“Cocaine Bear” Is Actually Based On A True Story — Here’s What Happened

In case you haven’t heard of it, Cocaine Bear is a new dark comedy about a bear that accidentally eats a bunch of cocaine, then goes on a rampage through a national park forest. 🙃 Think of it as Final Destination meets The Cabin in the Woods…with a 500-pound bear thrown in there, LOL.

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So there really was a “cocaine bear,” a black bear that ate a bunch of cocaine in the woods back in 1985.

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And it was eventually given the nickname “Pablo Escobear” (or “Eskobear,” as it’s sometimes spelled), named after the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

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However, unlike the massive 500-pound “apex predator” bear in the movie, the real-life one was a bit smaller, weighing in at just 175 pounds.

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Although the bear kills PLENTY of people in the film, the bear didn’t actually kill anyone in real life.

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Sadly, the real bear was found dead in the mountains of Fannin County, Georgia, just over the border from Tennessee.

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Apparently, the bear had been dead for about four weeks before it was even found.

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And its body was found next to a duffel bag that had previously been filled with a bunch of cocaine — 70 pounds’ worth, to be exact.

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According to Gary Garner, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at the time, “The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine, and OD’d.”

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Authorities also believed that “others” (that is, more animals) probably ate some of the cocaine as well.

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After an autopsy, it was revealed that although the bear had “a stomach full of cocaine,” just 4 grams of cocaine was actually found in its blood.

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But that was enough to cause all kinds of deadly problems, like “cerebral hemorrhage, respiratory failure, heart failure, stroke, hyperthermia, and renal failure, among other symptoms.”

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The bear’s body was eventually stuffed, and it is actually on display in Lexington, Kentucky, now.

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Allegedly, the stuffed bear was even owned by country singer Waylon Jennings at one point.

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The drug smuggler in the film was really named Andrew C. Thornton II, and according to the filmmakers, he was “an Army paratrooper turned racehorse trainer turned narcotics cop turned DEA agent turned lawyer turned cocaine smuggler.”

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Although Thornton is portrayed as acting alone in the film, in real life, he had been accompanied by a man named Bill Leonard, a former karate instructor.

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According to Leonard, he and Thornton flew a Cessna 404 airplane to Colombia on Sept. 9, 1985.

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While in Colombia, the men apparently ate “what turned out to be parrot” and became “deathly ill with food poisoning.”

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Later, their plane was loaded with kilos of cocaine, and they were given parachutes as well. Then the two men headed back to the United States.

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According to Leonard, they believed that “somewhere over Florida,” they heard federal agents talk about following their plane over the radio. So Leonard began dumping bags of cocaine out of the plane.

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After a bit of a fight over this, the men eventually decided to abandon the plane. Leonard jumped out first.

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Leonard apparently landed near an airport in Knoxville, Tennessee, walked to a grocery store, called a cab, and went on to meet Thornton’s girlfriend at a hotel in downtown Knoxville (as they had planned).

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Thornton, however, was found dead in the backyard of a home in Knoxville wearing a parachute, Gucci loafers, and combat fatigues, and with several weapons and a bag of cocaine.

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Finally, by that afternoon, on Sept. 11, 1985, narcotics agents and police, along with officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs, and the Federal Aviation Administration, had come to the site, and Thornton’s body was easily identified, thanks to several forms of identification and a key to the airplane that he’d been carrying.