‘Acute cocaine intoxication.’ How does the real cocaine bear’s story compare to the movie?

“Cocaine Bear,” the horror/comedy directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Keri Russell and O’Shea Jackson Jr., is scheduled for release by Universal Pictures Feb. 24, and promotional materials say the film is “inspired by true events.”

Trailers for the movie seem to indicate the film is taking some creative liberties, as the bear appears to embark on a drug-fueled rampage.

So what’s the truth about this storied bear?

Was there a real ‘cocaine bear?’

Yes.

Did it attack multiple people after ingesting cocaine?

No. Though the trailer for the “Cocaine Bear” movie depicts the bear engaged in attacks on various hapless people it encounters, the actual bear was found dead.

The New York Times reported a story headlined “Cocaine and a Dead Bear” on Dec. 23, 1985. The short article stated that “a 175-pound black bear apparently died of an overdose of cocaine after discovering a batch of the drug, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said today.”

The newspaper said the bear had been found several days before in northern Georgia “among 40 opened plastic containers with traces of cocaine.”

“The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine and OD’d,” Gary Garner, a GBI drug agent at the time, said in an Associated Press article that ran in the Herald-Leader the same day. “There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide.”

Investigators thought the bear, which was found in Fannin County, Ga., just south of the Tennessee border, had been dead for about four weeks.

The following day, the Associated Press reported that the dead bear had initially been found by a hunter about three weeks earlier.

“The hunter told a friend about the animal, and word slowly spread to a state game and fish division employee who finally informed the GBI,” the AP reported.

The AP reported in the 1985 article that the bear’s body was found on a hillside near an empty duffel bag thought to have had cocaine in it, and investigators were interested in talking with the hunter, who had not been identified.

How did the bear get the cocaine?

The cocaine, according to the New York Times, was apparently dropped from a plane by convicted drug smuggler Andrew Thornton II, “because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting.”

Thornton was a former Lexington narcotics officer turned drug smuggler who died when his parachute failed to open over Knoxville, Tenn., on Sept. 11, 1985.

When he died, Thornton, 40, was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying millions of dollars worth of cocaine in bags, along with two pistols, night vision equipment, more than $4,500 in cash and other items.

The AP reported that, soon after Thornton’s death, three more duffel bags containing 218 pounds of cocaine were found at a site within 100 yards of where the dead bear was later discovered. On Nov. 5, about a month and a half before the bear’s body was found, a fourth bag with 75 pounds of cocaine was found, according to the AP.

How much cocaine did the bear eat?

Georgia’s chief medical examiner at the time, Dr. Kenneth Alonso, told the AP that “an autopsy revealed that the bear absorbed only three or four grams of cocaine into its blood stream, although it may have eaten more.”

Alonso said in an AP article that appeared in the Herald-Leader on Dec. 24, 1985 that the bear probably died within 20 to 30 minutes of ingesting the cocaine. The report said the state medical examiner had confirmed that the bear died of “acute cocaine intoxication.”

″The question is: What happened to that duffel bag?″ Alonso said. ″The bear does not account for the full duffel bag.″

Garner, the drug agent, speculated in the article that someone might have found and taken the rest of the drugs.

The Herald-Leader ran an editorial Dec. 24, 1985, lamenting the bear’s fate. It reads:

“Pity the poor creatures of the Georgia woods.

“The news over the weekend brought word that a 150-pound bear died of an overdose after stumbling onto a cache of cocaine in North Georgia. Authorities believe the cocaine was left over from a drop made by Lexington narcotics smuggler Drew Thornton before he died earlier this year.

“Time was when other animals and the whims of nature were the only enemies of the animals who lived in the Appalachian forests. Then along came man, first with a series of increasingly lethal weapons and later with plows, pavement and the other blessings of civilization.

“Now, as if that weren’t enough, the wildlife in the area must contend with lethal drugs dropped from the sky. One imagines the ill-fated bear wondering what on earth was happening to him. The rest of us might ask the same question about a world in which not even a bear in the woods is safe from the dangers of the drug trade.”

Does KY for KY have the taxidermy remains of the cocaine bear?

Well, here’s what we know about that.

Kentucky for Kentucky made a lengthy blog post in August 2015 claiming to have found and acquired the taxidermy remains of “cocaine bear,” and there is a taxidermy bear on display at the business’ Kentucky Fun Mall store on Bryan Avenue that is labeled as the “cocaine bear.”

The company holds several registered trademarks for “Cocaine Bear,” and it sells merchandise ranging from shirts and hats to jigsaw puzzles and snow globes.

Fran Wiley, who worked the bear’s case for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the carcass was in such poor condition, there would not have been much to preserve with taxidermy.

“There was not enough of a bear to be taxidermied, because it had been in the woods for a lengthy period of time,” she said, adding later that what agents found was like “a bear rug without hair.”

A Herald-Leader reporter was unable to verify Kentucky for Kentucky’s story about obtaining the bear.

When asked about it, Kentucky for Kentucky responded in a statement reiterating that the shop has the bear.

“Cocaine Bear is real! Before we searched for Cocaine Bear’s stuffed remains, he was a forgotten footnote in the story of the Bluegrass Conspiracy,” Kentucky for Kentucky said in its statement. “His demise is now well documented, and his mythologized final hours are about to hit the silver screen, but post-death, his story gets even weirder and more convoluted.

“In 2015 we tracked down the long-lost taxidermied Bear and brought him to the KY for KY Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky, to share his legend and what we learned about his post-overdose provenance.”

Kentucky for Kentucky said the bear is visited by thousands of people every month and is “not just a roadside attraction.”

“He’s also a city mascot, a heartwarming community builder, and a warning to all the dangers of drugs,” Kentucky for Kentucky said. “We trademarked his name and likeness as part of our guardianship, popularizing him as a character. You can visit Cocaine Bear free of charge during opening hours. We hope that you do.”

The company says on its website that it began the journey that led it to obtain the taxidermy bear when someone called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, where “the legend of cocaine bear was still fresh in the minds of everyone who worked there, and they were able to put us in touch with the retired medical examiner who performed the bear’s necropsy.”

The Herald-Leader contacted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation but was not able to get any information about the retired medical examiner, who Kentucky for Kentucky did not name. In response to an open records request, the GBI responded that no records related to the bear could be located.

Kentucky for Kentucky says the medical examiner had the bear preserved by a taxidermist and donated it to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.

Wiley, however, said the remains probably would have been destroyed.

“I don’t think anyone in our lab would’ve ever taken it and sold it,” she said.

Kentucky for Kentucky’s blog post says the store owners called the recreation area and learned that the bear had been put in storage because of an approaching wildfire, and that it disappeared soon after.

A reporter who called the recreation area was unable to verify that information.

Kentucky for Kentucky says court documents indicate that a Nashville pawn shop owner, who they do not name, sold the bear to Waylon Jennings, who gave it to a man identified in the blog post as Ron Thompson, a “Kentucky prince turned Vegas hustler.”

The Kentucky for Kentucky blog post states that Thompson’s estate was sold at auction by Nellis Auction House in Nevada after he died in 2009, and that the auction house sent them a manifest from the sale.

Nellis Auction House told the Herald-Leader in March 2021 that the auction house was Las Vegas Auction in 2009 and was under different ownership.

Kentucky for Kentucky says a man named Zhu T’ang, of Reno, Nev., bought the bear, and that his wife gave it to Kentucky for Kentucky. A records search for Zhu T’ang did not return anyone by that name in Reno.

Erin Chandler said her father, the late Dan Chandler, who was the son of former Kentucky Gov. A.B. “Happy” Chandler and worked as a Las Vegas casino host, was initially named on Kentucky for Kentucky’s website as a previous owner of the taxidermy bear.

“My dad never had a stuffed bear in a storage unit, so I called them,” Erin Chandler said in an interview.

She said a representative of the company apologized and “said that they’d gone too far.” She said the company changed her father’s name in its blog post. Apparently, that is where the mention of “Ron Thompson” comes from.

Chandler, a Versailles writer, said she has recently finished a book that she says will “debunk” much of what was published in “The Bluegrass Conspiracy,” and she said a documentary is in the works as well. She’s currently seeking a publisher for her manuscript, which she said has the working title “Bluegrass Sons.”

She said she’s concerned that misinformation has been spread over the years regarding not only the bear but also the people involved in the case, and she wants to set the record straight.

“It’s my understanding that it’s BS,” Chandler said of Kentucky for Kentucky’s story about the bear. “It doesn’t matter to me whether they have it or not. I think it’s just tacky, and I think it’s dishonest.”