Citation Needed - Pablo Esco-Bear

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Andrew Carter Thornton II (October 30, 1944 – September 11, 1985) was a former narcotics officer and lawyer who became the head member of "The Company", a drug smuggling ring in Kentucky. The son of Carter and Peggy Thornton of Threave Main Stud farm in southern Bourbon County, Kentucky, Thornton grew up living a privileged life in the Lexington, Kentucky, area and attended the prestigious private Sayre School and the Iroquois Polo Club along with other Lexington blue bloods. He later transferred to Sewanee Military Academy and then joined the army as a paratrooper.[1] After quitting the army, he became a Lexington police officer[2] on the narcotics task force. He then attended the University of Kentucky Law School. During his tenure, he began smuggling.[3]

Kang the conqueror man, you keep saying that like I'm supposed to be excited. Is he a cool character in the comics? I'm not quite sure actually. Well then why are you excited? Because he's Kang the conqueror dude. Get off me stop get off me. What is give him the crack? This is this is two shows in a row now just give him the rest of the crack.

Hey guys, what's up with the dog body? Thank you. Oh, hey, no, hey, see, so, so you know how last week I had that fabulous idea of us having a mess. Fabulous, and then heath. I was in the hospital for a week and a half. I ruined it with that. I ruined it by doing it.

So this week, the episode was about a bear filled with cocaine. He'll technically ends with the bear full of cocaine. It's not really about the bear, but it's got it. It's whatever Tom the point is, I realized, problem with duck bill platypus was that he wasn't themed. So BingBank boom. Now we've got our own drug themed mascot.

K Eli, but that is just a dog that's attacking. That's attacking me. Thank you. That's good. Yes, that's attacking. That's attacking me. Thank you. That's good. Yes, that's what it is. That's what it is. Okay, to be fair, the only pun I could think of was cocaine. And then he decided to share the cocaine eyes crack.

And so I only wanted a key bump. So here we are. The point is here we are. I got to say cocaine. It's not bad. It's really not bad. Thank you. I stole it.

I stole it from Reddit. Oh, it's not even an original name This is even less worth it now. Keep me coming up. Stop yelling in front of cocaine. I could go with cannabis Can I get his better cannabis? Can I really get so much better? Hello and welcome. Sitation needed. Podcasts were to choose a subject, read a single article about our Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Officer Cecil and I'll be reading you your rights tonight, you have none.

Okay, now that that's over with, let me introduce our usual suspects, Ethan Tom. Give me the motherfucking meat, keep on. Actually, I like to think of myself as an unusual suspect. Still definitely a suspect though. Yeah. Oh, yeah, see, I like to think of myself as an unusual suspect. Still definitely a suspect though.

Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay, definitely definitely a suspect for sure. Also joining us tonight, two masterminds that got their fake names off the bottom of coffee cups, Kaiser Soze and Dishwasher Say. No, I mean, you are. Yeah, it turns out all that takes to engineer this lineup is to offer rights. Donuts.

You don't even have to make with them. You guys got donuts. I was just excited. Someone was making Cecil stand in a room with me. Hey, everyone. This shows a lot of work. This is in part of the previous bit. I'm just doing something else here.

Thanks, patrons for recognizing that we do a lot of work. You'd like to learn how to give us some pocket change for brightening your day. Be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that out of the way. And, chop, no more beer. And that's the bit, no more beer. Now I'd like money.

Thank you. And that out of the way, tell us, Eli, what person-place thing, concept phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. We'll be talking about Pablo Escobar. Right, Pablo Escobar. So Tom, you read some stuff about whatever we're gonna be talking about here, are you ready to expand our consciousness?

I could barely contain myself cocaine. Oh, that's one way Tom. Nailed it. So who, that's clapped in there?. Who, that a claptin leader? What? When? Yes. Was Pablo Escobo?

Yes, nailed it. All right. Yeah. If I had to pick my favorite American forever war to head on and there are a lot to pick from right now. I mean, there's war on drugs and almost certainly be the clear front runner. I mean, for decades, we've insisted that sooner or later, if we just break down enough doors and lock up enough people, we just prop up enough puppet regimes across Central and South America or give the local police enough tanks and flash

banger nades, then, well, by God, we're going to win this one except we haven't at all and we won't. And if there was ever a story that shows just how much we will not win the drug war, there is no better example than that of Andrew Carter Thornton the second. And no matter where you think this story is going, I can absolutely guarantee that you will not guess the ending on this one.

Okay, all I'm gonna say is that is a perfectly cocainey answer to what is Pablo Escobar. Thank you. All right, let's go. Born in 1944 to Carter and Peggy Thornton in Kentucky's bourbon county. That's all their counties. I wish it was all their counties.

My God, everybody just read it. It's not all the bourbons. Not for Ducky. Andrew, a lot of what I was saying, I'm saying all the Tuckias from bourbon. Andrew Drew Thornton was born into blue blood southern royalty. And everyone expected that he'd lived a life typically expected of southern blue buds, very likely working on the thoroughbred horse farm that he grew up on.

He was educated at SAIR, a very prestigious elementary school, after which he very predictably moved on to the Cewani Military Academy in Tennessee. And at this point, his path began to diverge from the blue blood expectation when he dropped out of college after one semester to join the army in 1963. He gets there the first day, starts the saddle up his platoon mates. What? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. A while in the army, Drew became a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division. He took part in the US invasion of the Dominican Republic. I guess a quick word might be necessary on that. I had literally never heard of the US invasion of the Dominican Republic until I read about it passing in a Wapo article about this guy. Turns out in 1965 in an effort to prevent what was here as another Cuba, America engaged in another one of its gunboat diplomacy efforts and sent 22,000 troops to quell violence and install a conservative non-communist government

in the Dominican Republic. Turns out that the pretext for the invasion was flimsier than Lyndon Johnson's ego. By the way, Johnson named the invasion Operation Power Pack. This is really about me. Operation RIP, yeah. Operation, have you seen my penis? Also, Operation, we installed a war criminal, literally a Joaquin Balaguerre, just the worst. So the 82nd Airborne Paratroopers were actually the leading force in that invasion, and Drew was injured in the fighting, earning a purple heart for his service.

And I feel like you almost have to be trying to get injured at a U.S. versus Dominican Republic. So well, purple heart there, right? Stubbed this toe on the landing was terrible. After successfully defeating the spurious communist revolt, kind of sort of gripping the right half of a very small Caribbean island with the aid of 21,999 of his heavily armed friends, through a quit the army and returned home to Kentucky.

We tried college again for a year before quitting again, and working with his debt, training racehorses. But training racehorses was a far cry from the adrenaline rush of being a combat paratrooper and drew a story of who he was, wasn't gonna let him rest working a gimme job on a horse farm. All the rest of the story really relies in fact on the story that Drew told Drew about himself. That Dominican beach resort where you fell in skint your knee was rocky, damn it, Drew. That right, true. That right dangerous. They ran out of money to read a mix on day three.

That coral can give you infections. Did infections if you brought up against it. It was no one to pee on your foot when you got stuck on the toilet. You can always pee on your own foot. You know, that's the only time he said there's a new Joe. I say we keep it this week, Cecil. Let's go. I was going to cut it normally like he says it every week, but you know, this time makes

sense. There's a good. Go ahead. You're one of the most insanely grandiose notions of who he was that I have ever read. Do you thought of himself as a impeccable warrior. That is a term coined by philosopher, and philosopher should be in heavy air quotes here. Carlos Castaneda.

And that term was just sort of dropped into several articles that I read about Drew as if this term is some kind of common knowledge. But let me go ahead and quote the pretentious bullshitery here that motivated Drew's sense of his own self. According to Carlos Castaneda, quote, a warrior is impeccable if he has confidence in his personal power, whether insignificant or considerable. What? What? Yeah, and I read that about five times. Same exact thing. No, man, I read that seriously five, maybe six times in each time it just made less sense to thing. No, man. I read that seriously. Five, maybe six times in each time. It just made less sense to me. Actually,

then the first time I read it every time I'd like cock my head like a dog hungry for a treat. Just I what? Castanada, the new age philosopher credited with the impeccable warrior ideas described this way. Quote. In the 1970s, a shooting star across the sky that we could see from every place on earth, it was called Carlos Castaneda. Carlos Castaneda. Yeah. Yeah.

And he dug into the heart of Yakwai sorcery. This young American anthropologist opened the planet's heads for a whole generation. And the new age started this way. Gross. Yeah, two fun facts about our lowest castenata. One, I've read a lot of castenata. That's the number one lie right before a rich white guy at college tries to have sex with you.

Yeah, number one. Yeah. Two, he's a famous quote writer and philosopher who does not know what impact. There you go. Or warrior. It gets dumber actually than the cast native thing. So upon his death, Drew was found carrying in his pocket this epigram, well, there is only one tactical principle not subject to change.

It is to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time. All right. Now, come at me like from the front, like you're gonna choke me. Yeah. So, no, your arms out. When he was eulogized, his pastor said of him, quote, he, Thornton, was very fond of the words of the Oriental, his words, philosopher who said, man can overcome any obstacle if he knows in his heart that he must and in his mind that he shall. Okay. Yeah, that was at his youth.

I guess it's not a spoiler to point out that Drew never quite mastered Easter philosophy the way he thought he did. I guess it's not a spoiler to point out that Drew never quite mastered Easter. The truth Thornton was impeccably full of himself and motivated by the kind of vaguely masturbatory violently self centered deepety bullshit that in most guys fades to an embarrassing footnote by the time they give up their ninja sword collection and buy their own furniture. It was a nunchucks collection, Tom, and it's still very near to my heart in the attic where my wife put it in. It's like he read, you know, like half of the art of war, but then accidentally switched to the art of the deal.

He would have it. This is life philosophy. Uh, somehow when I cannot figure out how this nonsense wasn't a complete deal breaker with the ladies. And in 1968, Drew met and married local Southern beauty, Betty Zaring. As she put a quote, I fell in love with him as a romantic hero. A fragile seems perfect in its corresponding lack

of any grasp on reality. A month after getting married, due to the only thing that made sense for a guy with a sense of his own ethics, specifically created to excuse deeply unhealthy relationships with the power and violence, he joined the Lafayette Urban County Police Department. Game of cop. YouTube would be invented for another 37 years, so that was really the only choice.

Okay, okay, who called cop? Who called cop? Everybody. Wow, okay. I guess we all just take our money and go home then. Well, we'll do a harder. We'll next week. We'll do a harder. One of it sounds like it's just me maybe saying some stuff like here's a quote from his

ex wife about why he became a cop quote. He was a trained warrior. A very efficient killer trained by the US government. He was in the battle of sandals, resorting sweets. Maybe you've heard of him. This invasion is going to be all inclusive. Was that even main Drew? She says, quote, he went on to the police force so he could do battle.

He was happiest when he was on the cutting edge when he tested himself. End quote. Predictably, by the beginning of the 1970s, Drew would be a member of Lexington's first narcotic squad, working closely with the DEA, and DEA agent Robert Britewell described him as, quote, a 007 paramilitary type personality, an adventurer driven by adrenaline rushes who became bored with being a cop. He also became bored with being married. According to Betty, quote, he loved me, but he resented having a wife and a quote, he don't have any

idea with that phrase means actually, but unsurprisingly, I'll explain it if you want later. It didn't mean things were going well in the relationship. As an Arconics officer, the work that Drew sought out was dangerous and so were the connections that he made. As a narc and a thrill seeker with a grandiose sense of himself, Betty realized that she couldn't possibly feel safe, married to a guy who defined himself as a warrior leading a dangerous double life and a pair of horse just a few short years into their marriage. It doesn't sound like a marriage with short years, Tom. The other officers who worked with Drew also began to see that he took risks.

The others didn't. A fellow police officer interviewed about Drew described him as quote, an edge walker. As a policeman, Drew could walk the edge only so long before it became routine. Drug smuggling was a natural transition for him. He was a star ski and hutch type of cop. We drove fast cars, popped in and raided people. He was as flamboyant in his life as he was in his death and was. See, and I was worried this story wouldn't have a happy ending.

So far, we have an overzealous police officer that thinks he's myomoto mousashi and I need to bust out my TI-84 to see if I can chart out how rare this is. So we'll take a quick break for a little apropos of nothing. Okay, and then Hoskins, you're gonna take 21st Street. We just wanna make you a- Sorry, I'm late, Captain, but I don't play by anyone's rules. Hey, rules. Officer Thornton, yeah, go ahead, take a seat. I want that one.

This is the one I'm sitting in. Yeah, give me your chair. No. Yeah, you sure you wanna say no to a lethal weapon? Yes, I wanna say no. Thornton lethal weapon. Yes, I want to say no fine finals sit on the floor. There are so many chairs Thornton right Indian style none of this criss-cross apple sauce Full shed that the hippies are condoms in Indian style on the floor Rating with how much I hate you guys guys back to the mission. So like I guess we're gonna do here's what really a knee high here come to the back

I can bust man front guns blaze and dive roll karate back flip dive roll glam drugs off the streets ladies in the sheets You know what I mean? Yeah, Jordan. Yeah, so this is a full Drug operation if you bust in the door You're gonna die right the fuck away and I know they. They don't have the balls to shoot these balls. You know what I mean? You know what I mean. Actually, you know what? No, you know what?

Yeah, that is what you said. That is the plan. Thornton dies in hell. Two votes for that. Three, three, four, four, four, four, four. I like to pronounce it caroté. Oh, look at my man. Caroté.

It's shaking with how much I ate him. Dude, I see it. Holy shit. the singun katas in his room while blasting the dynasty warriors three soundtrack. What happened next time? Well alone, Drew's worldview began to concretize into more and more extreme views, convinced not crazily given the times that the world is on the edge of a nuclear arm again. Drew began to become paranoid. He began to further train and perfect his survival and self-defense skills and he bought an isolated farm. He named Triad It's not do she at all sure

There he stockpiled paramilitary gear including guns ammunition freeze dried food and gold coins Which nutcase is believed to be valuable reasons After a nuclear bomb was always all of our national currencies This concept makes me so happy Let's say you survive a nuclear bomb. Our boys, all of our national currencies. This concept makes me so happy. Let's say you survive a nuclear attack in your little bunker there. Eventually, you're going to come out with your gold coins,

and you're going to buy some food from a, I guess, gold speculating warlord in your head. And then that guy's going to shoot you in the fucking face and he's every time. Why did the idiots even want to survive a nuclear apocalypse? Right. Who looked around and thinks, you know what the problem is, too much clean water and air conditioning around his farm.

He's strong concertina wire and he dug trenches and even set up barracks. He began wearing camouflage fatigues and bulletproof vests everywhere he went. Oh, and also swastikas. Nice. Nice. Who had Nazi again, everyone. Maybe we need to start doing another thing besides guess and port D&D. Because we're D&D next thing.

D&D. All right. So I just want to summarize wrist control montage right? So his farm Joe Bell. So his farm triad was so kidded out with crazy shit that even in Kentucky, it raised high back. Cool. The third farm was a subject of aerial and ground surveillance several times following reports. The thirton was operating a guerrilla warfare training camp for mercenaries, according

to Sergeant Ralph Ross. But remember that Drew was still a cop himself while he was doing all this crazy shit. So he simply told the other cops it was all cool and insane compound full of guns and surrounded by barbed wire was his freedom and liberty for it or whatever. And second amendment and are you detaining me and then they all have beers and nothing happened. Yeah, exactly. So Drew, you say you're out in the woods just shooting holes into donuts? Okay, sounds legit. Let's go beat up a black guy. the woods just shooting holes into donuts. Okay, sounds legit. Let's go beat up a black guy. What is that? So is that on the Kentucky license plate? If you're real.

Well, on the police force, Drew again went back to school and he got himself a lawyer in degree in 1976, though it doesn't appear. However, you actually did in a simple country lawyer law talking instead in 1977, Drew's best friend, another Kentucky royalty dickhead who went to the same fancy private schools as Drew, formed a private security company called Executive Protection LTV. Drew quit his job on the police force

to go into the private security world with his buddy. Yeah, their first choice for the name of the company was Rich Kids Playing Guns, but apparently that was already incorporated by 47 other businesses in Kentucky. Three restaurants. We are wrong.

We are wrong. We are. Little is known definitively about everything that happened between 1977 and 1981, but in 1981, shit starts to get kind of crazy. So 1981, maids at a hotel that Drew's friend Bryant was staying at, smelled some pot. And because it was 1981, they just said no and called the cops. When the cops showed up at Bryant's room, probably thinking they were gonna steal some dude shitting dick.

They had to egg and a frying pan and they were gonna do the whole demonstration. I smell a pot called Nancy. Get her over here right away. Swiping around. To the cops, you're up to Bryant's room. Learned about watching you. Nancy. Get her over here right away. Swiping around. To the cops show up to Brian's room. Learned about watching you.

With the cops showed up to Brian's room, probably thinking they were going to steal some dude, shitty ditch weed and smoke it back in the patrol car. They instead walked into the craziest room full of clues you can imagine. In Brian's hotel room, they found an ass load of semi-automatic weapons, $22,000 in cash, a dozen or so fake IDs, and a notebook full of names and addresses of MetaRound Lexington with like cryptic code word shit like Operation Blue Finn, rich amongst them. One of the names that notebook was none other than business partner and impeccable warrior Drew Thornton.

Hey, pro tip, if you have a notebook with names of operations, you're not being cryptic enough. Don't have no problem. Yeah, that's awesome. The cops, uh, stutely sensing this was not the weed bust they thought it was, arrested Bryant, who tried to first acclaim that he was CIA and you can't arrest spies That's a rule. Let me go When that failed he kept hinting that okay, he wasn't CIA, but the CIA knew what was up The local cops involved a number of federal agencies and soon Bryant and 25 others were indicted for conspiring to smuggle pot and for

Stealing weapons from the China Lake Naval Weapon Center. What? That theft at China Lake was not a nothing burger event. It prompted massive investigations into the trades of arms for drugs. You might remember a little something called the Iran Contra affair. This event is both not dissimilar and actually may have ties to Iran Contra as well. Honestly, this theft alone could easily be its own citation needed episode, but to give you the cliff notes version, in connection with the employees at China Lake, two dozen

men belonging to a criminal drug syndicate in Kentucky called the company stole just a mess of shit from China Lake Naval Weapon Center and intended to sell some of the weapons to the Libyans and to exchange other weapons and systems in Latin America and exchange for drugs. And they didn't steal a bunch of like, pitily-ass guns either. We're talking like radar and guidance systems for sidewinder missiles, remote controlled helicopters, and infrared and other advanced optical gear. The fuck is happening? This is an AIDS fricking talk.

This is a totally nuts thing. And an Inosie Narcass maid who got her panties in a bunch over some weed basically broke the case. See, this is why we can't have white guys being rich. When they're poor, they do some shitty cocaine and then they lie about Operation Blue Finn to me a bartender at 4am and I can listen to it when they're with the actually fucking do it. Yeah, right.

I'm sure remote control helicopter is a reference to like an early form of drone or something like that but when you set it up first I was like so they're out shopping for sidewinder shit and decided to pick up something for the kids. I would just, I would love for that stuff to be way harder to steal. Like someone who's more than a Kentucky guy wearing camo in the middle of a Walmart level. Sidewinder missiles. No, where do you have that? Just out.

We should have one spot. I went to like a shelf and then they like, you know, bought it with cash and then like got another one and returned it with the other thing. Now Thorne was one of the men indicted in the drug smuggling conspiracy. Drew, former NARC, was charged with being the pilot of the DC-4 that was used to smuggle tons of marijuana. But indicting is not the same as arresting. The cops had his buddy Bryant, but Thornton wasn't in the hotel room. So once he was named in the indictment, Thornton remained a fugitive for months, not having been formally arrested

for lack of the police's ability to find him. A few months after the indictment, US Customs seized a converted mind sweeper to boat that was carrying both 1,500 pounds of marijuana and a machine gun that was registered to Thornton. The US Marshall stepped up the pressure and Thornton was arrested in Fresno, California. Okay. So he's a black market weapons dealer, and he's like, okay, but this machine gun is legit.

It's basic freedoms. I'm going to register. I'm going to keep it in my truck full of illegal guns. I got away with stealing sad wonderments. Yeah. That's insane. And you might be thinking at this point, wow, this guy is a former narcotic cop now undicted as part of a massive drug smuggling operation. His weapons are tied to those crimes and at least peripherally he's involved in a major theft of military weapons intended for sale to hostile foreign actors. I bet he definitely doesn't get bail.

He definitely will get bail, right? Remember, he's a white guy who likes schostokas in Kentucky. Okay. No, of course he got bailed. He posted it down, like coming up with $75,000 in cash, and not at all a suspicious amount of cash to have available, and pledged a surety bond of a further million dollars secured by his interest. He owned in several racehorses. And coming around the bend is extensive prison term, but wait, he just got overtaken by

white privilege. White privilege wins. White privilege wins. Why would the court take that? Cause like if he jumps bail, they get fucking horses and then the judge is just sitting on the horse. He just came to the wrong fucking saddle. Now while awaiting trial, just three days before the hearing and while leaving a restaurant,

Thornton was shot twice in the chest at close range with a 38 caliber handgun. Lucky for him, he was spared as the bullet professed he was wearing stopped the bullets. Also very lucky for him, the whole thing was likely his idea. Police concluded that the shooting was staged. You try to convince a judge that his enemies were so numerous that any corporation would be tantamount to forfeiting his life. And very weirdly, no charges were filed for his conspiracy to arrange for his own attempted fake murder.

And the gunman was never caught. So, okay, so is it just me or are you guys feeling like the first response to and then you shoot me twice in the chest while I'm wearing the bulletproof vest was, dude, that's your solution for everything. You need to come up with something. I shouldn't have yielded action and cut. That was only dead giveaway. Before the trial itself could begin, Thornton pleaded no contest to marijuana conspiracy charges.

And again, I guess I should mention his white. So he got six months at a minimum security prison in Lexington. Bryant, he received a 15 year sentence. And after his short stint at the minimum security prison, Thornton was repeatedly sought for questioning by other jurisdictions. Though never formally charged, Thornton was implicated and suspected in a just stunning number of what the police refer to as vendetta deaths. These deaths are of some pretty high profile people, and all of them were connected to cases Thornton was involved in in some way.

Jesus. They include the assassination of a federal judge, the murder of a Florida state's attorney, the murder of a witness in the original case against Thornton, and the murder of a federal judge, the murder of a Florida state's attorney, the murder of a witness in the original case against Thornton, and the murder of an informant who alerted customs to the boat full of pot with Drew's machine gun on it. Okay, yeah, that is my machine gun, but a random gang of judges, prosecutors and informants on fucking Jetsky's shot me in the chair. So I'm on base. This means people are going to rant. And then shickets even darker.

The former head of the DEA that Drew Thornton used to work with all the time was a guy named Harold Wade Brown. Brown and Thornton were by all accounts fast friends. So much so that Brown was forced to resign as head of the DEA just six months before he intended to retire because he was himself investigated for thwarting the investigation into Thornton's involvement as pilot of the DC for drugs muggling place. I got friends in places because my daddy ran some horse races Wait, wait, so the punishment for helping a friend to commit felonies was

Early retired. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, the fact that property is surprised by this at all. Is the only thing the aliens will ever need to justify their invasion, okay? Oh, that's two votes. Let's just hear the Viltra mites out. You guys, okay? Can you hear them out? Yeah.

A herald Wade Brown died by suicide. And when his cabin was searched, investigators found Brown, the head of the DEA had a laboratory that he had been using to manufacture a poison that was often sold as cocaine, but which was not in fact cocaine. They didn't say what it was. It's the plot to the prayer of the roller boys just better. That's what's happening right now. When police then searched his townhouse, they found a host of other exotic poisons, tear

gas, explosives, and other just volatile shit that the head of the DEA definitely was not supposed to have in his townhouse. Do we vet these people at all? I'm They are exotic poisons the ones with the little umbrellas in them. What's that? Yes, I don't know. I was the man who swore through the marish, you know, cherry to put it in your face. I was the one who thought I was pecking the vegetable. Make sure. Mortenders hate it when you order that shit. OK, well, I want the sword heat. If you just give me the sword, I'll order beer.

Just get fucking poison meat like an old person. I'll have a scotch in a tiny sword. Come around, man. All right. Done. It's clear that both Brown and Thornton became drug smugglers while they were working together. Harold, as the head of the DEA, and Drew as a local narcotics agent,

a friend of both Brown and Thornton said of them, quote, they were cowboys. They shared the same mentality, the same paranoia. They weren't in it for the money alone. Yeah, the benefit plan for terrorist drug smugglers is awesome. Oh, gentle. When Thornton's ex-wife asked Drew how he was able to square the ethics of being a violent, murderous drug smuggler with also being a narcotics officer, we get this gem quote, don't reply to your remembers that he meditated regularly

at which time he entered a world beyond good and evil. He don't know he was of a hero consciousness. That at another time in history, he would have been a gangus con, a ninja or a samurai, a valorous paragon. The fuck on it? She's unquoted. Goddamn it. She's doing the jerk off motion that whole time.

You hear that Drew? Did you hear it? Did you hear it right now? Do you hear that? That's the sound of one hand fapping right now. That's the sound. For all the serious crimes and implications, however, nothing would really stick to Drew. Sherry lost his law license.

She never used it. He went away for six months, but really nothing all that bad had happened to him. And that would change with a loud. When in 1985, Andrew Thornton, the second fell from the sky and died on impact with the driveway of some guy's house after falling from you guessed it. A deceitful. I did not guess it. But he couldn't he couldn't outconfidence the impeccable ground.

Tom, is that what happened? Couldn't out confidence. No, but okay, to be fair, you can't know something in your mind when it's on the other side of the cul-de-sac, okay? I don't think you went far enough beyond good and evil. There's a little still some physics where he was in the prime. The next exit is asphalt and he just... So Thord was still running drugs at a DC4 this time moving cocaine rather than marijuana.

Because of the circumstances, many of the final details remain somewhat unclear, but it appears that while flying, Drew ran into some problems with the plane. Not too worried as he was if you'll recall a former pair of trooper and a man ready for action at a moments notice. The Drew strapped a duffel bag loaded with 77 pounds of cocaine to himself and he ready his parachute. He then set the autopilot of the DC for to point it out toward the Atlantic and it jumped. Did he have the cocaine like a baby Bjorn because that image is pretty adorable. I feel like that went through a bunch of iterations. He was like, I could do 10 pounds of cocaine. 11 is fine. 77.

Now Thorne was again by all accounts. He was an excellent and daring pilot and an even better parachutist. He checked and rechecked all of his gear. He was skilled and experienced at jumps from many altitudes on her harsh conditions and he regularly practiced jumps where he pulled low, meaning deploying the shoot at less than 2,000 feet from the ground. But something went crazily wrong. No, no, okay, to be clear, something going crazily wrong as a prerequisite to all the shit you just said. Okay, it's regularly do is polo a hobby that could be summarized as playing chicken with the ground.

Something's wrong with crazily fucking wrong. And best, something went crazily wrong, girl. That's totally fair. So when he smash landed on the driveway, his main shoot hadn't deployed at all and his reserve shoot had tangled. It's just like imagine this scene. Yeah, it's so fun. You hear a thump outside and then you run to check it out and there's just a dead guy

laying in your driveway, wearing a bulletproof vest, special night vision goggles, a browning 9 millimeter automatic pistol, a 22 caliber pistol, several clips of ammunition. The guys hit it out in all kinds of survival gear. He's carrying a stiletto knife, $4,500 in cash. He has six gold Kruger, ages, food rations, vitamins, a compass, an altimeter, identification papers, and two different names, a membership card to the Miami-Jockey Club, a key to an airplane, and Gucci loafers.

And now you're gonna be late for work. Yes. Okay, if this happens to me, I'm like, oh, I'm magical, and my wishes get granted. Which is amazing. Or I'm sitting there going like- We're delivery method, but okay. At least he's an asshole though, right?

I mean, it's definitely an asshole. I'm ripping off those goggles, Charlie Kurt. Okay, not the full wish. Most of the wish. Pretty close. Pretty close. Oh, if you notice I didn't mention the cocaine again, that's because I definitely would not have found the cocaine.

Probably would have. I love the seats of the cocaine. This is a have found the cocaine. Probably would have. I love the 16th of my life. This is like cocaine on the guy. Hey, honey, your Amazon stuff is here, I think. We'll circle back to that. I have to go tell my boss any lie, I guess, that would make more sense from the truth right now. The plane that Drew Thornton had set to autopilot,

it didn't make it to the Atlantic. Instead of Crash landed about 60 miles from where Drew himself crash landed. That plane had one last gift to give to the story. More cocaine. Yep. And evidently, bears have no sense of taste at all because after the crash, a bear happened upon the crash site and ate all the cocaine. What? Just so much cocaine. I'd say he has pretty bad taste. It tastes terrible.

The bear ate so much cocaine that it died. It died as much as you can die of every possible dying thing that cocaine could make you die from. Because that bear, according to the autopsy, had filled its entire bear belly to the brim with cocaine. It ate 15 million dollars with the cocaine and then it basically exploded. Well, bears full of coke was a thing in 1985 though. You got it, you got it. Oh, it's like Cecil's entire life was built in towards that. Yeah,

series finale of citation needed everybody. We did it. But this story is the gift that keeps on giving because after the bear autopsy, someone decided it was ashamed to waste a perfectly good cocaine bear. So they had the bear stuffed. This time with cotton rather than more cocaine, we'd have been redundant. And the bear was briefly on display at a Tennessee park. The bear was moved to storage when wildfires threaten the park and the bear was stolen and pawn.

Hilariously, very likely for money for drugs. That's why you're dealing with pawn things. Cocaine bear ended up in the home then of country music star, Whale and Jennings, who bought it from the pawn shop because I guess country music legends go to pawn shop and buy stuff there. Yeah. I mean, I want this, but question are bears usually posed trying to convince their friends

to open up a buffalo wild wings franchise with them. That's a weird pose. Guess it's a cocaine. So cocaine bear was then sold to a Vegas hustler, whatever the fuck that means. And was again later resold, residing for a time in a medicine shop in Reno until some local Kentucky enthusiasts. That's a thing from an organization with the dubious name of Kentucky for Kentucky. They are known by the way for their failed attempt in 2011 to change the Kentucky state motto to Kentucky kicks ass. Like they rejected because it was not.

Yeah, right. They tracked down cocaine bear and brought the brew and home again. Today, right now, the bear is in Lexington, Kentucky, the city that started the whole story at the Kentucky fun mall where he has been redubbed Pablo Esco. Pablo Esco is the greatest. Yeah, I love it. The greatest. That's a good.

Someone along the line had that. So they were like, guys, guys, so good. I just want to point out that Tom took until the last three paragraphs of his essay to get to I think that is a record. I mean, Noah, you normally, but I think that's what it is, Tom, if you had to summarize, are you learning one sentence, what would it be? Not everyone is made for a life of adventure, Cecil. Most of us couldn't go. Oh, okay.

All right. Are you ready for the quiz? The answer is I'm supposed to say yes now. You are supposed to say yes. Yes. All right, Tom. What was the name of Drew's favorite horse? A, minsec,

griteria. It just doesn't work at all. Go to the next. Fail. No trigger. What go to the next day fail no trigger. Yeah, all right. I like that. Okay, that's good. Huh? See a Quiddell Sebastian.

Oh, Parks and Rec reference. Parks and Rec, that's my heart. The heart. Eli Donkey, not a heart. D is a miniature horse. Man, no war on drugs. Okay. All right. That was also good. Well, I, war on drugs. Okay. All right.

That was all so good. Well, I gotta go with safety. That's, that's, that's, that's low subashem. It's low subashem. Was it a pony? I thought it was a dunk. Is it miniature horse? It's a miniature horse.

It was a miniature horse. It's a miniature horse. That's the, I do like that. I like that. Yeah. I like it. All right. I love how Heath had to make absolutely sure that the,

that the, before he's the horses, they have to be fucking hard. It's a rule. It's a mule. Fuck you. That's not funny. So was it you know, no, you didn't laugh in vain. You have to take it back. He breaks into Cecil's

Yeah, you can feel good. All right, you got to take it back. Keith breaks into Cecil's half. And I think I'll laugh it up on inaccurate parts of it. All right. I have a good question for you here Tom. Which fictional bear does the most cocaine? Hey, fun shine from the Care Bears. These aren't going to be punks.

This is just a fact I just got to be. Yeah. Yogi. See Teddy Ruckspin or D Po from Kung Fu Panda. Okay. All right. Clearly Po from Kung Fu Panda, that's not cocaine. He's smoking pot.

That's the munchies all day. Well done. Well done. I tried to touch. Teddy Ruckspin, that's, that's fucking LSD. I mean, that fucking guy is psychedelic as fuck. You can't trust that guy. It's a toss up between Yogi, but Yogi's too hungry. Yogi's too hungry. It's got to be fun shine. Oh, nailed it, man. Processed elimination.

Oh, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, I was feeling good about myself took that away took that a little bit away from it. Poets played by Jack Black. I'm just saying there's nothing to worry about. You ever hear Teddy Ruck spin when the tape gets caught and starts speeding up? Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Top back, Massey. One more for you. Why did Pablo Escobar avoid jail time? All right. Hey, we got rid of mandatory minimum. That's it.

Yeah. Yeah. He posted bearer, but it's a fixed bearer. See, evidence was fuzzies. Oh, I don't want to go over. D,

Koala, Fied, and you'll be born. That's the best one. Cool. It's gotta be qualified immunity. It's gotta be.

That's so good. That is correct. It was D. Yes. Oh, Elyne wins this week. I don't know why. I didn't know why he says. I don't know how this works anymore.

I want Keith to do an essay. All right. Well, for Tom, Noah, Elyne, Heath. I want Heath to do an essay. All right. Well, for Tom, Noah, Eli, and Heath, I'm Cecil, thank you and you're paying out for today, but we'll be back next week. And by then, Heath will be an expert on something else. To me now, and then, Chuck Tom and I add on cognitive distance, and Eli, Noah, and Heath on Skaithing Atheist, Skeptocrat, D&D,

Minus, and God off the movies. And if you'd like to stop the travesty of hours of unpaid work, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five star view everywhere you can. But mostly go to Patreon, give us money. Because that's more important because we spend a lot of time on the show. And you should probably pay us for our time.

I mean, like that's just fun. That's just not even close. Time money and transactions and things work. I mean, you should just go there. But if you can't maybe go read us, but pay trans better. Anyway, and if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect to us on social media

or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. And then I told her, I'm gonna take out all but one bullet from my gun. Do you feel like a man enough to take you out on a date now? I could power a fucking submarine with how much I hate you. Ha ha, yeah, that's what she said, yeah!