 minutes picture I don't if you see these Bears behind me those are Grizzlies we had a
couple of those loose along with 18 Tigers 17 lions and lionesses so picture about 30 40 of them coming out of this
whole compound with with with four tranquilizer guns now if if we even shot one of these animals like a tiger or a
bear this thing has to hit a certain muscle they're they're real good shots these folks are but we have 30 something
animals coming at coming at the sheriff right with our with our people so what can be done with four guns what you have
happen here once you hit the animal the animal goes and for 3 to 10 minutes he's
not down he's just running everywhere because he's nervous the drug is taking effect no telling what would have
happened if four tranquil hours of guns were all we had there and that started with 34 animals they're huge carnivores
we would have had there's no doubt in my mind after 30 something years of 40 something years doing this we'd had some
deaths on our hand therefore he had to make the critical decision every time I look at it I know why people around the
world are contacting me around England Australia all over are very upset with over this whole thing the sheriff doing
this he had no choice or we would had major loss of human life in Zanesville Ohio yesterday during the night time
especially yesterday morning when the sun came up so it's all over with now uh I sit here I've sit here last night and
cried several times I look at this these pictures I don't believe it's happened but what had to happen or we would have
had a we' had mess on her hands Beyond Comprehension Jack six of the animals were able to be saved they were
transferred to the zoo how are they doing this morning they're doing very well we have footage I think here uh
right now of the animals footage that was taken early is about 4:00 a.m. this morning they're eating well they're
doing well and by the way the governor we met all day uh last night the governor now is passing laws immediately
there'll be no more Animal Auctions in the state of Ohio with exotic animals within 6 months of that we're going to
go out here the people like we saw last night and those folks better expect a knock on their door and if they're not
up to standards which are going to be great standards cuz I'm going have something to do with setting those
standards those animals will be taken immediately and Tak to The Wilds where we're going to spend several hundreds of
thousands of dollars building a repository there for these animals to have a home in a decent way you bring up
such an interesting point here Terry Thompson who had these animals had a record of animal abuse authorities were
called out a number of times he had had convictions on related charges and yet he kept these animals the conditions had
been described as deplorable in some cases if we knew of the situation there if it was seen firsthand how was it
allowed to continue that's just what we've been sitting over here for the last 3 hours
since 5:30 this morning my wife asking me the same exact question the sheriff had been up there 30 40 times he went to
prison my own people I I didn't know about I knew they were out there somewhere there's people in how they
have these animals I didn't know it was him the own people went there and they weren't allowed they went to the Tobacco
and Firearms people went there when they went to arrest him for all the weapons they went there but they weren't allowed
to do anything because the law states he's not open to the public so the United States government cannot inspect
his property to to write him any kind of citations so what do we have here we have a situation that was unbelievable
there wasn't any law that we could do anything to him so could do all they could do Jack was basically check and
make sure he had the permits that he needed to have in the state of Ohio and that was it is it can you imagine that
well that that whole thing is changing in the next 60 to 90 days and this will be one of the toughest states in the
country when this gets done to pull anything like this off ever again as long as I'm here I know the governor
governor Strickland started this whole thing Governor casing now is going to carry it through in the next few uh
months and we will be out there and this will not happen again here under my watch in the state of Ohio unless
somebody's thinking this without any of us knowing inside of a cave or something
so many questions about why this happened and how it happened what his thinking was before he took his own life
you actually met with his wife yesterday who's dealing with a number of things at
this point tell us a little bit if you can jack about this conversation and any insight she may have been able to offer
you well what happened was I understood she was very upset with me for taking her children remember these these were
her children for me for someone killing her children and why would I be up there
trying to take the remaining three leopards the certain uh little small primates I say small Apes this big and
as well as one Grizzly why was I taking please don't care take she was crying she was actually uncontrollable and you
know what I did when you see somebody that's just beaten to death it's just done she's lost her husband you know I
can't help that but her husband committed suicide but you see someone that's lost everything I hugged her and
I tried to hold her she was shaking and she I've lost everything you're taking my I said I'm not taking your children
I'm taking to Clum zooo right now to take care of them they're still your children they're your animals we cannot
bring them back in these conditions I'm trying to help you right now and you know something tears started coming out
of my eyes I'm not just telling that for I don't want anybody feel sorry for Jack
Hannah I'm saying that the emotions that have been with me and our staff the sheriff's deputies when you saw those
deputies sitting there they had to shoot those animals I wish you could have seen
their faces I wish you could have seen them when they said they had to go and talk to their children that's not
something that they wanted to half of them looked like they had tears on their eyes what they done they they were
afraid to somebody look at me because here they are shooting animals that Jack Hannah is trying to save you know this
is something that that if you tried to write a script for this I couldn't even imagine even Hollywood coming up with
something like this the saying is like such a bad dream for all of us that uh it's over now the animals lost their
lives the only good out this came that in 90 to 100 days from now this state hopefully never have to face this again
but the woman is you is was was beaten she's done and what was I to do but hold her and tell her that you know this will
hopefully never happen again that's all I could do Jack can't tell you how much we appreciate your time this morning
thank you all right first first beer break of 2019 yeah and we heard Jack Hannah
talking there during that clip the strange thing though here Captain is while that was Terry Thompson's body
that they found on his property you know you and I know there has been some question and the question here is did
Terry Thompson take his own life or was he murdered yeah well cuz somebody's sitting there and they're thinking hey
I'm listening to True Crime garage and what are these whack K's talking about where's the crime MH well first of all
it's a crime to release these animals into the public and if they would have got a hold of somebody this you know
somebody would have been facing murder charges but now you have where the individual that let these go did he
commit suicide or was it Foul Play and you know what though as sad as it is that all these animals these magnificent
animals were killed yeah that night it's almost a miracle that no one was hurt in
this whole thing and look we're we're animal lovers here and so is obviously Jack Hannah MH but he said it best the
fact that there was Zero human casualties this is almost a miracle well let's take a look at Terry
Thompson Terry Thompson was 62 years of age at the time of his death yeah Thompson's body was taken from the scene
for an autopsy at the Licking County coroner's office Terry William Thompson was 5' 5 in tall
and weighed 174 lb he was wearing a black T-shirt blue jeans and white briefs he had a cardiovascular disease
the only notable substance in his blood was Benadryl there was gray powder residue on his left hand that appeared
to be from a gun being fired aside from the gunshot wound they found a 2 and4 in
vertical laceration on the right lower forehead and along the spine of his nose there were 21 other injuries or clusters
of injuries that they detailed these simply as on his head and neck area right others were noted on his torso and
legs and then there was a 5 and 3/4 in by 4 in gaping laceration involving the pubic region
with the absence of genitalia with exposure of the pubic bones and adjacent soft tissue right right but to be clear
we have one gunshot wound correct so we believe that is from himself he's or we think because we have the gun residue on
the hand now people argued that uh Thompson was a guitar player and that he played right-handed guitar and so the
fact that he would have been shooting with his left hand would be odd m i I also make the argument that I know a lot
of people that are left-handed that play guitar in the traditional right-handed way because you're dominant hand on a on
a right-handed guitar is your left hand so that to me is no sign of what hand he
is but I think you know his wife probably could tell us what hand he was well remember John Moore and remember
Moore said that he last spoke with Terry Thompson at 9:00 the previous evening Thompson told more about a letter he
received from an unnamed author saying Terry Thompson's wife Maran had been unfaithful now I don't know if she
actually cheated on Terry but if she did this is how this went down remember we said Dr Michael Barry the director of
Animal Health at the Columbus zoo was up at Thompson's property for an inspection
back in 2008 right this I believe was at the request of law enforcement Dr Barry
was accompanying a an ATF raid that eventually led to Terry Thompson going to prison Thompson was imprisoned for a
year on gun charges even though Dr Barry did not approve of the the animal situation as far as the law is concerned
there was no action that they could take concerning these animals you know this is for a
multitude of reasons one the animal laws in Ohio as you pointed out and actually
many states at the time were pretty relaxed right well very relaxed animal laws the other reason Thompson didn't
receive any punishment for the animal situation was because under the old setup you were allowed a certain amount
of time to improve the animal situation and environment before action would be taken against you so basically they saw
a problem they told him hey you can't be treating these animals or taking care of
them in this way right and instead of there being an immediate punishment like there would be for other laws being
broken he had time to correct the situation so he made changes or upgrades or whatever to improve these facilities
but regardless he went to prison for one year for the gun charges according to this letter Thompson's wife cheated on
him while he was in prison Thompson was only out of prison for 3 weeks before he
opened these cages cut some of them open and killed himself yeah when Terry Thompson spoke with John Moore at 900
p.m. the night before Terry was asking John Moore about Maran having cheated on him while he was in prison Moore told
Thompson he didn't know whether she did or didn't and then Terry makes this statement back to him mhm he said well I
have a plan to find out and you'll know it when it happens okay so his plan was to release these animals and then maybe
should tell them no I don't think that I don't think he thought he would figure it out I think he had this plan to do
something very crazy right I mean letting these animals out and then taking his own life
and I think it was just that it's kind of a a very statement right hey I I've got a plan I'm not going to tell you
what it is but when it happens you'll know because it it's going to make the news you're going to hear about this
yeah when you see the lions running down you know 70 on the freeway you you're going to
know what it would happen but this is this is a tricky situation anyways cuz one it's like I don't like to take
anybody's rights away so should somebody have the right to have a tiger I to me it's like well if you can afford to
house one and you can and you can care for it properly if you have enough land you know what's the difference between
somebody owning one privately and and somebody having one at the zoo mhm but now the zoo has funding do you have the
funding in this case Thompson just doesn't have the funding right and maybe he had the funding at one time mhm and
then maybe this is part of everything slipping away from him he has this house with some land he has all these animal
he can't take care of he has people coming after him saying cuz one the more and more animals you you have the more
and more inspections they're going to do the more and more they're going to be nitpicky you need to fix this you need
to fix that I don't think I had enough money to take care of these animals and instead
of being the bigger man and saying hey how about I I sell these to somebody that can or or donate these to some zoos
give these animals proper homes it was almost like he was stuck like he was going to try to figure out
this problem I got I got to make this right and then he he had these illegal guns right that's what he was arrested
on correct so you have so just an odd situation where you have these tigers and these Lions living on your property
now you have these illegal guns and look there's probably a lot of people in Royal areas that have illegal guns but
maybe because they couldn't get him on charges for the animals they went after the gun route well the ATF was there for
the raid and I think what they did was they knew animals were on the property so they decided to bring someone in from
the zoo with them to accompany them right but what I'm saying is if they have charged him if they have given him
fails and and charged him to fix things and they can't get it where they can stop him on that level well we also
heard a rumor that he has these guns and that'd be another way to get him in trouble and just basically I mean we've
see this happen with a lot of people like oh we know this guy's a drug Runner we can't get him on drug charges but we
can get him on taxes mhm I just wonder if it's the similar thing if he was becoming such such a nuisance if they
knew that these living conditions were not fit for the animals but we can't do anything but charge him some fees that
he's going to pay that maybe this is another Avenue to get him to get him to wake up and fix his
situation well let's unpack some things before we move on so first it was determined that Terry Thompson took his
own life after opening the cages on his property that day now second you got to wonder how could a private citizen amass
a collection of so many unusual and potentially dangerous animals in the first place well that is because at the
time there were very little law preventing that you know what laws were in place were as said very light at the
time of this tragic event in Ohio and a few other states a home and land owner could buy as many tigers lions and other
exotic animals as he or she wanted to you know as as as many as the heart desired so even if you own just like an
acre yeah wow yeah and and at the time they were technically under no obligation to even tell anyone that they
owned these animals oh that's nice now to breed exhibit or commercially transport animals across state lines you
did need a USDA license for that uh and this required that facilities be inspected periodically to check that
they met some very basic standards but other than that there were no special checks or controls now the change in
these laws amongst some of of the other details deemed suspicious by some have surfaced conspiracy theories regarding
the deaths of these magnificent animals and Terry Thompson right in the agenda of the conspiracy theories let's just
get this out in the open yeah what they're stating is that somebody killed him that authorities killed him that
this was planned by authorities and the reason why is because the laws are so loose that they wanted to tighten up the
laws they wanted to make it harder on individuals to own these animals and so anybody in Ohio or other states they
start trying to point out these like little things that don't line up saying they made this happen they made they're
the ones law enforcement are the ones that made this uh scare this Panic they're the ones that then you know
Massacre these animals and and all for for them to be able to pass uh tighter laws stricter laws yeah so the the
general thought is it's it's the old argument we've heard it a hundred times it happens every time there's a school
shooting or a mass shooting where people said suggest hey this was a scripted event that took place because we need
stricter gun laws right and so here we get these these laws did pass the I think it's called the dangerous animal
act or something like that but these laws did pass and they passed relatively quickly after this situation so then
people point to that and say well this was orchestrated so that these laws could go on the books now I don't want
to get into the finer details of of the law in these laws right but one thing I would like to point out to people that
make that argument is technically at one point we did have stricter animal laws but they
expired MH and for whatever reason the Ohio state government once they expired did not do a very good job of getting
them back on the books they just kind of sat there and I've been thinking about this a lot this week but I started
thinking about this like you know who do you blame here and who do you who do you
point the finger who who do you get angry with who do you lock eyes with bring them in
close sniff them let them know use a piece of [ __ ] who do you do that here and at some
point I went well it's it's the people passing the laws too though right aren't they responsible for this but then I
really started thinking as the week went on you have a lot of other problems to deal with oh yeah and you have millions
of citizens you have these you you have a lot of missing children missing people
you have murders happening every day you have have all these things that you have
to deal with how many people in the state of Ohio actually own these types of animals and out of
those many people how many own too many of them right and how many of them you know cuz like look if some guy in
Cleveland owns Five lions and he has the the land for it and he has the you know
how many of them are causing problems and so I I can't really put a blame on them when that has to be a low has to be
low on their list of priorities MH well the other thing that people like to point out too Captain is that many have
suggested how would he have been able to open up all these cages I mean where it's not one or two cages it was like 50
so many people have suggested hey he would have been attacked and killed before he could get all those Cages open
now we should point out if you look at pictures of his property one these cages were like in groups you know they would
have like I mean picture like a a grocery store where you have aisles I am going to be posting a lot of this uh a
lot of these pictures that we're talking about to our Instagram page go to Instagram @ True Crime garage so picture
this this is the way this goes down yeah I mean you could you could open up a cage walk three step steps and open up
another one walk Three Steps open up another one I I mean very quickly he could open up all the cages the the
thing that I have a problem with with people saying that um I I get their argument I get the argument of saying
hey man you let go all these big huge creatures and they didn't kill you before you got to the last cage I get it
right but the thing here is we have a guy that I mean he he did take care of these animals in some sense you know he
he did have some kind of relationship with these animals one and then two I mean we we've all had you know dogs or
cats or whatever have you ever just opened up a cage and not open the door for the animal and and notice that it it
takes the dog uh you know 3 minutes or so to figure out that hey I I'm free you know um so I wonder if it's that
situation the other thing too is we have people that has suggested well they didn't have to kill the animals well
well let's stay on the the cage for because a lot of people also claimed that there was chains and certain locks
on these doors so that would make it harder the cages are closed together but there's chains and there's locks on all
these doors there is no evidence of that mhm and you'll hear people talk about this there's chains on all of them so it
would have tooken so much longer you have no evidence of that that's just a speculation that you're making right
right and the thing too that I think that gets lost along the way when people look for consp iracy and and it's fair
that people look for a conspiracy I think because as you pointed out when something like this happens in any of
the cases we cover you want somebody to blame you want somebody to hold account accountable for something that you did
not like or didn't agree with or that was just plain wrong well right and that's the thing and and this is why uh
people that look into conspiracy theories get a bad rap I mean it's the idea like you take Sandy Hook you're
talking about one of the most most horrible tragedies in the world in the history of the world but you can watch
those videos where in the back of the school building it's almost like they're going
in a circle now I don't know what that means and I'm not saying that it's uh that
that Sandy Hook was a conspiracy that's not what I'm saying at all that happened
but what I can't make sense of is why are these individuals going in a circle in the back of the school I don't
understand that so that's not me calling the whole thing a hoax that's me saying
well what's up with that yeah what's up with that with that um but but same way here
if he if he is Left-Handed okay so he shoots a gun with his left hand well it seems like the
exit wound is coming from the left side of Thompson's head mhm so you got to put
the gun in and then point it that doesn't make a lot of sense it would make more sense if you f fir the gun
with your right hand and you put that in your mouth the exit wound would be coming out of the left side of your
skull mhm so I I think it's likely and this is this is tough because we're doing a a a radio show but you I'm going
to show you something I think it's likely that he did this that he h that he did one it was a revolver
and from putting the gun in the mouth right side up he put it in his mouth up side down that would be my
guess because the way that the autopsy reads it sounds like this is horribly graphic but the the the top back portion
of his head was blown off and so this is a crime show man I'm not doing this thing and 2019 I'm not doing the thing
where I'm apologizing if I didn't apologize I just said that it was it's a true crime show there's going to be some
stuff I didn't apologize I just said that it was it's graphic but the thing here is
okay who cares what hand he is there's gunpowder residue on him and it's not like they found it on his foot right you
know I I would also argue there's probably some kind of residue on his right hand and the thing that gets lost
in the shuffle here when people take a look at this when they glance at this you do have to do some digging to find
out that he kind of made a threat to his friend the night before when he said hey
I've got I've got a plan and you'll know it when it happens yep I mean that's a threat and obviously after all this
happens we know what his plan was yeah and the thing that's I mean it's it's tragic but I just don't see a situation
where this guy was murdered we don't have any eyewitnesses that have anybody else on the property at the time of him
releasing those animals right that we know of right right interesting story though
so I know a guy that was Sheriff here in uh Zanesville mhm and he told me that one time that they had to go to the
Thompson house and talk to him and there was three sheriff on one side I'm I'm probably telling this story a little
wrong please forgive me but there on this island there was this island in the kitchen mhm and on
one side of the island was Thompson on the other side of the island was the three sheriffs M and then all of a
sudden they could hear Claws and they know he has animals right they know that they know that he has big
cats they know Lions maybe Tigers they don't know everything but they know some stuff right so coming
down the hallway are these giant claws click you know how your dog you can hear your dog and they said right behind
Thompson just walks a tiger I can't remember if it was just a regular tiger tiger or if it was the
White Tiger right but they said this was walked right past him he didn't Flinch he didn't even look at it and it just
walked into another room and one of the guys uh you know drew his gun on it cuz he thought oh well yeah I'm going to
need this if this thing decides to pounce on me could you imagine if you're sitting there talking to him and you
start hearing those claw marks mhm I mean there's some things that are just hard to picture what you would do
mhm and that's one of them I mean I I want to know what to do well and I'm going to say some unpopular things here
but I've I you normally do I do want to put out my feelings or at least my thoughts let's not say feelings we'll
say thoughts on this whole event and how it went down look I I I do not love the
outcome of this situation I don't love that so many of these wonderful animals were killed um but the the thing here is
we have a Police Department that's responding to a situation and they had to make a call on the Fly of what to do
what is in the Public's best interest how do we protect the other citizens in this area and I think they had to make a
judgment call on the Fly again I don't love the outcome of everything but they had to protect the public there and they
had to put these animals down as sad as it is and the other thing too about this
whole situation man for all these years this is going to be very unpopular okay that I I apologize here's an apology
this will be our last show of the the year and the last show of our career so for years you know this happened over
seven years ago I've really had a pretty strong hatred for Terry Thompson and we
talk about when something terrible happens or something goes down you want somebody to hold accountable you want
somebody to hate look in the eye for their actions look me in the eye and so I've for all these years I've hated
Terry Thompson if you do want somebody to to hold responsible for this it's Terry Thompson it's the guy that opened
up the cages and killed himself but the more that I got looking into this situation and the more I got studying
Terry Thompson's life I'm really just kind of left feeling I'm not going to lie I I feel
bad for the man and and here's why okay I don't agree with getting 50 animals whether they be exotic animals or just
dogs and cats right one person can't take care of that many animals that that's not something I agree with but
but you can try to love all those dogs if you got 50 dogs you could try what I saw was a man that made a lot of bad
decisions but he had lots of collections he collected guns he collected cars right he this man served this country in
Viet and he saw some terrible stuff he was he was a gunner at the door of the uh helicopters yeah and so I don't want
to go into the things that he probably went through during wartime but it was very obvious to people that knew him
that war changed him in a bad way when he came home there was often times where he would mention things like yeah I I'm
not going to heaven I've I've killed too many people i' you know during war time
I've had to do some some bad things and what I see is more of a hoarder you know we see these situations
on TV where that you find some person that's like buried up uh to their neck and trash in their home because they
won't throw anything away yeah I think we got this guy Terry Thompson who decided one day he wanted to start
collecting animals and I think probably his intentions were good in the beginning I think yeah yeah I think this
is a psychological thing it's you know like you said with the hoarding or the collecting it's almost like something
happened in war and he and he has some kind of broken uh part inside him he's trying to
fix it by these collections by whether it's gun collections or animal collections yeah and he I mean this guy
he had a pilot's license at one time in his life he had a very successful business where he he was a
Harley-Davidson dealership that he owned for many years so he made a lot of money
and but what he did with his money was he collected things guns cars animals and the thing was people pointed out
they say hey I'd go to Terry Thompson's property I'd see all these beautiful cars from the 50s and the 60s just
sitting there neglected falling apart rusting right and what I think happened here was his last love might have been
the collection of these animals and I think at some point he just kept collecting them and collecting them and
he couldn't take care of them right and it was it the right to do no hell no terribly wrong he should have got out a
long time ago but what happened was when he got arrested on those gun charges and
he went away to prison everything that I could find it seems like his his uh life
with his wife his marriage was falling apart before he went to prison but when he went to prison she didn't visit him
very often they didn't have phone calls very often she he went to prison she treated it almost as if their marriage
didn't exist and I think what happened is Terry Thompson got out of prison after being there for a year he came
home and he felt like he had nothing he a man that had a lot and and now he had nothing no children no all of his things
were neglected the entire time he was gone and even his wife was not his anymore right and I think when he had
nothing I think this guy was probably suicidal for some time I think he was deeply depressed and I think that he
well and POS I'm just going to throw out another possibility there too I mean he
could have some kind of early onset dementia or you know what I mean like where he's just not completely there in
his head I mean that it's very possible I think the most horrible part of this entire story though I think he let the
animals out to punish his wife right I think he was going to kill himself anyway and I think the the letting the
animals out was a way to punish his wife because they were or at least spoke of them as if they were their children and
we've seen this in other cases that we've covered before and cases that will cover in the future sometimes the
husband or wife will do something terrible to the children to punish their spouse well right but let's start with
the idea that you're you're the sum of all your actions not the sum of one action but meaning yes he served this
country and that's a good thing he probably was a good friend to people good businessman
fine whatever but this act this piece of [ __ ] mhm this act is a piece of [ __ ] these animals did not
deserve to live that way they did not deserve to die that way right and um and I would I would have hated to be one of
the sheriffs and having these animals running free and the fear that you must have I mean we all see these Majestic
animals when you go to the zoo but it's from a distance mhm but if this was in another yard what would you feel the
fear that you'd have to fear and a lot of these cops just it was awful and and like we said there's there has been
rumors that the some of these cops have said mhm that that this was fun like hunting right right is it Poss possible
that there was out of all the uh police officers involved a lot of them which Jack Hannah said a lot of them were
crying afterwards a lot of them felt awful a lot of them said I have to go back and tell my son or my daughter I
killed a lion I killed a tiger mhm now did one of those guys go to the bar get drunk and instead of telling the truth
decide that he's going to make some stupid joke about it possibly but I I really do think that
this was a a very misfortunate situation and the cops did what they had to do everybody involved as far as Jack
Hannah and them they had to just deal with those consequences mhm because those decisions when you first hear
about it it almost sounds like the zoo is telling the law enforcement want to do but that's not what happened they had
to take it they had to make actions happen before they can get the advice of law enforcement mhm now as far as the
conspiracy theory stuff goes there are some people that own animals that claim that they reached out to law enforcement
when they heard about this saying that they could help again I don't fault the I can't
fault the sheriff because you you're running out of time you're running out of daylight and I just don't see the
conspiracy I think there's enough evidence that the Thompson had a lot of demons from his past stuff going on
mentally stuff going on in that present time with his wife um and just such a tragic thing yeah and I
think regarding law enforcement we should keep in mind they are the ones that called the zoo they are the ones
that called in the experts from the zoo they didn't have to call anybody right they tried to get them involved the zoo
did get involved but they were the ones that put that action into place and I think I'll leave it here for today with
a state from one of the officers on the scene that day he said I was sick shooting these animals because they
didn't ask to be there real quick Captain before we wrap up here today I want to mention that I
got a very nice email from a woman named Gina who was suggesting that we cover the jod Aras case well we actually
covered that way back in season 2 so if you want to hear all of our old episodes
for free you can do that by getting the free Stitcher app we have all of our previous seasons and years whatever you
want to call them on there plus you'll want to check out our premium show off the record on Stitcher premium I'm still
receiving emails from people regarding our jod who's and true update that we did months back so it's a hit show check
it out it's on Stitcher it's a hit all right I got some recommend viewing for you if you haven't heard we have a
famous person in the garage now we know him as the colonel the rest of the world
knows him now as Nick from True Crime garage and uh you were on the lake er's murders Lake Eerie murders yep Lake
Eerie murders which uh premiered last night on the ID channel yes and so you want to check it out it's three-part
you're you're part of the three-part series about about the Amy mahalic case yes so if you haven't checked that out I
don't know when it's playing I don't know when it's playing again but you know those those channels typically
reair things and I'm sure you could see some of that at their website as well well now that you're a celebrity your
pay does not increase here in the garage my friend and you know maybe next time that you're uh you're on TV maybe you
could ask me to join you well I would have liked for you to be on but they were afraid of your
foul mouth oh well until next week all right everybody be good be kind and don't
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Insanesville ////// 268

Part 1 of 1

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Zanesville, Ohio - October 18th, 2011 - a call came into 911 that set the whole town on edge. There was a lion on the loose. Police arrived on scene to find many large and dangerous animals roaming free. They also found the lifeless body of a 62 year old man. What went down on that autumn day can only be described as insane. Beer of the Week - Zookeeper by Empyrean Garage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

Terry Thompson released exotic animals in Zanesville, leading to chaos and tragic outcomes for both animals and humans.

Key points

The Zanesville Animal Escape. In October 2011, exotic animals escaped from a private property in Zanesville, Ohio, leading to chaos and danger in the community.
A Shocking Discovery. Officers discover a tiger eating a human body on the property, escalating the situation.
The Aftermath of the Escape. By the time authorities arrived, 49 animals were confirmed dead, with only one unaccounted for.
Jack Hannah's Heartbreaking Experience. Jack Hannah shares the emotional toll of witnessing the aftermath of the animal release.
The Tragic Release of Exotic Animals. Terry Thompson opened the cages of 49 exotic animals before taking his own life, leading to chaos in Zanesville, Ohio.
The Tragic Situation Unfolds. Terry Thompson opened cages, leading to a tragic event involving exotic animals.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There's a bear and a lion out!

Mrs. Copek to 911 dispatcher

6:28WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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