The True Story Behind Cocaine Bear

Now that the movie Cocaine Bear is being promoted as "based on a true story," people are clamoring for the real account. You can read the story of the drug dealer, Andrew C. Thorton II, at Wikipedia or in the book The Bluegrass Conspiracy. Thorton's last adventure was also the basis for a storyline in the TV series Justified.

But what about the bear? I realized that our previous post from years ago is suffering from link rot, so you might wonder how the bear came to be stuffed and displayed at Ky for Ky's Fun Mall. The bear, affectionately named Pablo EscoBear after the notorious drug lord, didn't leave any documentation of its life outside of eating 75 pounds of cocaine. However, his death was just the beginning of a wild story that involves a necropsy, taxidermy, Las Vegas, Waylon Jennings, a traditional Chinese medicine shop, theft, and wildfire. Read the whole crazy story at Ky for Ky.  -via Metafilter