Last Podcast On The Left - Relaxed Fit: Lead Masks Case / Zanesville Zoo

Episode Date: April 4, 2020

This week, we got a relaxed fit ep that delves into the mysterious Brazilian lead masks case, the ferocious Zanesville Zoo animal escape, and MORE.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? You know, I tell you what, quarantine's going great. Family loves me. You look great. When he loves me, Natalie loves me, but for some reason Natalie didn't appreciate because there are times when, you know, during quarantine, you just like forget, you know, just forget. Sometimes I forget I'm not alone. I mean, so I guess that didn't really appreciate that I woke her up this morning because I went to open the refrigerator to have my old man's cereal because I need fiber to get my shit going, right? Right. I have about 50 mgs of fiber of 50 g's, 50 kls of fiber in my body just so I can shit. Yeah.

I'm not sure how many, how much that is, but I opened up and we didn't have any milk and I just, I started going into milk is gone. Milk has gone way. Oh. Milk is gone. Wow. Fat man soul. Milk has gone way. Welcome to the last podcast on the left everyone. I am Ben Kissel staring at the beautiful face of Marcus Parks. Hello. And of course.

My cereal ain't gone. The milk is gone. Fat boy soul. Henry Zabrowski with us as well. We're all getting through this quarantine together. Um, what, so you did not realize that the milk was gone the night before? I thought that you were going to be one of those guys who realized you shake the milk carton. You're like, we got about three inches of milk left. We got to go to the store. We got to re-up this milk because if I go in, I open up this fridge.

This is how families get killed. It's, I am the one who is most dependent upon milk in the home. Natalie is more into whatever is fake milk that she drinks. She drinks all those synth milks. Like the oat milk, almond milk perhaps. I love almond milk, big fan. Me, I like it from a breast. Well, now then you would have to impregnate Natalie and theoretically be stealing the food from your child. No, I'm not saying, I'm saying, an udder is a breast.

Right, an udder is a breast. A fucking goat has breasts. A dog has breasts if you think about it. I don't know. I don't think, and Marcus can answer this question, he's the ranch mind here. I don't think an udder is a breast. You don't refer to them as breasts. It would be a breast, right?

You usually call them bags. Yeah, it's a bag. Yeah, I think, yeah. I call them bags all the time. Yeah, cow's got bag rot. We're gonna have to fucking take care of that cow. Cow's got real bad bag rot. We gotta take that cow back to the fucking pen and then we gotta try to drain that bag and if we don't drain the bag, that cow is fucked.

I tell you what, can you do a mastectomy on a cow for pre-bag rot? Can you wallow out the bags? That's just gonna cost a lot of money and ain't gonna be worth it. But then you could slap a couple of nice silicone bags. Yeah, but then you can't have the milk. I mean, Jennifer McCarthy, Jennifer McCarthy, by the way, to me, I've always respected her. Jennifer McCarthy, she can't breastfeed, she talked about it because she got big fekuhas. Yep, she does.

So the thing is, can a cow survive if you get rid of the bag? No. It would die. Quite possibly. But so we don't have any sort of, like, mangle type farmers that are seeing whether or not this is possible or not, or if you do just put real ass fucking cool sweet supple silicone tits on there and then pre- like, you can load them up with milk so that they can just kind of feel like they're doing something. They can feel like they're contributing to the farm.

I'm just going off of a conversation I had with my father two weeks ago and I did not have as inquisitive of a mind as the two of you to ask so many follow-up questions. Wait a second, you had a conversation similar to this with your father? That's exactly, I mean, the conversation about the bag rot, yeah. You had a couple of cows got bag rot. Yep. And to take care of it. So I'm just, as an audience member, you open up your phone, you got the Spotify app, push a play and you're like, Wonder what the boys are thinking today?

Wonder what this great illuminating conversation is going to be? There's a bag rot. Talking about bag rot. I'm talking about what those bags need is fluoride. That's the big, that's the big thing. That's why in Europe, their teeth are worse than here because in America, we put the fluoride and everything. It's also keeps us from being psychic. That's what they say.

Calcifying that third eye. Well, speaking of animals, Marcus does have, and we'll get to that here in a second. Marcus has an amazing story about tigers because tigers are all the rage these days. Even though we were talking about Joe Exotic way back in September of 2018, I am very proud of our audience because we get to be cocky. You get to be cocky. You've already been, you've already slapped yourself on the back. Give it to you. You already did it.

You already did it on last week's side stories. We congratulated ourselves for being hipsters for douchebags. It's not, you know, we can't always celebrate it. It's just nice that our audience has, they can do the ultimate nerd thing, which is like, You're just finding out about that now. It's cool that we can cultivate snarky motherfuckers. Can I say, before I jump into the story I wanted to cover today. So I'm trying to use video games to solve, you know, I mean, you don't distract yourself during the quarantine.

You know, I mean, like I think a lot of people are. Why is every single video game about a superflu? You know, it's one of those interesting things. Days Gone is Division 2 is, I'm also playing a new game called, and I say it wrong and it is what it is. I'm from Wisconsin, a Plagg's Tale. Innocence. It's called a Plagg's Tale. Oh man, a Plagg's Tale sounds like a fucking cute version, a cute retelling of the bubonic plague from Pixar.

So I don't know where this Wisconsin things comes from because I've never heard a single other person on Earth say Plagg, Baggle, Vagg. I've heard Baggle. I've heard Baggle. Plagg, I've never heard Plagg is specifically being racist. First of all, Plagg is not a race. You know, I'm saying to Wisco, you're being racist against your own people in the Midwest. Like how my mom says, Mutsudel. Like, you know, like when she predicts a fate, it's a made up word.

They don't say it like that in Italy. But this game, you are a girl, which is very powerful. And you have your brother with you and you gotta run away from the rats. And it is very triggering. It is scary. I'm sitting in my apartment, truly getting scared as if I'm watching television news nonstop. But it's something to do, isn't it? And that is why, as I said before the show started, after this is all done, I'm burning all of my furniture on the sidewalk.

I will get detained. It will burn for six weeks. You will light that recliner on fire and it will burn and the homeless will come. It made me like, look, it's the eternal flame. Look, it will keep us warm all through this sweltering hot summer. Thank God for the permanent burning lazy boy. It's the tomb of the forgotten. It's the tomb of the forgotten lardass.

Yes, it will begin. It will be the beginning of a wonderful new religion amongst the homeless, my constituents. And I love them. I love them. I love the homeless as well. Again, bring it up. You know, you can actually problem call them home more. I keep doing the big, kissable, I've been installed that in my brain 12 years ago.

I brought it up last week. I brought it up the week before. And I'm just going to keep bringing it up. It's a classic kissable bit. I want to talk about this story that takes place in Brazil. This is from back in the day. This is one of those evergreen stories that has floated our way many times, but there's not a lot of resources on it. So I figured this may be a fun time to dip our toe into the discussion on it.

It is very similar to an event that was, I believe, I don't know how to pronounce it. I don't think that we have ever once in the history of our podcast ever once correctly pronounced it. The diolatov, diolatov pass incident. I think it's deal it. Die at love. I thought it was. Oh my God. Die at love.

We're fucked. But this is the lead mass. It's die at love. Die at love pass. Die at love. That's short. That's good. At least the accent helps.

What we're covering is the lead mass case. The lead mass case, this is just from the Wikipedia to start, was it is a series of events that led to the death of two Brazilian electronic technicians, essentially TV repairmen, Manuel Pereira de Cruz and Miguel Jose Viana. They were last seen by their family on August 17, 1966. Their bodies were discovered August 20, 1966. Now, the reason why this is interesting is because, number one, they were found by a kid flying a kite. They apparently, it was a kid who was flying a kite near this place called the Moro de Vintem. Or Vintem.

I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Moro do. Vintem. This is Brazilian. Vintem Hill. Nailed it. It's a mountain in Brazil. I'm very good with Portuguese.

Of course. So this kid was flying a kite going. See, see, it's a bird. It's a bird that I have all these things. I don't know what kids do. I don't know if they're fooled by kites in Brazil. Maybe. And they saw, first sighting of these two men walking up this hill on August 17.

And she saw them sitting on a hill, sitting, staring at the sky, right? Okay. A couple days later, flying a kite again. Kids are real bored in Brazil. Flying a kite started smelling a smell. Saw what he thought was two men asleep up on this hill. Uh-huh. They go up there.

They call the policia. The policia go. They find two men in full suits, in full suits, wearing transparent raincoats. They have a couple bottles of water. This is 1966, so you had to return the bottles of water back in the day. So they're like glass bottles. That was actually a much better thing to do than what we do now, which is just throw them in the ocean.

You're right, Kissel. Yep. Very brave. No problem. You're right. You're really right. As long as they get washed right afterwards. As long as they don't just refill them and hand them back to some other stranger.

Back and getting it. No, I make sure it's clean. My spit kills most diseases because it has all of them. So the bodies were found completely. They were still. They had a couple of wet towels with them, and most notably why it's called the lead mass case, is they were found with two chunks of lead cut out like sunglasses. Now, reports differ as to whether or not they were found on their faces or next to their

bodies. I don't know what happened, but what was found was this notebook. Hey, there was a there was no signs of trauma or any evidence of struggle. They found this notebook, which said a very cryptic cryptic set of instructions 1630 be at the specified location 1830 in just capsules after the effect protect metals await signal mask. Right. Don't know what's going on.

Weird. They identified it. We don't know what the hell this is all about. They try to do a toxicology report, but apparently because there's no signs of signs of death. There was no overt signs of why they were if they were murdered or if they said that they committed suicide, but they were they were totally intact. There was no like bullet in their brain or anything like that. They were.

They were fine. They pulled their guts out of them, but apparently the Brazilian doctors that were going to do the toxicology report were too busy to do them. What do you mean? That's their whole job. They were busy. Kissle. How many people did they have to do toxicology reports for?

It's like not texting back during the quarantine. That's the saddest thing that's very sad if someone doesn't text back. But yes, the guts were taken out to be examined and then left to rot. So they couldn't do it. So now there's been some uncorking of this. We could weird actually did a good coverage of it. Our friends over the New Kirks that did the Hellier series, they had a fun little story on it.

And of course you can listen to our interview with the New Kirks on our Patreon. We've done two interviews with them as a matter of fact, and they are wonderful. So if you have get, if you get a chance to give to our Patreon, thank you so much. If you have, you can listen to the interviews and they are wonderful people. Thank you for the plug. No problem. We have now we, I saw two separate articles written by Charles Bowen, who's an old school psychic head.

In fact, they thanks to, I don't normally say this, but thanks to Reddit, I found some good sources. And this was written by a guy that was, he wrote in this thing, it was from a magazine called Flying Saucer Review back in the day. So now what basically happened here is that these two bodies, when they were found, a report came out of a UFO being seen above where they were positioned. No one really knows exactly what happened here, right? There was a reports given by Senhora Gracinda de Azosa.

She was driving along near the road near the hill when she saw an oval shaped fiery object alternatively hovering and then plunging and soaring vertically over one spot on the slope where they said, where it was said, they later found these two, these two boys, men. Now, Henry, your experience, because you do a great breakdown in the live show, which I believe people can get very, very soon, our 2019 live show. We filmed it in New Orleans. It was amazing, but you talk extensively about the movement of UFOs and how they can move sort of weird, strange and how it's like, it doesn't,

I know that we were weird and you guys made me say it like that. But does that make sense the way that this woman described the movement of this UFO to you? Sure. Yep. I think so. The UFOs move very strangely and a lot of times they move according to what we do. The idea of a nuts and bolts UFO is real and what they oftentimes people say when they

see them is that the objects act like they know they are being watched and oftentimes UFOs flying around or the term is used quite often is presentation, like they saw essentially a presentation of this thing moving up and down and they don't know what to do. Now, several authors of people talking about this storyline said, well, hey, a lot of times when weird shit happens, like wiggity crime, which we've seen before, people will then come out and also say they saw UFOs during the time period or saw cryptids, saw ghosts, all combined. We talked about the Mothman stories, we saw that with the Men in Black stories.

A lot of times these things are very heavily layered and we don't know why. I think one thing that was interesting is that they had a buddy, a guy named Elcio Gomez, who was investigated several times for, I guess, driving them around because they were last seen basically, they were seen at a restaurant where they bought the two, they told their family they were going to leave for the day at 9 a.m. Herman and Buddy, they were going on a secret mission, is what they told to their own families. Well, you can't say you're going on a secret mission that it's no longer a secret mission. You have to say you're going to Arby's and then go on a secret mission.

It means Dad's having sex with his friend Bill. All right, that's what it really means. Oh my goodness. Honestly, if Brokeback Mountain had UFOs, I would come. I would come. It would be incredible. So these two men who were highly regarded in that town, they left on a 9 a.m. on a secret mission.

They took with them a sum of money estimated to be around 3 million cruisarios, which at the time, this article was written in the 1960s, they said it was the equivalent of about 485 sterling. So I'm confused. Don't confuse me. So you just confused me more. What is it in dollars? I don't know.

All right? I don't know. I'm going to guess in today's money, 1400 bucks. Wow. It could be as little as $10. I have no idea. We really have no clue. But I'm going to say 1400 dollars.

Okay, let's go 1400 bucks. The words of Marcus, 1400 bucks. But they found them, they know that they bought the raincoats and the bottled waters on the same day. Okay. They don't know what else. But a friend, a friend of theirs, this Ezio Gomez, was like, they're kind of, they end up calling your assistant.

And they said, apparently these two men were part of, with another guy, a part of something called a spiritual science group, where they were highly interested in the combination of esoteric spiritualism mixed with science at the same time. Okay. And reportedly, Ezio Gomez and these two men had built a device a couple of months before this happened that was used in an attempt to contact Mars and entities on Mars that exploded in his backyard. This is like, it's like the Burbs, but in 1960s Brazil, this is so much fun.

So they said they were part of this spiritual science group. So they apparently, they found literature inside of Manuel's home that talked about using a combination of psychedelics slash some form of meditation slash the combination of knowing that they were about to meet illuminated beings. They found the scraps of the lead sheets in Manuel's home as well. So they, they know that they cut them and they had them for some reason. So this all, this all came until, and no, so no leads. Oh no.

It didn't happen. They didn't do the toxicology report. We have no clue if they took pills or not. We don't know why they died. But there was another story in 1962, apparently before this is four years before of another TV technician by the name of Hermes that was also found guilty, who was found dead on the top of Moro de Crucerio near Nevis and his corpse also had a lead mask lying on top of it.

We don't know. Speculation continued. The outbound, this comes from the article, this comes from the article, the mystery of the Moro de Ventem by Charles Bowen. This is from the 1960s. Speculation continued. The outbound trend, when the falconess Al Paolo of August 31st published an article in which a professor of yoga suggested that the men may have been trying to carry out a telepathic

experiment with a high frequency thought waves. He explained that in experiments of this kind, alkaloids such as LSE 25 or mescaline are taken to step up mental alertness and the frequency of the brain. And so at the time, a lot of people were saying, oh, they might have died from, will they postulate it, that they died from an overdose of psychedelics, which I've never heard. No. But did you just say the guy was a professor of yoga?

Yep. But what is that? What is that? That's a man who went to college and got a master's degree in yoga. I am disappointed for his father. Have you ever met Dr. Winston Farty? He's a doctor of yoga. Dr. Farty is an incredible resource in Los Angeles.

I just didn't realize you could be a professor of yoga, but hey. I don't think you can. No. Good to know. Good to know. I don't know. I think you can claim to be a professor of yoga. I guess you can claim to be a professor of anything.

I'm a professor of hot pockets. I am just happy you're eating, although I don't know why you've regressed, but that's okay. I'm a professor of roasted broccoli and pelvic thrust. Very nice. So four years before these two people were found dead, we have another person who was dead, all with the lead masks. Have these been found at all again?

Was there any group that was like, we're the lead mask people. That's where they got them. The lead mask people were the group. It was these guys and they died doing some form of either experiment. They must have ingested something that they thought would help them because he had a lot of weird like, we're talking like old school occult books, not like now where you can go on Amazon and write like, how do I see ghosts with my glasses? Like you can't do that then.

So they had all of these old school books. So God knows what they all fucking mixed up to take in these little capsules. I mean, I could see them. Maybe their souls went into the UFO craft. Maybe they're hanging out with the members of Heaven's Gate, however, they can always make fun of the members of Heaven's Gate because they didn't lose their winkies and they could be like, turns out y'all, you didn't need to cut those winkies off because we're in the same places you are and we got full bones, full bones.

If I may give a theory myself. Oh please. Yes. These guys are doing old school occultism, then that means they're probably doing old school alchemy, right? Something like that. I'm thinking that the first guy who died, I'm thinking all of these guys were probably a part of some sort of group.

The first guy who died of course made a little pill full of some sort of alchemical concoction. He died and the other two guys, he poisoned himself and the other two guys thought, you know what, we get this shit figured out. Right. We know how to do this. We know he was a fucking idiot. He's a fucking moron. I know how to do it.

What we gotta do is get wet because that's really weird is that they had the raincoats on over their suits because it was raining, but they had wet towels with them that doesn't make any sense. Well maybe the towels were dry. The towels were probably dry and then it rained on them. Ooh, kiss on them. Are you a part of the Scotland yard? I am a professor of yoga and dry towels.

You can find those pills. Because your towels have never seen a hint of moisture. The only thing that sees moisture is your fucking horrible chair and poor puffin. First of all, I am very happy to inspire a challenge. I saw it on Instagram, the Ben Kissel challenge where you take a shower and you dry off with your own clothes as you put them on. And multiple people have taken and participated in this challenge during the quarantine because they're having fun and they said it's surprisingly, it's a surprisingly good time.

A surprisingly good time. I got multiple messages being like, you know what, it's not that bad because you know, it's kind of nice. And so I want to thank them for participating. They said it's kind of nice. It's kind of nice. It's not that bad. Also, this is how you're living your life.

It's kind of nice. It's kind of nice. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. But I do want to say thank you. It sounds like the way people describe a mammogram. I do want to say thank you for all of the towels that have been sent to the studio. I am good on towels.

I now have about 30 of them. So it is all good. Thank you for your support and I've been drying off with a very nice towel that somebody sent me. It's almost two nights. I want to sleep with it. Don't send any more towels. No more towels.

We got like nine towels on the same day before all this shit popped off. The last thing we got from the fucking post office was six boxes of towels. But the fun thing is they come in big boxes so you're like, what's it going to be? Is it going to be like cool, like Ouija board or something? It's like, it's towels. Towels. Yeah. No, it's all the worst Christmas presents in the world.

But it was very sweet. Thank you for all the wonderful towels. So no, this is what I'll start. So I am not really sure. I mean, that's as far as I go in terms of research, there is very little other research. I write a bunch of these things. There's a lot of people that don't know whether or not the UFO is actually connected to what they do.

It seems that it was more that it was its homegrown alchemy might be the real murderer here. But I don't know. Were they blinded to death by a fucking Anachian angel mind through the veil? Did they see through the veil? Huh? Hey, Henry is just asking questions. Yeah.

Just asking questions. And that's all you can do. Also, if you want to get those pills, you can go to info wars slash merch. And I'm sure those pills are right there. Get your tactical bath. Just have a nice time with it. Absolutely. I know what's going on.

I'm an expert. I'm an expert for a fact. If I ever see an angel fucking wear sunglasses and shoot it in the head. Well, evidently, Marcus was telling me folks in Texas with the coronavirus, they are on the front lines and they are heavily armed and I hope they find a way to shoot that damn thing. Yep. Lubbock, Texas.

That's what my buddy Robert told me is like, yep, everyone in Lubbock is preparing to shoot the coronavirus to death. They could. They could. If they could, that's where the guns, that's what they're here for. Absolutely. That's why we don't need, that's what I would say, repeal all gun control. We need to start killing more viruses like this.

Well, you know what, Henry, thankfully, we've already done that. Oh, wow. Congrats, everybody. Guys, Robert is the owner of Starbucks and Comics out there in Lubbock, so once everything calms down again, please go out and support your local comic book store, specifically Starbucks and Comics in Lubbock, Texas. Absolutely. I wish I had more friends here willing to do more electronic experiments with me.

Like electronic music? No, like trying to like use technology to see other beings and stuff. You want me to go hang out with you, put some wires up to your car battery, attach them to your testicles and start the car? No, this is an al-Qaeda. I'm trying to see ghosts, Kissel, but not the old fashioned way. Oh, you don't want to play Guantanamo Bay with me? You don't want to play Guantanamo Bay with one of your best friends?

Oh, man, that'd be kind of cute, and if we could go get in the pyramid and I could wear that weird hood and we could listen to a lot of slipknot. It sounds fun if it wasn't torture. No, for them it wasn't fun, but for us it would be fun because we'd be volunteering. Yeah, that's true. So speaking of good times, Joe Exotic is not having fun right now. Joe Exotic has coronavirus. Potentially coronavirus.

I am just so sick of everything being so on the nose. I'm so sick of everything just being so like it was put together by a 33-year-old development officer at a comedy channel that has never seen a live show. Joe Exotic, he has been transferred to the hospital. He does not have coronavirus as we know it. He did transfer from a jail where people got tested positive for coronavirus. Well, he went from coronavirus isolation to the hospital. So really, that's where you want to be.

They treat you mildly like a human. Yeah. It is much better than jail. I don't know, Kissel. I don't know. I think going to the jail hospital is better, but I don't know if it's good to be sick in jail. No, I know that.

I think it's really scary. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's better to be in the hospital place where they kind of take care of you a little bit and maybe they fluff you or something. I don't know. I don't think they do. I don't think they do. Joe was getting bullied in jail and now he's hanging around with the nurses and having

fun. He wasn't having a good time in jail. He was getting bullied. I think they might have been given him a hard time in jail. I think so too, because his personality wasn't necessarily perfect for jail lifestyle. You can't be a star in jail because you're really not looking for attention. No, absolutely not. But Marcus, you have some more information on really what should have been more focused

on my only complaint, which I thought was a very great docu-series. They could have done one episode on the Tigers. I could have gone for one, but then again, I guarantee you people would have complained and be like, why is it so long? So I understand they cut it. But the last one was more about the Tigers, the last one got a little bit more, but they saved it for the very end being like, oh, were you having fun listening to all these maniacs talk?

Well, they killed a lot of Tigers. I know. I know. They did the same thing. I don't know what's going on with docu-series right now, but it was the same thing with Don't Fuck With Cats. Yes. The last 10 minutes were like, you shouldn't have watched this.

Are you online right now? Are you the reason this man died? I'm like, leave me alone. No. I'm being a good consumer. I'm just trying to watch the TV because the other channels are yelling at me. The other one's got a man in a mask saying, I'm going to die, and this one makes me feel normal.

I don't know why docu-series are choosing to scold us by watching them, but whatever. I think by the end, by the day. Or is the real monster you? No. Yes, but you motherfucker. I knew that though. I knew that when I woke up. I'm sorry for everything.

I know I start off as a monster. So considering all the hubbub surrounding Tiger King and all the ensuing interest in Mr. Joe Exotic, I figured we'd cover one of the deadly incidents briefly mentioned in the first episode of that series. Oh my god, this story is so freaking nuts. In 2011, a man named Terry Thompson opened the gates on his private zoo and let loose 50 dangerous exotic animals outside of Zanesville, Ohio, then shot himself in the head immediately afterward.

This is one of those stories when it was breaking live. Did you guys remember watching this live? Yeah, absolutely. It was, if you did put the soundtrack to Benny Hill, it would have been kind of funny seeing all these fat sheriff deputies trying to wrangle a zebra. There were no zebras here. No, I know. This is all fucking like carnivorous mammals, but it was amazing for them.

It was very hard to catch these animals. So he tried to commit suicide because of financial reasons like he committed suicide because it or was it health? Does anybody know? Well, the story is glossed over in Tiger King, but you know, of course, the question is, why would this man do such a thing? Why would he let 50 deadly animals go then immediately shoot himself in the fucking head? Because he's a super lazy Batman villain.

Well, I got my answer in a GQ article written by Chris Heath in 2012 and that article will be our main source for today. So in order to find out just what led to this man releasing 50 wild animals just prior to a suicide, let's get into the story of Terry Thompson. Yay. This is a fantastic tale. I mean, it's very sad, but it's a really good fucking story. And it really gives you an insight into some of these exotic pet owners that are still,

of course, out there today. And that's why Joe Exotic Tiger King captured America's attention because these people are fucking fascinating. Yeah. And Terry Thompson is not a guy who owned a zoo that was open to the public. This was one of those private collectors that they talk about that is just he just got this shit because he wanted this shit. Do you just have a bunch of private like a bunch of private store of tigers like wine

like you wait till it matures and then you can't one at a time like what do you why do you need more than one tiger? Well, let's fucking get into it, man. Terry Thompson was a Vietnam veteran who had never quite gotten over what he'd experienced in the war. He'd been a door gunner for a Huey helicopter, widely known to be amongst the most dangerous and brutal assignments in all of Vietnam. Is that like being a butler?

Of death. So he would just mow people down. He was in the worst of it. This guy. I mean, his job was to soften up landing zones for medical evacuations, meaning he pumped countless bullets into the fields of Vietnam, mowing down enemy combatants so the helicopter could land. Yeah.

He's probably got a hard time with fireworks and all that stuff with firecrackers is probably a rough time for him. July 4th is not a good weekend for him. How many times have I said this? I love my country, but I hate fireworks. It's defying to not like fireworks. Stop calling me anti-American. I'm the fireworks now.

My grandmother used to, when we would watch fireworks growing up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, every time she would hear a bang, she would start, stand up and start running. The next bang, she would fall down to her knees. And then by the end of it, her pants would be around her ankles because they would always fall down as well. Well, that's a new ankle fall. That's a new pants falling story. Her pants would fall down all the time.

No one knows why, she never cared. Well, sometimes when Thompson was in the helicopter, his team was faced with so many injured men in the field that the medics would have to pry fingers off the helicopter's landing gear just so they could take off. Sometimes there were so many Viet Cong that Thompson ran out of bullets. Yikes. That's not good. Not good at all because I think they gave him a lot of bullets.

They gave him a lot of bullets. It was Vietnam. Yeah. But Vietnam was also where Terry Thompson's love of animals began. In the midst of the war, Terry Thompson befriended a little monkey. And taking care of that monkey was said to be the only thing that kept Terry sane. Oh, that's nice. I mean, it's also kind of insane to be just talking to a monkey all day and treating it

like it's a real person. I mean, I get it. You take it where you can get it. Tell me what, Mr. Gillikers, I bet you don't blame me for what I got to do for my country, right? You fucking talk back to me, Mr. Gillikers, I don't want to look just like you. Just try to bleed red, white, blue here. By accounts, Terry was a gregarious, pleasant boy before the war.

But after the war, Terry was a bit of a loner, always a little off. And it was suspected that he'd been exposed to the infamous chemical known as Agent Orange. My uncle was too. And he also came back the same exact way, attacked my mom and her sleep. It fucked people up. Is that a great story? Is that a fun story? Yeah.

We all used to be different people before the war. We all used to have different dreams. I wanted to be a professional at skipping rope, and now all I do is make nooses. Once he got back to America, Terry lived what you'd call the life of an eccentric for the next 40 years. He married a local girl named Marianne Sharp and opened a bike shop in Columbus, which eventually turned into a bike and gun shop. Okay.

Are we talking bicycle or? Bicycles. And a little bit of motorcycle work, but mostly bicycles and guns. How a bike shop becomes a gun shop is when you run out of horn material. Sometimes a whole county will run low on the squeaky things you need to do to make bike horns work. Yeah. But a gun is a really good way to make people pay attention that a bike is coming through.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Then in 1977, the exotic animal collection began. And Terry bought his wife a baby tiger cub for her birthday and named it Simba. Cute. Honestly, was that before Lion King? Long before. Yeah.

So he nailed that. Simba, I think it came, I think, I think Lion King was a book. I have no idea. I was Lion King a book first. I have no clue. I have no idea where the name Simba came from, but he did kind of, I mean, it was a tiger, not a lion, but he did, yeah, kind of, Lion King a book. It must be some other kind of name or something.

I don't know. I don't know either. Well, from there, he began buying baby bears and baby lions. And like a lot of these collectors, he started using those baby cubs to make money. Now Terry did not have a license to supply animals for photo shoots. You needed one of those from the USDA. But he got around that technicality by using a friend's accreditation. But he rubbed elbows with quite a few famous hoi-i-toides.

He supplied lion cubs to Heidi Klum for a fashion shoot. He appeared on The Rachel Ray Show as an animal handler, and he even provided animals for a photo shoot featuring former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. I was hoping it was Newt. He wanted Newts, but they're hard to wrangle. Yes, they are. It has got to be, anybody can just get a tiger. Yeah, yeah.

It's really not that hard. It's like real easy to get your hands on a bunch of tigers, huh? It does seem easier than I thought it would be. It's pretty easy. Okay. Yeah. But you know, the people who hired this guy, as far as they were concerned, this dude was legit.

He was not, but as far as they knew, he was. You know how you can make sure a guy is legit if you want to hire him for something? Don't ask about it, and don't look for any accreditation and just say he's legit to yourself and to the people spending money on it. It's almost like television producers don't really care about their job, and maybe they don't vet everyone that they have on the show. Sometimes you just got to get a tiger to set. You go.

Everybody can ask their funny little questions after we get our day, but right now, what I need is a tiger in that dentist's chair. I need a dentist or acting dentist who is not afraid of tigers to be willing to fake, give this tiger a root canal. I agree. It's got to get done. It's got to get done. Now, Thompson said that he never sold exotic animals, but another exotic animal owner named

Nancy Wilder said that she saw him sell a baby monkey outside of an auction for $3,500. And that was in addition to the tiger with ringworm that he sold at the auction. Did he say it had a ringworm? Was it a high school wrestler? How did it get ringworm? He said, yeah, this is a tiger, discounted because it has ringworm. Okay. So he gave it a discount.

He gave it a discount by auction, but he wasn't allowed to sell the baby monkey, but he sold the baby. Because apparently at these wild animal auctions, there's a little bit of a black market going on out in the parking lot where you can go out, like, yeah, you want a monkey? I can get you a monkey. Come on out to my car. I can get you a monkey, $3,500 for the monkey, $3,500. Great.

Want to enjoy your monkey. You want a monkey? They can type on a typewriter. I go, look, you want a monkey? I can shoot a gun. I got like five of those. You want one? I got one right here.

This is my brother. He's a monkey. Yep. I married him. My sister married him legally. California. It is over there. Just a bunch of dudes with massive raincoats on that look to me as if they're getting scratched

by monkeys on a regular basis until they open it up. That would be very scary to have that very wild ass. Just fucking loose monkeys just like hanging out because also it's not like, like, you know, if we don't sell our merch, last podcast, merch.com, and we don't sell our merch, yeah, it sits into a fucking, it sits in a pile. Sure. It's difficult because you got all this merch you got to sell, but that merch is fucking shit and everywhere.

Nope. And the nice human trafficking, human trafficking, yes, horrible crime, but also what a nightmare. Nightmare. And you know what I've said about our merch and I will always say this, our shirts can't get ringworm. It isn't that amazing. Isn't that nice? No, these exotic animal people are insane.

Like the extra, yeah, the GQ article quoted one woman and it was a direct quote where she said, I will suck dick to feed my tiger. I want to meet her. Well, good for her. It's that kind of passion that keeps the world moving. Yep. Now, not surprisingly, Thompson did not treat his animals well, mostly because Thompson eventually became an animal hoarder.

Difference between him and the cat people you see on the show hoarders though, is that Thompson was not hoarding like Tabbycats or puppies or anything like that. He was hoarding lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, baboons, like major animals. So what happens then? Yeah. When does it flip? When does an animal hoard become a Narnia army? In this guy's mind, obviously, they all loved animals, right?

Yeah, at one point. Well, that's it. Even when people said about Joe Exotic, at the beginning, it truly was about the animals and then at one point it flips. It became all about money. With Joe Exotic, it became all about money and his own personal bullshit because you really, you saw that he stopped giving a fuck about the cats halfway through that documentary. Once he was like holding those two cubs and he's like, there's $5,000 right here and it's

like, that's not a way to look at an animal, like a living animal. Carol Baskin put him against a wall. He had to do what he had to do to survive. I am so jade apologist. I know, you really are. It's weird. He's a tech. You know Joe Exotic is like a truly awful narcissistic asshole, right?

Yes. I do. And that's why it's a problem that we have such an apologist because I even thought it was funny, even though if I was, he's related to his ex-husband who shot himself in the head, I understand that that funeral was very inappropriate. It's highly inappropriate. He made the funeral all about him. He talked about his balls, nugget from him, golden nuggets, and then I laughed and I knew

it was wrong to laugh. Yeah, I mean it's objectively funny. If it wasn't real. And I saw it somewhere. Yes, it's funny because it's not our family, but also at the same time, I've just, you know, sometimes it's hard to not laugh hard at a funeral because it's just so loaded. You gotta let it out. Well, back to Thompson, this might give you a little bit of insight into when shit flipped

for him. Okay. In 2005, he was charged with animal cruelty after three cows in a buffalo died of starvation on property belonging to his parents. And a neighbor said that he was forced to kill Rottweiler's belonging to Thompson after those dogs ran loose and killed some of the neighbor's calves. And all the while, Thompson, he's saying like, I'm gonna open a zoo. I'm gonna call it Tea's Wild Kingdom.

Yeah, is it like a cute romantic comedy? This is what that looks like in real life. Yeah. Yes. But from what friends say with Thompson, it was about having things that nobody else had. I got a tiger. You don't got a tiger.

I got a lion. You don't got a lion. Right. That was a big part of the appeal. It makes less sense. When a friend asked him how many animals was too many and just why he needed to get more and more and more animals, I mean this is an answer. It may not tell you anything and it may tell you everything.

Terry said, quote, because I can. It's me with my fucking shoes. He's viewing these fucking tigers like they're Jordans. Yeah. Right. It's just he didn't, did he at any point have food? Yeah. Like did he understand how much he has to provide for them?

He had a caretaker. You know, he did the same thing that Joe Exotic did. They would, you know, they would troll the highways looking for a roadkill. You know, they would get surplus meat. They do that same type of shit, you know, where they found them where they could. But did he then take the same meat and put it on the fucking pizzas and sell it in the fucking commissary? The zoo was just still one of the best.

I think that's an unsung part of that Joe Exotic documentary series when he fucking, you saw that he was eating the same meat that the tiger's. Maybe it was the amount of edibles I was on or maybe it's just this weird fascination, but the pizza looked good. The pizza looked. Yeah. You're disgusting. All pizza looks good.

Yeah. I mean, no, sometimes it doesn't. I mean, I'm going to stick my neck out and say sometimes some pizza doesn't look good. Yeah. All right. I know it was garbage meat. That's not appropriate. Yeah.

That's definitely not. It's appropriate for a man to eat, but not appropriate for a man to serve at a restaurant unless he's upfront about it being garbage meat. Yes. You've got to go to garbage meat. There was a restaurant just called garbage meat and they just said, it's $2.00. Eat till you puke. I think that's fine.

I think that's totally legit. And if you dress like a raccoon, you eat for free. Yeah. I love it. Oh, cute. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong. I mean, there's a lot of wasted food in this country. There is a lot.

There is a ton. There is a ton of wasted food. And I think that's good that they were repurposing the wasted food, but you got to be upfront that it's wasted food. I understand. You got to be upfront about it. Okay. And just like most of these exotic animal owners was massively into guns, and that's

what ended up landing him in prison in the late 2000s. I guess it's people who have a high need for danger and just like, I guess, also dominance. I don't know. It's very bizarre. The gun, Venn diagram of gun ownership and tiger love. Yeah. I think that it is a rebellion of sorts. We're also surrounded by tigers.

That's the only time it's appropriate to have multiple assault guns. Assault rifles and shit, because you're surrounded by the most dangerous creatures on the face of the planet. The animals we have been avoiding, I'm standing up, the animals that almost killed us in almost primal days. The ones that we had to escape in the jungle in the night that we learned how to create fire to avoid and build tools to escape from. You've now purposely put them in your backyard and you're using the most powerful spear in

the world to make sure that they don't kill you now because you put them back there when we've been trying to avoid them. That's a good point. It's kind of an arms race, isn't it? You've got to beat the tigers. Well, yeah. I mean, it's one of those dumb stupid rebellion things. It's the same people that take AR-15s into Walmarts just because they can.

You don't tell me what to do. I'll do the fuck I want to do. I want to get 17 tigers, I'll get 17 tigers, I want to get 133 guns, I'll get 133 guns. I had a dream last night that my son's ghost went into my rifle, so when you say for me to leave my rifle in the car, you might as well say, leave your five-year-old son alone in the car. Well, that's not right. That's not right at all.

He died in the car, actually, my son. I did leave him in the back of a car for several days. I forgot. Well, that wasn't good. Yeah. Well, in 2008, the ATF raided his home, and I didn't just pull 133 guns out of my hat. That's how many guns Terry Thompson owned was 133, but it wasn't the stockpile that got him into trouble.

This is America. You're allowed to own 133, 153, 183 guns. You can only use one at a time. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. In the end, it's like you have one when you just have one in your hands. But some of those guns weren't registered, and others had no serial numbers, which is a big no-no.

So Terry did a year in federal prison. While inside, he turned paranoid and accused his wife of being the one who turned him in. He became verbally abusive, and by the time he was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia, his marriage was all but over. And Thompson returned to his property outside of Zanesville, Ohio, where his animals were waiting. So who was taking care of the animals for the year that he was gone? The wife was taking care of it.

From what I could tell, it wasn't very clear exactly who it was, but I think the wife was taking care of it part of the time, and they also had a caretaker. They had a local guy who also helped them take care of the animals. So people were taking care of the animals in that year that Terry Thompson was in prison. I guess we don't have all the information, but I also don't know why the ATF rated him. I suppose someone was just snitched on him. Yeah! That also wasn't clear.

That also was not clear from the article exactly why the ATF rated him. If I was his neighbor, I definitely would be keeping an eye on him. That's true. It would seem to be a lot going on in that house. I think I saw a tiger driving a car the other day, which I don't think is appropriate, because to be honest, I think a tiger is only like eight years old, and he's too young for a license. Absolutely too young.

Well, from what friends say, Thompson returned from prison, broken. He felt he'd been betrayed by the government, and that betrayal had come on top of what he'd already felt after his time in Vietnam. This dude is literally Rambo. Yeah, yeah, he is Rambo, but with a lot more tigers, the Sylvester Stallone in real life. Then came the betrayal of his wife. The night before he died, Terry told a friend that he'd received an anonymous letter saying that his wife Marianne had been unfaithful, although by this time it was sort of a moot

point. The marriage was already over, but this seemed to be the final betrayal for Terry Thompson. She went to a hardy's with another man, and I saw her eat the biggest burger I've ever seen. She went to a hardy's with Greg, and do you know what Greg collects? God damn turtles. How disgusting is this? I mean she doesn't want to be with a real man anymore, I'll tell you that.

So it's thought that after discovering the infidelity, Terry decided to punish his wife by taking his own life and the lives of most of the animals with him. Ah yes, I will punish my wife by giving her exactly what she wants, me dead. Well no, that's the things that Marianne loved the animals like they were her children. She did her best to take care of them. So it was okay for the animals? No, it was awful for the animals. It was awful for the animals.

Okay, I don't know, I'm very confused. She had very little resources, you know, like she did not have a whole lot to work with, but she had great affection for the animals. So this was Terry trying to punish his wife. So on October 18th, 2011, Terry woke up, cut the locks from most of the enclosures in his private zoo, and set him all free, knowing that whoever had to clean up the mess would be forced to kill them. But this does bring up a couple of questions, and it's in those questions that conspiracy

and rumor found a home. First, why did Terry cut the locks with bolt cutters, rather than just unlocking them? He had the keys, he had the keys on them. Why did he cut the locks? Being a fucking drama queen. Honestly. Straight up being a drama queen, you're already doing this flagrant act where you are going to unleash all these tigers and there's something about being like, and now they'll never be

shut again. Yeah. And I shall release you tigers. Like instead of going like, where's goddamn key, I got a son of a bitch. Like there's so much of snapping them, being like, free, you're free, like running around. Also it's fun to use bolt cutters. Yeah, it is fun, and I guess it is kind of fun to have animals running by your sides as you hold your hands up in a V, being like, liberation, go, go.

We're all going, we're all going. Well that brings up another question. How did Terry manage to let all these wild animals go and avoid being attacked himself? Because even if the animals did have some affection towards him, I mean a big cat just wanting a friendly tussle can be deadly. Like a cat, a gigantic tiger decides he wants to play with you, he could end up killing you very easily. I think these animals were just thrilled to get the hell out of there.

Could be. Yeah. Ask Kissel about his dating life. How scary is that? You want to wrestle with somebody, wrestle with some tiny woman? It reminds me of when I was in the old pokey here in downtown Chinatown, here in Manhattan. And as soon as your name is called, you bolt out of there. Yeah.

You know, so like because I was in there for 24 hours, I was having a conversation with with a person. They were like, Ben, kiss. I was like, I never saw you. Bye. And I just bolted out. I think these tigers are just like, we're free. I'm out of here.

We also, I wonder if, what if he looked like fucking that boy, that British, from cats? Oh. Full cat costume. James Gordon. Yep. He went through there to on his fucking hands and knees, going, I'm also half dog. Give you a scope of what Terry did. He let loose 50 animals, most of them large, aggressive and carnivorous.

All in all, he set free 18 tigers, 17 lions, eight bears. Geez. Three cougars, two wolves, a macaque monkey, and a baboon. Oh, the monkey's good on that. So those cougars just go straight to the sports bar? That would be, yeah, come on, have fun today. I'm being a kissle. I'm the one.

I'm the kissle today. When they are all released, do they fight each other? No, they absolutely did not. Well, okay, the monkey got eaten. That will happen. That was it. Honestly, the macaque? Yeah.

The macaque got eaten pretty fast. They assume because they just never found it. You know what? Not in my world. It's in Uruguay. It's hanging out, and it's having a great time not talking about its past. But they very much assume that the monkey was eaten. At least they hope that the monkey was eaten, because the monkey was also infected with

herpes B, which could cause severe brain damage or death in humans. So they very much hope that that monkey was eaten. I don't even want to know how it got herpes. I don't want to know. I don't want to know the answer. That's what Pete's wife. Maybe. Well, after he let all the animals loose, he walked over to his barn, dropped his bolt

cutters, pulled out a 357 magnum, and shot himself in the head. That'll do it. Now, of course, once Thompson died, plenty of rumors began to circulate. Some said he was caught up in a legal black market animal sales and pissed off the wrong person. Okay. Others say he was involved with the Mexican cartels, who are known to illegally own tigers. And things, of course, went badly at some point or another.

No, with the Mexican cartels? That's it. Yeah, I thought they'd be great clients. But the most pervasive rumor, at least among fellow exotic animal owners, was that Terry was killed by rogue animal rights activists. And those activists set all the animals free in some sort of misguided 12 monkeys-like protest. Oh.

But most likely. I mean, the one thing is, I know that there are some very extreme animal rights activists, which I actually thought almost think we could almost cover at some point on the show. Oh, totally. But I don't know, do you think, well, have they, is there evidence, is there things that back that up where a animal rights activist would kill a human? Not even close. Not even, not even a little bit.

I don't know that for a certain. It was all rumor. I'm not saying specifically, I'm just saying in general. I think that they would. I think there had ever been a story of animal rights activists killing humans. Well, judging by Jay and Silent Bob's Strike Back, which is a powerful film about animal rights, I think that they could kill people and I'm sure that they have. Some of these people are truly psychotic.

Well, at the very least, we do know that an environmentalist killed a fair amount of people. His name was Ted Kaczynski. Ah, he was a thinker, though. He was a thinker and an author and technically would have been incredible on HDTV. Have you ever seen Bunker living? No, I never have. I have been watching Doomsday Preppers and the funny thing is all of them are currently living in heaven because they're like, we were right and they are like, it's very funny.

But most likely Terry Thompson and Terry Thompson alone was responsible for his own death. That makes the most money. And ultimately, the deaths of 50 animals. He is 100% responsible for every single one of them. Did these animals, other than the monkey, did they kill any people? No. Okay. Now that's a that's a miracle.

That truly is amazing that they didn't kill anyone because it is an absolute miracle. Ohio PD is not prepared for 50 wild animals. Well, let's get into the story of how all that went down. Now the first person to notice something was wrong was Terry's neighbor, Sam Kopchak. See, besides just wild animals, Thompson also kept a number of horses on his property and Kopchak looked out his window that day to see those horses being chased by a black bear. Oh my God.

Now, he was understandably alarmed, but was of enough presence of mind to think about the horse he'd bought just nine days previous. So he walked outside to lead the horse to his barn. He figured that black bear is going to be he's busy with those other horses, but he might move on to my horse eventually. Yeah. So when he was out there, he was faced with a full grown African lion, main and all staring at him from the other side of a fence that the lion could have very easily jumped over

at any second. This is why it's always important to remember, even if you think you're alone, don't get too stoned because you never know when you're going to walk outside and be confronted with a lion. The closest I ever had is when I went to go see Midsomer and I literally ate like 50 grams of animals and sitting there like waiting for it and then the earthquake hit in the middle of it. Oh, that's right.

Oh man, I am fucking not chill for this man. I am not a go to guy right now. I forgot about that. That's so nuts, man. So Copchak calmly led his horse to the barn as the lion watched. Then he locked the barn door and called his mother with his cell phone. His mom was sitting in the house watching TV about a hundred yards away. Oh my God.

So Copchak just very simply told her, quote, there is a major problem. Well call me back up. I can see that you're smiling and looking at the lion on the phone and be like, hi, Mr. Lion. Hi, hello. Here's your problem. There's a major problem going on outside, honey. Yeah, there's a little bit of a problem going on.

Goochie, goochie, noochie, nooch. So she called 911 and waited for the police to arrive. Meanwhile, Copchak watched out the barn window and saw even more dangerous carnivores joining the lion. There was a wolf, a second bear bigger than the first, a lioness, and finally a full grown tiger snarling and chasing after the horses. Hey, honey, I got to tell you, the animal justice league is outside and we're going to really need, I don't know if they're good or bad yet.

They could be a sinister six. I'm not certain since your sticks is a marvel. They are Spider-Man villains. Wow. Justice League is DC. Just so you know. I'm going to fucking die. Technically, you did this, Henry.

You may not come out of him. When Deputy Jonathan Mary arrived on the scene, the deadly menagerie had grown by another lioness and the orders came down almost immediately. Start putting these animals down before they start eating people. The first to die was a wolf, whom Mary killed with a rifle at 80 yards. The other animal scattered, so Mary drove up the hill towards Terry Thompson's house and came across another deputy just running back and forth near Thompson's driveway in a fucking panic.

They were freaking out. Of course they were. You remember Tiger King, where they keep going back and interviewing the local sheriff and he just keeps saying like, this shit won these days. We knew something was going to pop off. They also knew this and that was that day. Right. It finally popped off.

I wonder if you just, at some point, you just set up a special phone. I would ask to maybe align on your special change in your cell phone thing where a different ringer can come up. Right. That day, when it shit hits the fan day at the illegal zoo where there's also a stockpile of guns. Right. Because also, it's very strange as a police officer to not have any power, right?

You can't check this guy in any way, you just keep going, I mean like, so you got new wolves today, huh? It's a whole bunch of wolves. Yeah, that's a lot. You like voluntarily put a bunch of wolves in your backyard. You had to know their house over there, right, like next to you, right? Oh, nice new, this is a new shotgun. You just got this?

Ah, fuck. See you later. Well, Mary got out of his cruiser to assist the other officer, and he grabbed his rifle. But the rifle snagged on the computer, and in a brain fart moment, Mary just left the rifle behind. Oh, god. He went in unarmed. Well, no, he had a Glock, but that was it.

But he's going up against gigantic fucking animals, and after getting out of the car, Mary was faced with another black bear who immediately started running towards him. Armed only with a Glock, Mary took aim, got off one shot, and the bear fell dead seven feet in front of him because Mary had managed to shoot him right in the fucking brain. Oh, god. That was close. Oh, no. Did you see Christopher Robin come out being like, that was my thing.

Oh, no, my friends. It's like somebody from an insane asylum who thinks he's Christopher Robin. Look at all my friends here. We're all going to do wonderful, and that's just, oh, god, he's been in my fucking guts now. I'll take it, I'll take it. After that, Mary untangled his rifle and shot three lions, another wolf, a tiger, and a grizzly bear.

Damn. All while other deputies formed a perimeter to prevent animals from reaching populated areas or nearby interstate 70. Can you imagine fucking driving down the road, down the fucking highway, and a couple lions come out of the side of the fucking, come out of the fucking brush? The news coverage, I believe Shepard Smith was covering this live. Shepard Smith is one of the greatest news reporters of all time, despite the network he worked on, and he could do play-by-play, and it was like, he was one of the best entertainers

when it comes to reporters. Well, that's what news is. Yeah. And, and he, Marcus, we don't live in a perfect world. This play-by-play was freaking hilarious. This shit was so crazy. If it wasn't so deadly serious, it would have been very funny. Yes.

Well, if they had gotten on the highway, if they learned how to, if they could use their fucking turn signals, they're fucking welcome. All right, guys, come on. Let's talk about turn signals on the fucking highway. Now, let's do you think this was a bunch of redneck cops having fun on a safari in their own backyard? It was not. No!

I don't think so. They were not having fun. They were scared shitless. They were terrified. The whole thing was extremely dangerous, and on top of that, it was fucking heartbreaking. Like, one of the cops said, hey, man, I'm a cat guy. Like, I don't want to see all these cats. It's got to be really sad.

I mean, they're big, they're beautiful animals. Right. And yes, they're very dangerous, but I can't, I imagine that that woman too, like after fucking filling a bare full of lead and killing all these animals that are just, also, they're not, the, a lot of them are not actively attacking yet either, too, right? They're just kind of walking around all freaked, they don't know what to do. Yeah, I mean, they're just kind of enjoying being out, but as soon as they see a human being, like, they definitely go into watch mode.

Like they definitely go into, I might kill you at any second. I mean, hell, that one bear had already charged the deputy and would have killed him had he gotten to him. I'm just a bear doing what bears do. I don't believe I should be shot for it. But sometimes just as a big old goofy bear, yeah, I like having honey and I like using my little bear friends as toilet paper. It's fun to do, but every once in a while I smell blood and I just go a little crazy.

I know, bear. It's okay. Now, nobody actually thought at first that Terry Thompson had deliberately set all these animals free. They figured that the animals had escaped on their own and that Terry was probably either badly injured somewhere, if not dead. And at first, this did seem like the case. When deputies first spotted Terry's body, it was being eaten by his prized white tiger.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. No one knew that. Damn. But after the tiger was shot, police made a discovery that made the whole incident even grizzlier. The tiger, like many animals gorging on a body, had gone after the fleshiest parts first. The butt.

It had completely gored the groin on Terry's body and where before there had been the genitals of a man that was now only a gaping, bloody void. They eat the cockafers? I guess that's the meatiest part. He must have been well endowed. A lot of animals do that. So the animals go for the fleshiest parts of the body first. Honestly, at one point, if you do find that the animal isn't attacking your genitals,

you're like, oh, really? It's not big enough for you. You're going to go with my big fat gut instead, are you? Well, that's kind of an insult, isn't it? That wasn't Terry's only wound. He had 21 wounds all over his body because the white tiger had dragged the body to the location where it was found by the arm and briefly, the head. There was a huge fucking bite mark on the dude's head.

The tiger started playing with it. It's the Cadbury egg of the human body. It is. But I could see it was, I wonder if it was almost trying to, it knew him so well. Right? The tiger knew him so well. He must have been pissed off at him. I wonder if it's almost in a way of, like, taking him back to his cage.

There was, like, maybe over-friendly. And then once you realize instead, I feel like they might have, like, tried to play with him a little bit, and then he's just like, well, I am hungry. There's a fresh cock right here, and then he just starts going right into it. Well, in the spot where Terry had shot himself, police found raw chicken scattered around the area. That meant that Terry had purposefully led the animals to his own dead body. So he wanted this.

He wanted this. He knew that if he scattered raw chicken around his body, it would attract the animals. It would attract the fucking tigers and lions, because he wanted them to eat him. Do you think that he did that, or is it he thought that they'd eat the chicken and not eat him? I absolutely knew that they would eat him, that the chicken, the smell of the raw chicken, would bring them to his body. That's incredible.

It's hors d'oeuvres. It is. He did a whole prefix. He did. He gave him an appetizer. It's just, like, it's so weird to have all of this set up post your death. Yeah. Like, it's such a bizarre thing to do.

I don't know. It's just a very, it's like, he had this all worked out in his head, and I guess it sort of went as planned. It did go as planned. Now, the deputies were continuing what proved to be a terrifying hunt, but to get a little extra help, they called the Columbus Zoo 40 miles away. And who should join the zookeepers, but famous late night talk show guest, Jack Hanna. Oh, wow.

Jack Hanna used to be on Letterman all the time. Although the documentary hasn't come out about him yet, so I can't even like him at this point until proven not a animal killer. Well, I think he's just a doctor. Okay. He's not an animal killer, but he did have a dark chapter concerning an animal park back in the 70s. In 1973, a boy at one of his parks had his arm ripped off by a tiger, and Hanna himself

had to retrieve the boy's ripped off appendage. What was the, I mean, I'm not going to victim blame, but I'm just saying what would happen. Like, what was the kid doing? Don't touch the, don't touch the damn tiger. It was not the boy's fault. You don't think so? I know it wasn't. Okay.

Yeah. You know, when you have a bunch of loose tigers, it throws a bunch of wrenches in the system. There's a lot of people who's not going to be able to, um, we can't really tell how we're all going to react. If I saw many, many tigers, I mean, I know I would react. I would run. I don't think I would go to speak. I would run.

I would run. I'd be a victim because I'm a big, loud, pink guy, got my athletes, your pants on. Just a beautiful. I didn't even have any fucking hard material to go through. Right. Just a beautiful, beautiful, perfect ham. Um, I would, I would fall down and go to the fetal position. What are you supposed to do when a tiger comes attacking?

I, I would fall down and curl up. That's what I think I would do. Henry's a runner. What are you supposed to do? I don't know what you're supposed to do. I don't think there's much you can do. Maybe hit, I think you try hitting it's nose. I know you hit on the nose.

I heard, I believe I've heard you get into a ball. Okay. I've heard that. I don't know if that's true. Side stories. LPOTLATVL.com. If you know how to successfully survive a tiger attack, that'd be awesome. I know with bears, it's, um, what is it, all right, black attack, brown get down, white

good night. I know I've said this several times on the show. I think I've said this really exact. Yeah. It all sounds scary. And then I guess you also have to cover your cack. Cover your cock and balls. That's it.

What about the ladies? It goes after the fleshyest part, so it's going to go after the breast. Yeah. Well, that's what happens. A lot of people when a savage, well, you know, when people die in their apartments, you know, with cats and things like that, right, you know, cats will of course eat the body much that a cat will eat the body as soon as it gets hungry. And it goes after the note, the tip of the nose.

It goes after the cheeks. That's just, that's what cats do. A dog will wait until it's almost starving before it eats its master. But a cat will start eating it. A cat will start eating you as soon as the food runs out. If you sleep too long, a cat will start eating my eyes, my eyes, my eyes. Well, all in all, 50 animals were killed. The only ones saved were three leopards who were not let out of their cages, two monkeys

who were locked up in bird cages in a living room strewn with feces. In bird cages. In bird cages. Geez. And a small grizzly bear kept in a big bird cage in the backyard. Why the hell is he keeping, anyway, okay, so he's a terrible person. Yeah. He's a bad person.

Thank you for your service, though. Yeah. Thank you for your service. Thank you, Terry. Yeah. Okay. Because he wants to. But it's all, it's very selfish.

It's all about him. Right. A year later, Ohio put into effect a law that banned the sale, ownership, and breeding of exotic animals to try and ensure, like, that something like this never happened in their state again. Right. However, a lot of people were grandfathered in. If you owned exotic animals before the law was passed, then you were allowed to keep

your exotic animals. I don't. That doesn't make any sense. You should be having them. Well, as we know, but they couldn't get new ones. So inevitably there would be a, they would die. Eventually they'll die. Yeah.

I think that's fair. I'm fine with that. All right. But as we know from watching Tiger King, there are still somewhere between five and 10,000 tigers being held captive in the United States right now. So it's only a matter of time before we see another Zanesville. Don't say it like you want it to happen. It's almost like it'll happen again, don't even stress it.

No, I mean, I was, me and Carly were talking about this last night, is it like, man, it's like if every, if American society just completely fucking collapses, and even like a tiny percentage of these people decide, fuck it, let's let the tigers out, all of a sudden we got tigers in the wild, in America, forever. For forever. This is why we have to get yacht money. And we got to get yacht money, we got to get in the middle of the oceans. We got to take to the oceans, also, I'm putting a lot of money in hot air balloons.

Great. It's another good way for us to live above the tigers. And it's important that we start thinking about sky apartments. I agree. Oh man, what if Florida becomes tiger country? Because if you know, I mean, if anyone's letting their tigers lose, it's going to be the people in Florida. Well, it's going to be KB, RIP, our boy Kevin Barnett, listen to him on Roundtable of Gentlemen.

Thank you for all the great responses to that goofball show, by the way, wild, they did have animals released, or not released, but escaped. Kevin used to tell stories all the time about tigers and lions and shit. That's right. He was right next to a safari part. Yeah, he went through a pipe once, whatever, I forget the name of it, but yeah. Well, he always had, they still have that iguana problem in South Florida, they got the iguana problem, and yeah, they always talk about finding big cats and the overglades

and shit. Kevin used, he would say when he would walk home, he would oftentimes see tigers and shit. He'd be like, damn, and he also, if you are Roundtable, if you haven't gotten to this part when he talks about his subscription to Horse Illustrated, he was a man surrounded by animals. Thank you for whoever sent me the issue of Horse Illustrated. It's a fantastic little magazine. Oh, unreal.

It's very real. It's so, so freaking funny. It's so cute. Awesome, man. Well, what a fascinating story about Terry. That's why this whole Joe Exotic thing, I'm coming full circle, it could have been a lot worse. It could have been.

Everyone kept him in the cage. It could have been. They were waiting for it to be worse. That is true. Because I guess, I'm not going to say the term cooler heads prevailed. I will say that somehow they were not let out. One of the things that I would say to Joe, if I could be like, let's take it back and redo it, don't say there's going to be another Waco.

No. Just don't be like, it's going to be like Waco if anyone messes with me, that scares the cops. So that was Joe Exotic's biggest problem. That was always his biggest problem is his big fucking mouth. But it was also his charm. But also without his big mouth, we wouldn't have gotten the line, golden nuggets. It ruined everything for him.

All of the coverage ruined everything for him. He could have worked in isolation for so long. He could have been a local character. He was, Joe Exotic was made to be a local character. What ruined him was national attention. He should not have gotten national attention. Also on side stories, we mentioned how he got 19% of the vote. Henry did mock me mildly, which is totally fine, acceptable.

But that was within the Libertarian primary. I thought he got 19% of the vote in Oklahoma and I was like, damn Oklahoma, you are open-minded. Open-minded almost to a fault. Yep, 19% of the Libertarian vote, which is, I don't know, I guess there's a lot of Libertarians in Oklahoma, but I wouldn't imagine there's that many. No, it's amazing. The campaign manager is what you'd see if you open up the encyclopedia entry to Libertarian. It is that boy man in there that has never experienced a thing and it's like, oh yeah,

he found him. You recruited him at the ammo section of Walmart. Literally, the sentence that made me laugh out loud, it was the worst year of my life. I was like, sounds like it dude, all right everyone, thank you all so much for listening. I hope everyone is healthy, happy, doing well, taking care of each other during this time and I hope you guys enjoyed the relaxed fit episode. Next week we'll be back with some very fun tales. We're going to get to some blood, we're going to get to some spacey, alien type creatures.

It's going to be just a wonderful time here at LPN, keep on supporting all the shows. We have a new show called the LPN show, which is, it's dumb, it is just conversation. I had Jackie on the first show holding on the second show. I'm hosting these first few, will not be the permanent host, we're going to kind of keep that revolving so you get a good taste of everyone that performs here on the network because they are all wonderful performers. Good delicious dollop of taste, getting some eddy meat, get some of that Jackie stew. But guys, go to last podcast merch, our new merch store, check out some of our fine words.

We're having new sizes getting in there, we're going to have a bunch of women's styles in there, load them up and again, remember anything that you buy, 6.66% goes to one fair wage to help people that are fucked right now in terms of the job. Absolutely, and if you want to listen to Abling and Stop At this week, I interview Liz and Morgan, they started a great company, a great non-profit called Corona Couriers, Liz is the one who started it and they're doing a lot of amazing work volunteering, these are two people who lost their jobs, she was a librarian, the other girl worked at a bike shop and they're just doing some amazing stuff.

So there is some positive stories out there with people taking care of people and that's very important. Live show's been moved to August, next week, Tuesday, April 7th, is the release of the last book on the left. Yes. Officially to be out there? Yes. Go to IndieBound.com to try to get that signed book.

So what's happening with the ticket, bullshit and the mixtures, but I'm going to say go to BarnesandObl.com to, if you're getting a refund for the book that you tried to get for us on tour, that's a sign, go to BarnesandObl.com, get it there, but it is coming out, it is coming out the pussy next week. Yes, it is and I got a lot of messages being like, is it coming out of this, yes, the answer is yes. The book will be there, you'll have it in your hands by mid-April. And it'll hopefully helps you get through.

It is, you're going to have, Marcus did an amazing job. Thank you. And so please message Marcus. You all did great too. We didn't do anything. Tom Neely did an amazing job. You wrote the essays, you did a good job. We wrote our, we did our fair, but this is really a testament to how amazing Marcus is

as a writer and we are just so proud of him and everyone is proud of you and please let us know what you think of the book, send Marcus some praise because we were supposed to be on tour in April and it was really going to be awesome. We were going to be like, yo, yeah, like, ah, you know, having a good time, but that will have to wait until August and we'll be more happy than ever to see each other on the road. So it'll be fine. Yeah.

Well, everything will get back to normal here, here pretty soon, it will be a long road until then. But you know, guys, we can all get through it together and we all got something to look forward to. But honestly, August, I'm going to be, I'm so horny for a bar. Oh my God, I want to go to bars so bad, I want to go to a, I want to go to a bar. I love drinking at home, but there's just something about, it's something about getting extra drunk at a bar.

Yeah, there's something really look frowned upon just getting drunk like that alone with their wife. Yeah, there's something less alcoholic about drinking around other people, watching something, having a reason other than just total boredom. Yeah. Just pure boredom. We did have quite a nice, like super fucked up night just alone in our apartment, you know, got to, yeah, just getting drunk and listening to records all Saturday night.

It was actually really nice. And of course, if you're trying to stay dry during this time, hope you're sticking with that. If that's what you want to be doing, I highly recommend weed edibles. That is very nice to reach out because there are people that are trying to fucking stay sober during this time. It is very, very difficult. I don't have the same strength, but those of you that do, keep on keeping it home.

What I want to do is give a shout out to my boy, Kevin Gillespie. He's on top. She's on top chef, all stars right now, make some of the best food in Atlanta. He is an incredible chef. He's crushing it on top chef right now and give him big ups. And I also want to give some support to somebody who really needs it right now. And I want to give support to Heidi Klum, her new show, Making the Cut on Amazon is a lot.

I love fashion shows. I do. I love fashion shows. Namby Campbell, so mean. That's your review? She's so mean. She always wears sunglasses inside. I don't know how she sees the dresses.

I don't know either. All right, everyone. Thank you all so much for listening. Hail yourselves. Hail Satan. Oh, again. Magustalations. Oh, hail me so hard.

You do not have to be hard to hail him or me or anyone. I just want Italian food that somebody else makes. If you are, what if you are a wrecked with the lion's, because that is no longer the softest tissue, would the lion still attack your genitals? It's still the softest tissue. It's just filled with blood. It only appears to be hard. Yeah, man.

Then it's like a sweet egg roll of them all filled with gushing blood. Yeah. That just means it pops like a pierogi. Yeah, yeah. Say, hey, look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Eat me first.

Oh, man. I wish I could go back in time and not say the sentence I did to start that conversation. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.