WHITE COUNTY, Ga. — A retired Georgia Bureau of Investigation drug agent is debunking a new movie, about a bear that goes on a rampage after eating cocaine dropped from a smuggler’s plane.
The movie is loosely based on a bear, found dead in the North Georgia woods.
Channel 2′s Tom Regan went to White County on Monday to get the real story behind “Cocaine Bear.”
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“A hunter found a black bear that was decomposed, along with a parachute, a duffle bag that was empty with white powder in the duffle,” retired GBI Special Agent in Charge Fran Wiley said.
Wiley said back in December 1985, a drug smuggler named Andrew Thornton and a partner were flying back from Columbia with a large amount of cocaine.
She said the pair began dumping cocaine from their plane while being followed by federal law enforcement agents.
‘I think we recovered about 220 pounds that he dumped in Georgia,” Wiley said.
She said the state medical examiner tested the bear and found just 3 grams of cocaine in his system and that the drug killed the animal.
“He may have eaten more than that, but that’s what we found in his system,” Wiley said.
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Wiley believes the bag that the bear discovered contained 75 pounds of cocaine, and that someone took the remaining amount after the bear died.
In the movie, the bear is depicted as gorging on kilos of cocaine, and then going on a killing rampage in a town.
Wiley said the real bear had no encounters with people after consuming the cocaine.
“Would a bear go on a rampage while high on cocaine? He would have probably died from heart failure,” Wiley said.
The smuggler died after his parachute failed to deploy when he jumped off the plane over Knoxville.
There’s no word on what happened to his partner.
Wiley said she has no plans to see the movie.
“No, I have better things to do with my $20,” Wiley said.
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Wiley says a store in Lexington, Kentucky claims to have the cocaine bear...a stuffed version.
She says like the movie, it’s a cash-making gimmick.
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