True Crime Campfire - Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Zanesville Exotic Animal Massacre

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Legendary Conservationist Steve Irwin said, “We don’t own the planet Earth, we belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife.” It’s such a lovely sentiment. We have a responsibility to protect and care for creatures that can’t protect themselves. It’s something that almost every person on earth would agree with. But what happens when someone loves something so much they throttle the life out of it? What if one man’s selfish wants pushed him to sacrifice over 50 animals that he claimed to love? Heads-up: If you're really sensitive about harm to animals, you might want to skip this one. Tickets are on sale now for the CrimeWave 2.0 TRUE CRIME CRUISE, Feb. 8-12, 2027! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! Sources:https://ohiodnr.gov/discover-and-learn/animals/mammals/coyotehttp://esquire.com/news-politics/a12653/zanesville-0312/https://www.gq.com/story/terry-thompson-ohio-zoo-massacre-chris-heath-gq-february-2012?fbclid=IwY2xjawP13ERleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe-ekW_BZLa5McRg9DVSSyZ50zqxDkImS9jTLlx2kUqFNq_T7WJKZCyW69A6I_aem_jr-yYesRIf0kgn0-znd8Xghttps://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2021/10/18/zanesville-ohio-animal-tragedy-captivates-inspires-change-10-years-later/5823607001/https://agri.ohio.gov/divisions/animal-health/resources/dangerous-wild-animals https://my.onecause.com/fundraiser/organizations/sf-001C0000016d5QlIAI/fundraisers/fundraiser:29043b3c-9361-435d-8d91-198913babca0/closed https://www.thewilds.org/about-wilds https://vetmedbiosci.colostate.edu/directory/member/?id=barb-wolfe-40668Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Legendary conservationist Steve Irwin said, We don't own the planet Earth.

We belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife. It's such a lovely sentiment. We have a responsibility to protect and care for creatures that camp protect themselves. It's something that almost every person on earth would agree with, but what happens when someone loves something so much they throttle the life out of it? What if one man's selfish wants pushed him to sacrifice over 50 animals that he claimed to love? This is lions and tigers and bears, the Zanesville exotic animal massacre. So, campers, for this one, we're in Zanesville, Ohio,

on October 18, 2011. At 5 o'clock p.m., the Zanesville Sheriff's Department Dispatch got a bizarre 9-1-1 call. The woman on the other end spoke calmly and clearly. She said, yes, this is Mrs. Copchak on Copchak Road. We live next to Terry Thompson, and there's a bear and a lion out. Terry Thompson was a known entity to the authorities in Zanesville. He was an eccentric man who kept dozens of exotic animals on his 73-acre farm. which he called Tees Wild Kingdom. They included tigers, lions, bears, oh my, monkeys, cougars, wolves,

leopards, as well as more domestic animals like horses, cows, buffalo, and chickens. Because he didn't charge admission to view the animals, he wasn't technically doing anything against Ohio law, which is crazy to me, but law enforcement officials still tried really hard to rest the animals out of his care. They were able to charge. charge him with a single count of animal cruelty due to some cattle and a buffalo that starved to death, for which he served just six months of house arrest, not nearly enough, in my opinion. He was able to amass a huge number of exotic animals, all of which were extremely malnourished and sick. Some veterinary consultants had visited the farm during one of the many investigations into Terry's

place, who advised that in order to keep his menagerie adequately fed, he'd have to feed over 500 pounds of fresh meat every day, a number that he had no hope in hell of keeping up with. But still, he was able to keep his zoo. One expert that visited the farm had no doubt that Thompson loved his animals, but his means to care for them were severely stifled. You see that a lot in animal hoarding cases. He'd been charged previously in an illegal weapon sting where some of his arsenal of guns were found to have their serial numbers filed off. He was prosecuted by the ATF and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He had over a hundred guns at the time of his arrest, and I don't mean to judge, but like,

that's just way too many guns for one dude in Ohio to have. The weapons charge was the most serious thing they could charge him with. In fact, that day in October marked about two weeks that he'd been out of prison. So the dispatcher was maybe a little less surprised than she could have been when she responded to Mrs. Kupak. There's a bear and a lion out? The woman said, yeah, right up behind us. Such a weird call.

The dispatcher asked the caller's name, to which she replied, Delores. Dolores was an 84-year-old woman who lived on her family farm with her son Sam, a 64-year-old retired teacher. Her son was actually the one who prompted the call. He'd been out to collect his horse, a pinto named Red, when he noticed that Terry Thompson's herd of horses was acting strange. They were galloping together, tightly patted. packed in a little circle, eyes just rolling around and wild. Sam's property was separated from

Thompson's by a frail wire fence, one that Thompson's horses had broken through before. Sam's first thought was that the horses were reacting to the incoming storm. The sky was dark and gray, clouds fat and heavy with rain, but it's not like Ohio hadn't been hit by a storm or two before. Something else must have been amiss. Just then, a small tabby cat bolted from the tree line of the nearby woods. It was feral male cat that Sam called Klinger named after the mash character. Sam hadn't seen Klinger for a few weeks and was pleased at first, planning to feed him and give him some scrimches, but Klinger streaked past him and into the long grass. Something spooked him. That something spooked red, too, who galloped 150 yards away from Sam, pressed against the fence

that lined Thompson's property and paced there, anxious about something trying to join the galloping herd but not braving the wire fence. Sam went to fetch some water for Red, hoping to lure the horse into the barn for the night. As he walked toward the barn, he noticed a huge, furry shape lumbering down the hill in Terry Thompson's pasture. At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing, but as his brain adjusted to his surroundings, he realized it was a black bear chasing after the horses. Jesus. Sam didn't panic.

He thought he'd get Red put away for the night and call Terry about the predator loose on his land. He'd had to call before when one of Thompson's ponies broke through the fence onto Sam's farm, and he knew Terry kept exotics. He continued on his mission, eventually getting a lead tied to Red's muzzle, and started leading the horse to the stable. Then he caught sight of a pair of large golden eyes, staring at him in red through the fence. It was a male African lion.

Its massive mained head turned towards Sam. It was an enormous creature, and its nose was twitching. The only visible part of the lion was its head, its body lying flat in the long grass. It was just a few feet away and had clearly been watching them for some time. Okay, I get that I'm supposed to be scared here. I really do. I get it. But I have to say this.

I know with every atom of my being that my first reaction here would be, like, I would be delighted, like right up until, right up until he broke my neck with his teeth. like the mighty hunter and the good boy he is. I can't help it. I'm a freak. My first reaction would be joy. I know it would. We'll get into this, but if you were Terry Thompson's neighbor, he would not, none of this would have happened. This would not have happened. You would have been there. I wouldn't let up. Yeah. But I just, I just imagine that like immediate shot of like adrenaline and like sinus-clearing panic you feel. God. The lion was just watching, just watching. And this is just like a huge predator, like apex predator. Amazing.

So close to you. I just can't. I know what you mean, though. Like, I'm delighted at the thought of like, oh, that's a lion right there. Yeah. Sam felt panic well up in his throat. His first instinct was to run, but his brain overrode the impulse. He decided that he wouldn't run and he wouldn't abandon Red.

They were 100 yards away from the barn. Sam, as calmly as he could, strolled toward the barn. turning his gaze away from the apex predator staring him down. He only looked back once to see that the lion was standing now. Chris Jones, whose Esquire article, Animals, the horrific true story of the Zanesville Zoo Massacre that we used to research this case, wrote, The fence had seven strands of wire strung between its wooden posts. The lion's back ran parallel to the second strand from the top.

Booful boy. Mommy love him. When he made it to the barn, Sam slid the big door shut and put red into his stall. He then pulled out his cell phone and called his mom, who was inside the house. He told her, I'm in the barn. There's a bear and a lion outside the house chasing Terry's horses. You need to stay inside. Just the weirdest phone call ever. Farm people.

They're just like, yeah, sure, whatever. They're lying over there. He then asked her to call Terry and the authorities. When Dolores called Terry, she got his voicemail. Then she called 911. So who was Terry Thompson? He was certainly eccentric. He'd been drafted into the Vietnam War and was never quite the same afterwards.

He'd been an exuberant kid who loved planes. He got his pilots license at 16. Everybody around him seemed to like him. Even when he stole other guys' girls, they managed to laugh it off. After Vietnam, he was haunted. Sure, he was going to hell for the things he did over there. His easygoing personality shifted into something a little harder and sharper. He isolated himself.

He had issues with authority, often arguing when he got pulled over by the police. He had seven different seatbelt violations on his record. I don't know. Just put the freaking thing on, man. Good Lord. His friends remember him as generous and kind, but he also had a violent streak. Once his shop was being vandalized repeatedly, and instead of calling, and the cops, Terry waited, night after night, until the vandal showed up again, and Terry just beat the brakes off the guy. His animal collection started with a tiger cub named Simba, purchased for his

wife. Then came bear cubs and tigers and monkeys. Without proper licensing, Terry couldn't lend out his animals for any commercial filming, but as I just said, he was the kind of guy that thought of rules more as suggestions. Videos come out of Terry handing Heidi Klum a tiger cub, video shoot for Newt Gingrich of all people, and as an animal handler on the Rachel Ray Show. Thompson's hoarding wasn't just reserved for animals either. He'd accumulate huge amounts of things. One friend said he would never sell anything. If he liked it, he kept it, and none of it was taken care of. It just broke my heart. He'd have a beautiful 57 or 55 Chevrolet, and they'd be sitting there with half an inch of dust and chicken manure all over the top of it. We don't know when Terry's

collection of animals tipped over from eccentricity to pure hoarding, but his friends started noticing, and when they asked why he kept doing it, he just said, because I can, because I can. That makes me want to just, mm, that is, ooh, I have feelings about this case. Back in 2011, Deputy Jonathan Mary was out serving court summons for the first two hours of his shift when he got sent on to the cop-chat call. He went to Dolores' front door to take her statement. She opened the door and he stated, Ma'am, I understand that you saw a bear and a lion. And then a gray wolf loped past in the middle of the road toward a nearby neighborhood.

Mary dropped his notepad and sprinted to his car to get his assault rifle. His sergeant had ordered him to use lethal force on any animal that approached or endangered other human life. He gave chase in his car. Eventually, the wolf veered off the road and Mary had to get out to pursue on foot. The wolf was 80 or so yards away, and finally Mary stopped to take aim. He tried to steady his breath as he squeezed the trigger to fire. The wolf tumbled to the ground, and Mary sprinted forward, firing a few more times to make sure that the creature was dead. I also want to point out that Mary lost the wolf at some point because it was so fast that he couldn't keep up.

That's how quick this animal was. It's so – because we don't have to deal with predators, really. Yeah, we got out of the food chain, right? We made it out of there. And also, just because I did the research and if I don't tell anyone, I explode. The nearest wild gray wolf population to Ohio is in northern Illinois. Ohio is home to about 100 wild black bears, but they don't have any wild grizzlies or like even mountain lions. The most common predator in Ohio is the humble coyote.

So I can't imagine just seeing a giant wolf sprinting toward a populated area. Yeah. The last coyote I met was an arrogant assholes. I don't know what kind of coyotes you've been hanging out with. Humble my ass. They're scavengers. We love them. But yeah. So like, and keep in mind, these animals were not like wild. They weren't, they also weren't domesticated, but they weren't scared of people like a wild wolf would be. Which makes them more dangerous. Yes, exactly. So this is why also don't feed. any wolves you see or anything. Don't approach any moose, mese. But yeah, this is why these creatures were so dangerous is that they were not scared of people. Afterwards, when he was walking back to his patrol vehicle, his radio crackled to life with more news. A lion had broken free of the fence and was now loose. He threw his rifle into the car and headed back to the Thompson property.

He watched as two other deputies sprinted by carrying rifles of their own. Mary went to follow, but his rifle was tangled in the wires of like his dashboard computer, so he left it behind, which was a mistake. Once out of his vehicle, he saw a large shape start sprinting toward him. It was the black bear that had been chasing the herd of horses. It was now running hellbent for leather right at Deputy Mary, who only had his sidearm to protect him. He drew his 40-gauge Glock and took his shot.

Somehow, the bullet struck the bear between the eyes and it collapsed to the ground, just seven feet from where Mary was standing. Learning his lesson, Mary returned to his vehicle to untangle his rifle from the dashboard. As he turned around, he saw a lioness slip through the fence and take off running toward an occupied home. Mary lifted his rifle and took a shot, downing the big cat. He was really, really gutted about all this. Later, he told a superior, Sarge, I had no choice.

His actions haunted him. He didn't want to hurt him. any of the animals, but he was dropped into a nightmare. Meanwhile, Sergeant Steve Blake tried to make contact with Terry Thompson. One of Thompson's neighbors, lured out by the sound of sirens, as they often are, opened Thompson's gate and Blake drove up to the house, ordering the neighbor to return to his house. Chris Jones described what Blake saw in his Esquire article. He wrote,

The driveway starts out relatively straight, rising over what's known locally as First Hill. The horses usually feed to the right. To the left, there are scores of junked cars. There's a yellow Volkswagen bug, a turquoise Ford Mustang, a pair of studebakers rusted almost beyond recognition. There's a horse trailer, and there are at least three boats sunk into the field, moored against solitary trees. Just beyond the cars, there are fuller woods running down a steep slope to the shoulder of I-70. Farther up the driveway, there's the first barn, a newer metal building. Then the driveway begins to swing to the right up second hill. At that corner, there's another barn, wooden, collapsing.

There are also more abandoned cars in an old Winnebago stripped of its roof. And then there are the pens, lined up on either side of the driveway. By the time Blake found himself rolling between those pens, he saw animals scattering to all corners, lions, tigers, bears, bolting out through doors that were swinging wide open. Oh boy, he thought, this is bad. When he got to the house, he honked the horn, hoping to summon Terry Thompson, but there was no movement inside the house. There was a large white van park nearby, but otherwise

there were no signs of life. A few feet from Blake's car stood a few large tigers. Blake didn't leave his vehicle. The driveway was covered in chicken bones and feathers and blood. The tigers wondered how to remove their new snack from its tin can packaging. Blake turned his car around and drove down the driveway. Terry's estranged wife, Marion, heard about the loose animals and couldn't get in contact with her husband, so she called one of the volunteer caretakers that had worked on the farm for 15 years, John Moore. John rendezvoused with Blake at the bottom of the driveway. He told the sergeant that if the white van was there, Terry was there.

Blake and John returned to the house, and John went inside to look for Terry at Blake's prompting while Blake waited in the car. I understand why, like, John probably felt, like, fine to go into the house by himself, but there's just something funny about, like, an armed law enforcement officer, a sergeant, like, sitting scared in his patrol car and, like, sending, like, go ahead, go. So, like, an unarmed civilian, like, into this house by himself while, like, the entire big cat enclosure of the zoo is running around outside. After a bit, Blake honked his horn and John came back out. Terry wasn't in there.

Blake finally joined him and went to clear the house. Smell inside was overwhelming, musky and fecal and heavy. The floor was covered in dirt and bursting garbage bags, and loud clanging and screaming could be heard from the front door. As the two guys made their way through the house, Blake found two monkeys and cages in the kitchen, along with a bear in a bird cage, one black leopard and two spotted leopards all caged,

all bashing themselves against the bars. I'm going to lose my shit. This is fucking horrible, those poor babies. Blake had some concerns that the house was booby-trapped, but after searching room by room, couldn't find anything. It wasn't until they got back into the patrol vehicle, driving by a ditch that John shouted at Blake.

Stop. I think Terry's down there. They got out of the car and said, saw the body of Terry Thompson lying in the scrubby grass at the bottom of the ditch. There was a gun near his body. He was bloody and the top of his head was missing. Over him stood a white tiger, gnawing on Thompson's head. As Blank and Moore watched, with growing horror, the tiger sank its teeth into Terry's neck and shook hard, tossing Terry's body this way and that.

A trash fire smoked and sputtered close to Terry's body. We don't know what exactly Terry was burning. We may never find out, but whatever secrets Terry Thompson had, he was willing to unleash hell on earth to protect it. This is just freaking bananas. This is a craziest story I ever heard. Mm-hmm. Both Terry and his wife Marion referred to their multitude of exotic animals as their kids.

But what kind of parent would steer their children into certain death to protect themselves? I think Terry viewed them as objects to collect rather. than living, breathing beings. It makes me fucking sick. Me too. The day before he died, Terry allegedly received a letter accusing Marion of cheating on him. She actually left him while he was in prison, but maybe in his mind she still belonged to him. He also apparently thought that it might have been her that ratted him out to the authorities about the guns, an accusation that has no basis, in fact.

When he got back from prison, all the animals had been switched around from the pens that they started in when he left, so Terry couldn't tell who was who. This seemed to upset him most of all. He told a friend, she can just have them all. I'm going to die. The friend worried, asked if Terry was sick. Terry just cryptically responded, no, but you'll know when I go. Another friend said that Terry told him he was thinking of killing Marion and then himself before he went to prison. I think it's interesting to look at the precipitating circumstances to Terry's actions here. He'd just gotten out of prison. His wife was leaving him. His weapons were taken from him, although clearly they'd missed at least one. And he was in financial straits. He had dozens of these animals to feed and not a dime to his name. It costs around $25 to $30 a day to feed one single lion, up to twice that to feed a tiger. And he had almost 50 of these animals. This guy was relying, I can't even stand. to say it, relying on roadkill and the generosity of neighbors whose livestock had passed away to feed his animals.

Ugh. I would consider Terry Thompson to have a similar psychological motivation as a family annihilator. Rather than admit that he'd failed and that he needed help, he'd rather destroy his life and the lives of every creature around him. Three days prior to this incident, two deputies predicted that something bad was going to happen on the farm. It's eerie how right they were.

Blake continued his drive to the bottom of the driveway, where Sheriff Matt Lutz was waiting for them. Lutz had actually been off for the day when the initial lion call came in, and he'd gotten right back in uniform and hustled over to the Thompson farm. He'd been trying to nab Thompson on animal cruelty charges for ages, and he was apprehensive about what they'd find on the farm. His initial assumption was that Terry had been mauled, and a couple of his animals had gotten loose afterward,

but of course that wasn't the case. After getting an idea of the scope of the disaster, Lutz immediately wanted to get the word out. Electric signs were put out on the road warning I-70, caution, wild animals, with a declaration to stay in their vehicles. Lutz also called in his best shooters. Detective Sergeant Todd Canneville was a hunter in a good shot and SWAT members Tony Angelo and J. Lawhorn, who were former Marines. Then he put out a call to the ex-executive.

The first was Dan Beatam, who is the director of animal management at the Wilds, which is a large, wonderful animal preserve in Ohio. It has 10,000 acres of land and is accredited by the American Zoological Association and the Zoological Association of America. I have to assume that there's like a fierce rivalry between the two, but I did not have time to go down that particular rabbit hole. Oh yeah, you know it's like west side story over there. The Wivesh. The Wiveshers, Wilds is also certified by American Humane. That is where those precious animals should have been, you freaking idiot.

Anyway, sorry. Dan, however, was underground at the Columbus Zoo at the polar bear exhibit. Then, let's call Dr. Barb Wolf, who at the time was a veterinarian at the Wilds and is a foremost expert in zoological medicine. She's currently employed by Colorado State University as an associate professor. Dr. Wolf heard about the situation in Zamesville,

and rushed to find Bied him. They both got in a car and sped towards Zanesville about an hour and a half away. Unfortunately, both sunset and a storm were coming, and they just didn't have time to wait for the experts. Lutz had to make a call. He let his team of three crack shots know that their orders were to go onto the farm

and shoot every animal they saw. And I'm sure many of you are upset by this and are wondering, like we did, why the police didn't try to use less lethal means to stop the animals, but a story from Jack Hanna, who's a world-famous wildlife expert who consulted on this case and as the director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, makes it clear why they couldn't have safely tranquilized any of the loose animals.

He recalled being present when a tiger had gotten loose at a zoo. The veterinarian on staff loaded a tranquilizer to stop the rampaging cat, and he struck true, but in response, the tiger just leapt across 18 feet and ebiscerated the dude. So, yeah, I guess they just didn't feel like they had a choice. It is a tragedy. And I mean that. Like, it's a tragedy. Yeah.

And like there was a kid's soccer game happening nearby and an apartment complex just across the highway, like from the farm. Like tranquilizers aren't instantly effective. And in order to use tranquilizers safely, they need to be meted out in accordance with the animal's weight. Like there weren't enough tranquilizers in Zanesville to knock out any of the animals. Yeah. I mean, it's just so many.

Like, I don't think they necessarily had enough manpower or enough medicine and enough tranquilizer guns. They just weren't remotely prepared for this. And this guy who owned these animals should have been the one who prepared for this. You know, he should have prepared for this instance. There should have been clear protocol. Yeah, 100%. If you're going to do this, but of course he didn't.

No. And you obviously mean, like, keep exotic animals, not kill yourself and release all the animals. But yeah, no, I mean, in case they got out is what I mean. And that's, and that's something I think that, like, in all of the articles I read about the case, like, everyone was talking about, like, nothing like this had ever happened before and nothing like this will probably ever happen again because of what happened here. Like, it was such a, it was such a tragedy. And Jack Hanna supported the sheriff in his decision here. I mean, I get it. I really do.

Like, as much as this just rips my heart out of my body, like to think of those kids playing. soccer right next to the, I mean, just you can't. You can't let hungry lions run at those kids. You can't. But it's a tragedy. Like I said, it's just a tragedy and it's unforgivable. And it's not their, it's not the cat's fault, right? Like, it's not the wolf's fault.

Of course not. They didn't ask to be in this situation, right? They're just an animal. Hell no. So, yeah, it's your, you said it. It's a tragedy. Yeah. The police set up a perimeter around.

the farm in order to prevent any animals from escaping. Canneville recalled, I think people were thinking we were hooping and hollering like a bunch of rednecks. This was a police operation. The first kill was that male lion standing in the pasture, downed by a single shot to the head. Then two tigers sprinted out from behind the barns and shot towards the men. They got within eight feet of the truck before they fell. Oh, God, it just hurt my heart so bad to listen to that. And lions and tigers, you know me, I'm a cat lady. And lions and tigers, they're just the most beautiful creatures on earth. They're just treasures.

Like if you've ever looked into like a tiger's eyes, it's just, they're just powerful, beautiful. It just kills me, man. I get why they had to do it. I'm not blaming them. I'm really not. But man, it kills me. No, we're blaming fucking Terry. Yeah, exactly.

Meanwhile, Sam Copchek was still hiding in his barn. It'd been hours at this point. And he was alarmed to hear the gunshots. Like he'd already heard some gunshots, but now it was like happening in quicker succession. And it was because you see, despite how calm she was and collected she was, his dear mother, Dolores, neglected to tell anyone that her son was still trapped in the barn. Thanks, Mom. Yeah. His cell phone had no service.

He had no idea it was happening, except for what he could see from the tack room window where he was hiding. Dolores, oh my God, girl. It took him about an hour, but Sam finally decided he was going home, and he sprinted from the barn to his house, not daring to look behind him to see if something with claws was chasing him. He made it, of course.

He and Red would live to fight another day. Some of the men at the perimeter radioed to let the team know about three big cats that were seen across the pasture. The plan was this. Tony Angelo would fire the first shot, then the others would fire safety shots to ensure that the animal was down. They found a lion first, and it survived their shots and ran off.

Then they fired at two other cats. Strangely, none of the men remember what they were. They managed to kill the cats and then pursued the lion who had died nearby. For an hour, they continued, killing about two dozen animals before the sun sank below the horizon. All of the men involved in this incident talk about it like men coming back from a war. Their stories are all laced with regret and pain. Cannibal said, I was sick shooting these animals because they didn't ask to be there, and, you know, I'm a cat person. Sergeant Blake recalled watching a tiger fall to gunfire in the headlights of the truck,

and he described it with such despair that it's hard to read. Chris Jones is like a phenomenal writer, and he captures it perfectly. Like, please fast forward a few seconds if you don't want to hear about it. It's really, really graphic. Yeah, it's upsetting. There's such beautiful animals, he says. And then the shots rang out. Blake watched a patch of fur like a leaf of paper caught in the wind,

blow clean off the tiger's back. One moment, that patch of fur was there, thick and orange, and then it was gone, grabbed by the coming storm and scattered across the grass like seeds. Now whose headlights caught a flash of the tiger's disrobed spine instead, a thick column of white stripped down to its core. Blake saw the architecture of a tiger in the instant before it collapsed. I just never seen anything like it in my life, he says. Blake says that the image of that tiger flashes before his eyes randomly when he least expects it. It's just devastating.

I genuinely don't know if I could do it. Like it might just have to kill me. I don't know if I could do it. I guess we don't know until we're there. Yeah. Because we do have a strong survival instinct. Mm-hmm. Deputy Mary and his team were one of the squads that set up a perimeter around the farm.

They had to shoot a wolf, two lions, and a tiger that had broken through the fences. When night fell, they used a thermal imaging camera to keep an eye on the perimeter. A huge hot animal came sprinting down the hill toward him. It didn't move like a cat, and with a start, he realized that it was an ugly. adult grizzly bear. Oh, holy shit. Like just the size of those things. Unreal.

Mary and his men fired and the bear fell. The sky was pretty naturally dark, clouds blocking any starlight or moonlight. The men on the farm needed extra batteries for the lights on their guns. They needed more ammunition. The fear was that there would be crossfire, but Sheriff Lutz decided that as long as the storm held back, they could continue. Lutz also wanted to try and recover Thompson's body. He'd called the coroner, but the coroner saw the choice between staying home, cozy, in bed, or reenacting a scene out of Jumanji and politely said, I'm okay. But can you take photos and collect blood samples and also recover as much as the body if you can?

Don't bring me just a bunch of bones, please. Real human flesh. I know, I know there's a tiger actively eating him, but like, just do your best. K-bting spy This freaking guy I can't blame him honestly No I'd be like yeah dude like no I'm not going out there Good luck Let's send a few more officers and detectives to help recover the body

They met with the men in the truck And they tried to track down the corpse It had been dragged into a ditch Behind the junked cars and the pens The men in the truck surrounded the detectives Who had nothing on them but rubber gloves and little baggies for samples. As they worked, they could hear some shuffling from a nearby structure.

Then they heard a roar. Oh, my God. This feels like a scene out of Jurassic Park. It's dark. It's getting ready to rain. A freaking maniac just let a bunch of apex predators that he'd been mistreating out of their enclosures. And now we have to do science.

I cannot even imagine. They didn't even get like Laura Dern and khaki shorts as a consolation prize. It sucks to be. them. Honestly, like Laura Dern and khaki shorts could solve, I think, like, a good 50% of the world's problems. I agree. Not 100%, but 50.

I think 50 is a good. It's solid 50. Absolutely. The group swiftly returned to the truck where the detective sat twiddling their thumbs while the hunters went back to investigate. As they passed to the pens, they saw a miracle. Or so they thought. Several of the big cats were still inside, despite.

their doors thrown wide open. These men took no pleasure in killing these animals. In fact, they tried to just close the doors to keep the animals inside. But then they noticed that Thompson had taken wirecutters to every enclosure. You motherfucker. I hate this guy. I hate him. Something interesting is that his friends

all said that, like, Terry was too lazy to do something like that. Like, he was dedicated to letting these animals go. Yeah. Just as one man went close the latch, a lioness leaped out of the hole in the fence, four feet away, snarling at the men. Just then a tiger flitted out of the barn and hid in the tall grass. When Todd Canavelle took aim at where he thought he saw the tip of an air and fired, the tiger leapt straight at them,

five yards, before falling back down and never getting back up. Now, for this next part, I really don't understand what they were thinking, but for some reason, Back at the truck, Sergeant Blake and the detectives decided to get out of the car. Oh, great idea. They were just standing there, like, shooting the shit and, like, in the headlights. Like, they could have just done that in the car, right? Like, I can't emphasize how dumb I think this is. Yeah.

So, because they're stupid, they were just friggin' standing there when a lion came running past them. One of the detectives who happened to grab a shotgun took a shot, hitting the lion's hind leg, while the others opened fire with their sidearms. What the hell were you thinking, right? Anyway, after handling their business, Canneville and his team fetched the detectives and they headed back to finish their work on the body, closing what was left of it into a body bag

and carrying it back to the truck. Their theory was this. Terry Thompson unlocked all the pens that held his animals, slicing through their cages with bolt cutters, which they found near his body, to be extra sure they could escape. He'd stuffed his. his pockets and clothes with chicken meat, possibly in an effort to get eaten by his pets.

Then he burned whatever secrets he had and stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger as his animals ran out all around him. By this point, Rain had started falling in earnest and Lutz started sending his guys home. Mary offered to stay on to hold the fort down back in town, and that night he caught a burglar. Like, geez, Mary, save some crime for the rest of us, eh? I'm obsessed with whatever is wrong with this guy. Okay. It's just a, it's got to be the, I hope it's the busiest day in his career. Like, if this is not the busiest day in your career, dude, you need to write a memoir like yesterday because, holy shit.

Now what we hear out of Zanesville, I don't know. Yeah, there's been a really big murder in Zanesville recently, right? The Tepe case, yeah. Yep. He sent Jay Lawhorn and a fresh deputy, Adam Swope, to monitor the farm. While they were keeping track of any animals that might still be loose, they noticed headlights stop at the bottom of the driveway. Methodically, through the mud on a side-by-side, they started heading toward the lights.

Before they could get there, though, the vehicle pulled out and sped away. They reported what they saw and told the other deputies to keep an eye out. This next part is so outrageous that if somebody wrote this into a movie, I'd say it was too much. There's already so much shit going on, but my God, we had to add on to to it. Obviously, word traveled fast about the chaos on Terry Thompson's farm. And the news found a group of poker buddies getting bored of playing cards at about 11 p.m. Like any good rubberneckers, they decided to take a trip out to the farm. I mean, it was only like 25 miles away. To a rural person, that might as well be next door. So they loaded up a Jeep and headed toward the address.

When they arrived, they found a dead lion in the Thompson's driveway. And they decided to keep it. To stuff or turn into a rug. Classy. So the five friends lifted this lion into the back of their Jeep Cherokee and took off. Not long after, a reporter saw them and started filming the vehicle because the poor lion's head was hanging out of the back. These prize-winning morons got maybe a hundred yards away before they got stopped by the cops and were told that, under no circumstances were they to steal a freaking lion corpse for the love of, like, how? Do you not know this already?

Idiot. A deputy followed them when they drove back to the Thompson farm and watched as these Yehus struggled to get this lion out of the Jeep. The five friends, aged from 17 to 21, were charged with misdemeanor theft. And I feel like if you steal a lion, it should be a felony. I mean, I just feel like that should be a felony. That's crazy that that was a misdemeanor. So Swope and Lawhorn decided that they needed to start collecting.

all the carcasses in one place. It took them hours, but eventually they were able to collect 21 corpses, piling them up in front of the house. Jack Hanna would later say that it looked like Noah's Ark had wrecked right there on the Thompson Farm. By the time the sun rose, 48 animals were killed by gunfire, and two of them, a pair of monkeys, were eaten by other creatures. The animals in the house, three leopards, the bear, and the two monkeys were the only ones to survive, and only because they were locked away. They tried to save one tiger, but were unable to tranquilize it safely.

All in all, 18 tigers, 17 lions, six black bears, three mountain lions, two grizzly bears, two wolves, a macaque monkey, and a baboon,

died on Terry Thompson's farm. They were all buried there, too, by the way. Yeah, I'm not sure how to feel about that. I think I hate it. I don't know what you would do with their bodies, but I hate that they have. to be interred where all this awful stuff happened to them. I just hate that.

This is a grim story, y'all, and I'm not sure there's a real lesson here. Marion Thompson, after over a year of legal battles, was awarded custody of the five surviving animals who had been taken to the Columbus Zoo for care. One of the leopards died in a freak accident at the zoo, but the rest were returned to Marion. Ohio has changed their laws regarding the purchase and ownership of exotic animal sense but only for new purchases. Any animal purchase before the ban is allowed to stay.

I guess the lesson is this. Don't let the things you love consume you or they might actually take a bite out of you. And you might deserve it. Before we go, don't forget about our true crime cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8th through 12, 27. If you want to come on vacation with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, true crime garage, sinister hood, no sleep, scared to death, here's what you got to do. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 13th. You can pay for your cabin all at once if you want, but you can also set up a payment plan.

You know, it's a year away. And you can and should go ahead and get your discount code now because you can use it for $100 off your cabin and a private meet and greet with us, which is just a fancy way of saying we're going to like get drinks and obsess over crime stories. Oh, yeah. Get to know each other. It's going to be really fun. We fully expect this cruise to sell out fast. The last one did.

This one's probably going to sell out even faster. So go to crimewaveatc.com slash campfire to get your discount code. So that was a wild one, right? Campers? Literally a wild one. You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our

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