The story of Pablo “EscoBear”: the bear who ate 20 kilos of cocaine and became a myth

In 1985, when police in Georgia, United States, found the lifeless body of the bear later named Pablo EscoOrsothe cause of his death was as strange as it was unmistakable: a cocaine overdose.

The bear was found next to a canvas bag filled with more than twenty kilos of cocaine. before being thrown from a drug trafficker’s plane.

And the animal’s corpse had an incredible journey.

The story of the bear who died from a cocaine overdose

September 11, 1985an elderly Kentucky man named Fred Myers woke up to find a dead man in his driveway.

As if this wasn’t strange enough, the deceased man was wearing a bulletproof vest, Gucci loafers, night vision gogglesa large backpack and a parachute.

When the police arrived and investigated further, discovered he also had two guns, a pair of knives, $4,500 in cash, rope and food.

And what was in the dead man’s backpack? About $15 million in cocaine.

Police assumed the man had jumped from a plane and died when his parachute ruptured. The deceased has been identified as Andrew Thorntonformer narcotics agent and lawyer.

That whole career happened before he became a drug trafficker. and working for a drug trafficking ring in Kentucky known as “The Company”.

Thornton died, but created another unexpected victim: a large black bear which known colloquially as Pablo EscoOrso or, more simply, Cocaine bear.

Pablo EscoBear: the bear accidentally addicted to cocaine

About three months after Thornton’s death, the black bear was found dead in the Chattahoochee National Forest.in Georgia, the same forest where the plane crashed.

The animal was surrounded by 40 empty packages that had been opened, all containing cocaine.

Investigators deduced that the packages were filled with drugs before the bear took them. Moreover, they assumed it Thornton decided to throw the packages from the plane before it crashed, because he was very busy.

He allegedly intended to go and retrieve the packages once he was safely on land. However, Even if he had survived the jump, he would have discovered that the bear had simply eaten the cocaine. And the drug trafficker would also have had a tragic end.

To confirm the facts with the bear, His body was sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, where it was cut open and his stomach examined.

The medical examiner who performed the procedure would then note his findings: his stomach was literally full of cocaine.

There is no mammal on the planet that could survive something like this. In fact he was diagnosed Cerebral hemorrhage, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, heart failure and stroke. All at the same time, I mean, his body exploded.

The Cocaine Bear and the “Bluegrass Conspiracy”

News of the bear’s unusual fate was reported by U.S. media and quickly became part of the legend surrounding Thornton, Kentucky. A story known as The bluegrass conspiracy.

The Bear himself was jokingly nicknamed by the newspapers “Pablo EscoOrso“, in honor of the Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobarwho, at the height of his cartel, It was estimated that it supplied more than 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

This may have been the last time anyone heard of Cocaine Bear, If it weren’t for an entity known as Kentucky for Kentucky who, in 2015, decided the bear was part of the state’s treasured history and was determined to track down what had happened to his body.

What they discovered was that, after an overdose of enough cocaine to kill an elephant, the corpse of Pablo EscoBear has embarked on a sinister adventure.

Tracers found that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner revealed, after the autopsy, the body of the animal to a friend who dedicated himself to taxidermy.

This man stuffed the bear and then donated it to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, which has it on display in its visitor center.

The sad end of Pablo EscoBear’s corpse in Las Vegas

In the early 1990s, a forest fire forced National Recreation Area staff to temporarily move the bear to a warehouse to keep it in good condition.

Then, after only a month in stock, He was kidnapped by an unknown thief who sold him to a pawn shop.

The owner of the pawn shop, He sold it to country musician, Waylon Jennings.who gave it to a friend of his who lived in Las Vegas, a certain Ron Thompson, a well-known drug dealer and party organizer in Sin City.

Thompson, said to have been an associate of Andrew Thornton at the time of drug dealing, He displayed the bear in his giant mansion outside Las Vegas until 2009, when he died.

According to those close to him, Thompson told him about Pablo EscoBear as a confidant and He was convinced that the embalmed body worked miracles.

The fate of the only bear in the world who died from a cocaine overdose is currently unknown. What is certain is that he has become a myth, at least in Las Vegas, thanks to Thompson’s stories.