Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 53: Pet or Predator: The Deadly Consequences of Keeping Exotic Animals

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

What happens when a man tries to keep one of the deadliest creatures on the planet as a pet? Or when an Ohio man who has kept over 50 Lions in cages in his backyard decides he wants to unleash them on the town? Today, we're talking about the deadly consequences of people trying to keep wild animals as pets.  Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. Hurry! We'll be archiving the $3 starting February 1st and adding a new after-show called "Footnotes" that you wont want to miss! Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. We have a monthly newsletter now! Be sure to sign up for updates and more. This episode is brought to you by Apostrophe, an online platform that provides access to an expert dermatology team. Get your first visit for only five dollars at Apostrophe.com/HSP when you use our code: HSP. That’s a savings of fifteen dollars! This code is only available to our listeners. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp. Celebrate the progress you’ve already made. Visit BetterHelp.com/staycurious today to get 10% off your first month. Heart Starts Pounding is written and Produced by Kaelyn Moore

There are a lot of grandiose sayings about love. Love makes the world go round. Love is all you need. Love conquers all. There's this idea that if you have love, you don't need anything else. It's this magical cure-all, a superpower. Well, my dearest listeners, I can tell you one thing that love cannot do. It cannot, by itself, domesticate a wild animal.

But for some reason, people truly believe that the power of love is enough to take a wild animal and turn it into a pet. Like in Beauty and the Beast, how Belle's compassion and truly endless patience transforms a monster into a gentle prince. Well, pack it up Walt Disney, because that's not how it works. I want to start with a story you may be familiar with. Maybe you've seen the video that made its rounds on social media a few years ago. It's a video of two men being led into the African savannah to visit a lion they once raised in the UK.

Nervously, they wait as the lion, named Christian, slowly approaches them. Will he remember them? Or will he attack? And then in one of the sweetest moments truly ever captured on camera, Christian the lion recognizes his old owners and leaps towards them, jumping all over them, forgetting he's not a house cat. It's a cute story.

I mean, I understand why the video has tens of millions of views. It's proof that love really is all you need. Even the largest, most vicious predator on the planet can be tamed by human affection. Well, not really. When I first saw that video, I was skeptical at best. So I did some digging. And there's a bit more to that story than meets the eye. There's parts that didn't make it into the YouTube cut.

Like how do two normal guys in London even end up with a lion. Well, back in the day, Harrods, one of the most famous department stores in London, used to sell exotic animals. Starting in 1917, the store had a pet kingdom section where shoppers could pick up a panther or tiger alongside their coats and shoes. Owning exotic pets was, and to some extent still is, a symbol of wealth.

The store also offered alligators, elephants, and lemurs among other animals. But John Rendell and Ace Work were not exorbitantly wealthy men. They owned a furniture store in London and they were able to get together what would be £3,000 today to purchase a lion that they named Christian. There were a few problems with this. The first being, where do they put a lion? Lions need space, which is expensive in London. So, Christian mostly lived in their apartment and the basement of the furniture shop.

They would sometimes take him to a fenced in field to play, but as he got bigger and stronger, he'd get more rowdy. He started playing too hard, to the point where Ace and John would have to stand still, arms at their sides with their eyes turned down to stop Christian from getting too aggressive. This tactic worked, but it was becoming clear that a lion was not a good pet. So they contacted a man named George Adamson who worked at reintroducing lions into the wild in Kenya and George agreed to help Christian. But again, there were issues with this.

Christian was a fifth generation lion born in captivity. His parents were both born in a zoo. Their parents were born in a zoo and so on. Lions learned survival skills from their mothers and Christian had no role model on how to survive in the wild. He also was raised around humans, and this is one of the worst possible things you can do to a lion. Lions need to be suspicious of humans. It's what helps them not be poached. Adamson worried that Christian was going to be an easy target. He would most likely approach a poacher out of curiosity.

But even still, Adamson brought Christian into the Savannah of Kenya and watched as he disappeared towards a group of lions. And then, a year later, John and Ace contacted him wanting to see how their old friend was doing. Adamson seemed hesitant about this meeting. Christian was still out there in the savannah, but he told the two men that the lion might not recognize them, so they needed to tread with caution. I mean, I get that.

I once had a cat for 10 years and there were some days I swore it was like she had never seen me before. Cats are just like that. But Adamson did have good news for John and Ace. He had been keeping track of Christian and insisted the lion was doing incredibly well. He had immediately integrated with the other lions, even becoming the leader of his pride. It helped that he was about 500 pounds, making him much larger than most other lions.

It seemed that his innate survival skills awoke once he was released into Kenya. The men all made the hours-long trek into the savannah when they finally found Christian with his pride. After a few hours of luring him towards his former owners, the lion saw them and ran to be reunited, jumping all over them as if he were a kitten. And that's where we get that amazing YouTube video. But this, I will say, seems to be an anomaly. You never know how a wild animal is going to

behave in these situations, and I would argue that the two men were actually incredibly lucky. In 2020, a South African conservationist named Wes Matheson was killed by lions that he had hand reared. He was out for a walk with two white lionesses that he had been raising since birth when they attacked him out of nowhere. But the story of Christian takes a little bit of a bitter turn.

Shortly after the last reunion he had with his former owners in 1973, Christian stopped getting along with the other lions. He was often involved in fights and would spend most of his time by himself. He was often involved in fights and would spend most of his time by himself. He was last spotted in 1973, wandering off alone towards Maru National Park. Many believe he was ultimately killed by poachers, potentially preferring humans over other lions. Adamson never gave up on Christian though.

For the rest of his life, he kept an eye out for the lion and he swore some nights that he could still hear his roar echoing throughout the savannah. But he never saw Christian again. And Adamson was tragically murdered by bandits in 1989. This all goes to say that wild animals need more than just love. And in today's episode, I want to take you with me down the rabbit hole I explored after I saw the Christian the Lion video all those years ago.

Stories of people who owned exotic animals, and they're often disastrous end results. And just a heads up, Christian the Lion is going to sound like a happy ending compared to the other ones I'm going to get into. So as always, listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. So I don't know about you guys, but this has been a topic that I've always been morbidly

curious about. Maybe it was when Tiger King exploded in popularity that I really started to look into it. The cast of characters that got involved with the buying and selling of exotic animals was so strange and enticing, no wonder we couldn't stop watching. And this might be controversial, so feel free to fight me in the comments,

but I don't think Carol Baskin did anything wrong. I am a Carol Baskin apologist. She just wanted to help those tigers, and her husband was found alive, so I have to stop there because I'll get too passionate about it. But this episode is about the kind of people who buy exotic and wild animals, and what happens to them when they do. And spoiler alert, it typically doesn't end well. As always, if you're listening to the ad-supported version of the show, thank you so much. Our sponsors make the show possible.

And if you're a member of the Rogue Detecting Society listening over on Patreon, thank you to you as well. And if you'd like to start listening on Patreon, remember, as of February 1st, the lowest tier will be archived. Also, this Friday, our brand new $10 tier will be getting a Heart Starts Pounding Footnotes episode where I talk with our producer about this episode and tell some of the stories that wouldn't fit.

Footnotes is going to be a weekly show at the new tier. There will be some other perks too, so make sure you check out the Patreon page for more info. The link is in the show notes. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and when we get back, I'm going to dive into a story about a man who thought he could team one of the most terrifying animals on the planet. This episode is brought to you by apostrophe. It can be really easy to focus on the negative, especially when your skin is bad.

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at apostrophe.com slash hsp when you use our code HSP. That's a saving of $15. This code is only available to our listeners. To get started, just go to apostrophe.com slash hsp and click get started. Then use our code, hsp at signup and you'll get your first visit for only $5. Thank you to apostrophe for sponsoring this episode. Marius L's never intended to adopt a hippo. I imagine most people don't. But when there was a flood in Free State,

South Africa in the mid-2000s, he came upon a five-month-old hippo struggling to get free in a rushing river. If Marius didn't intervene, surely the baby hippo would die. And with no adult hippos around to intervene, Marius did what I think most people would do. And he scooped up the hippo,

which was still small enough to be carried by an adult man, though just barely. But something changed in him once he got the animal free. According to Marius, he felt an immediate bond with the creature, as if it acknowledged that the man holding him was his savior, his friend. And so, he named the little guy Humphrey, put him in the car, and drove him out to a farm that he owned. A farm that contained other wild animals, like a giraffe and a rhino. And so maybe this is where Marius got the idea that a hippo would be no different. Plus Humphrey was just a baby now

and he hardly looked like a predator. His eyes were big and glossy and they would look around at everything with that baby-like curiosity. He also didn't have any teeth yet. Instead, his mouth was soft and gummy. It was so cute when he'd walk over and chomp down on someone's leg.

It didn't look like he was, you know, practicing murder. Humphrey started growing really fast. A male hippo will grow on average to be about 1,500 kilograms or 3,300 pounds over the course of about 25 years or half of its lifespan. That's the size of a compact SUV. And being that big doesn't really slow them down. They can run up to 30 kilometers an hour or 19 miles an hour over short

distances. The impact of being hit by one might feel similar to getting mowed down by a car full of kids heading to soccer practice. But I have the feeling you wouldn't be conscious long enough to make that comparison. Marius believed that despite how fast Humphrey was growing, he had enough space to keep the hippo happy. Humphrey spent a lot of his time in a small lake that was on the property. He loved his life, his owner

insisted, as he continued to get closer and closer to the animal, even going so far as jovially brushing Humphrey's teeth once his razor sharp front fangs and back molars came in. One could say that Marius didn't know the risks of raising Humphrey, though that would be a stretch. At the end of the day, hippos don't care about people, and they're not nice. They're responsible for the brutal deaths of 500 people a year, more than lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos, and buffaloes combined. Even if Marius was aware of that shocking statistic, which I fully believe he was,

he clearly ignored it. A famous photo of him in Humphrey shows Marius on the hippos' back as he lounges in the lake, riding him like a horse and wearing a large smile. An interviewer once asked Marius about that silly pose and he jokingly said that when Humphrey was tired of Marius riding on his back, he would just buck him off like a horse. My guy. Maybe if that was the only concerning behavior

that Humphrey was exhibiting, I would forgive the hippo writing. But as the days went by and he got bigger and stronger, his behavior became more aggressive. One day in late 2010, a journalist went to Marius's exotic animal enclosure to talk with him and get some footage of him in Humphrey, who was five years old at this point. In the footage, you can see Marius in the water trying to mount a submerged Humphrey,

only to be thrown off. He emerges from the lake laughing as if this was a game the two of them played. The day itself went pretty smoothly, until the very end. I imagine Humphrey was annoyed after a full day of Marius playing games with him and trying to ride him for photo ops. But who's really to say what's going through a hippo's mind? All we know is that at one point, Humphrey lasered in on Marius's teenage nephew, Johann. Johann remembers laughing uncomfortably as Humphrey came to the edge of the water and started staring at him, angrily. So Johann backed away slowly, not knowing what else to do.

way slowly, not knowing what else to do. Maybe if he moved slowly enough, Humphrey wouldn't be able to see him, like a T-Rex. And it seemed to be working. Johann crept towards the high grass. Soon he should be able to duck behind it and be hidden. But then, all of a sudden, Humphrey starts running at him, full speed, hitting him with enough force to knock him 10 feet back. Johann described it like getting hit by a car. He tried to get up, but it wasn't over for Humphrey, who chased after the boy he just knocked a few feet away and clamped down on his pelvis and leg, shattering the bone. Marius ran over when he heard the screams and Humphrey eventually backed off, retreating

back into the water to be left alone. Ultimately, Johann's organs were only missed by a small margin, and it was a miracle he left the hospital with only permanent leg injuries, and not something worse. But Humphrey's bad behavior continued. There was the time that an older man and his grandson were canoeing down a river near Marius' farm. The hippo had escaped and made it into the river. And since hippos actually run underwater, they don't swim, Humphrey charged at the duo in their canoes and forced them out of the river. He then continued chasing them on dry land until they were forced up

a tree. The grandfather thought that Humphrey would give up trying to get them after a few minutes, but they were stuck in that tree for hours. It wasn't until Marius lured Humphrey away with an apple that the two were finally able to come down. This was around the time that Humphrey also started killing other animals on the farm. One time he even got onto a golf course and chased some golfers. Friends and family started warning Marius that keeping Humphrey around was a bad idea, but he just wouldn't be swayed. He swore that the sound of his voice

calmed the hippo down enough to no longer be aggressive. It was nearly impossible that he would ever be attacked, he claimed. It's nearly impossible that he would ever be attacked, he claimed. But then, on November 13, 2011, just a year after Humphrey attacked his nephew, paramedics were called to Marius' farm. Someone thought they could see a body floating in the small lake on the property and wanted someone to come check it out. When emergency services arrived, they found Marius floating in the lake dead.

He had been bitten badly by Humphrey and then dragged into the water where he was there for an indeterminate amount of time. It's believed that the attack actually happened the day before. Marius used to brag that while most people had only ever bonded with cats and dogs, he had bonded with one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. Perhaps though, he should have taken a page

out of Steve Irwin's book. In 2006, when Steve Irwin was filming a documentary, he and his crew stumbled upon two male hippos in the wilderness. Steve, who was an avid animal lover, one that wasn't afraid to hold poisonous animals or get face to face with crocodiles, immediately turned around at the site of the hippos

and ran away screaming, "'I don't want anything to do with those guys. And if Steve Irwin wouldn't pet it, maybe we shouldn't either. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to tell you the story of a man who was hoarding big cats and other wild animals, and what happened when he decided to let them all out. Have you ever stopped to wonder just how close you've come to danger without even realizing it?

Every single day we encounter countless people on the street in the grocery store at the gym, never truly knowing who they are or what they're capable of. True story, one time I was hosting a college radio station and a random man locked himself in the booth with me. He started yelling at me that he was a prophet. He didn't even go to my college, he just somehow got in the booth. You really don't know what people are capable of.

But what if one of those seemingly ordinary people was hiding a dark secret? What if they had done something unthinkable or were planning to, like lock themselves in the booth with you and scream about knowing how the world was going to end? The Minds of Madness is a weekly true crime podcast that dives deep into the criminal psyche covering the most shocking and disturbing cases you've ever heard from all over the world. We're talking about ordinary people who do the most unthinkable things,

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well as survivors who fought for justice. Whether you're listening on your morning commute or during your evening jog, the Minds of Madness will completely immerse you in the world of true crime. With gripping stories, insightful analysis, and unforgettable survivors' accounts, the Minds of Madness has everything you need to satisfy your darkest cravings. The Minds of Madness is available wherever you get your podcasts. Or visit mindsofmadnesspodcast.com for more information. On October 18th, 2011, at around 5 p.m.,

Sam Kopchak walked outside to tend to his horse, a half-Arabian pinto named Red. He shared a home in Zanesville, Ohio with his 84-year-old mother. And this was part of his evening routine. Go out and feed his horse before sundown, then come inside and have dinner with his mother. But tonight, something strange was up. When he got outside, he could tell that red seemed anxious. He had run over to a far corner of the fields and was nervously pacing.

Sam tried to lure red over with some food, but whatever was stressing the horse out was more important than his need to eat. He wouldn't budge. That was strange, Sam thought. But then he looked over to the fence where his neighbor Terry's property butted up against his.

And there, Terry's horses were doing the exact same thing. They were all pacing around, trying to get as far over as they could. It looked like they would just run away if the fence weren't there. Something was definitely not right. This only happened when there was some kind of threat in the area. And just as Sam has that thought, out of the corner of his eye,

he sees a dark shadow taking huge labored steps towards the horses, a black bear. Sam jumps into action. There were plenty of bears in the area and he was ready for a sighting like this. He just wanted to put red in the barn as fast as he could and then call his neighbor Terry and tell him to get his horses inside as well.

He goes over to get red, trying not to move too quickly and draw attention to himself. When he sees that the bear is not alone, there's something else with it. Just as big as the bear, no, wait, bigger. And lighter in color, blondish. Sam squints and he can't believe his eyes. It's a lion.

He starts moving a lot faster and he's able to get inside of the barn with red. But he watches as the lion stalks him the whole time with its eyes, waiting for him to stumble or turn his back. Once he's in there, he uses the telephone he installed in the barn to call his mother. Don't come outside, he says. One of Terry's cats got out. By the time Sam and his mom called 911, the police were already headed over to the property of Sam's neighbor, Terry Thompson. Sam had known for some time that Terry was collecting exotic animals. He just didn't have an idea of what that looked like. Sometimes when he was out feeding his horse at night, he would hear a deep guttural roar. But he never saw any of the big cats up close.

So he figured Terry was doing a good job of keeping them secure. He also didn't really have an idea of how many cats there were, but it sounded like there were multiple, maybe four or five. The officer heading over to Terry's property was Sergeant Steve Blake. He had been told that Sam had seen a lion in the area. But there was also a call that came into 911, claiming that there was a panther or some other sort of big cat lurking in the woods near a family's house.

Another caller claimed they saw wolves. Word was spreading throughout the tight-knit community that it wasn't safe to be outside. But Sergeant Blake wondered if the news made it to the Outdoor Boys soccer game that was happening just down the road. As Blake approached Terry's house, he honked his horn. But no one came outside. He started to worry.

What if Terry had been out feeding the animals and something happened to him? What if some of them got out? Blake, like Sam, knew that Terry had a collection of big cats. It was not a very well-kept secret in town, but they were in Ohio. And at the time, Ohio had almost no laws around the ownership and sale of wild animals.

So Blake had never actually seen Terry's collection. He didn't know what he was walking into. All he knew was to keep his weapon close. He got out of his car at the top of the driveway where he found John Moore, a caretaker who helped Terry feed his animals. John looked pale as a ghost. He told Blake he needed to show him something.

And together, they went to the back of Terry's property. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Dozens of big cages in Terry's backyard that once held lions, tigers, and other animals were torn open as if someone had intentionally cut the animals out. The only animals remaining were two monkeys and a dog still in their cages. How many animals are you missing? Blake asked, afraid to hear the answer.

John swallowed loudly. About 56. The 56 included lions, tigers, bears, wolves, baboons, cougars, and more. All animals that Terry had been stockpiling over the years. Blake looked around. What was this guy thinking? His property was just a few acres, hardly enough room for the animals to roam, and judging by the horrendous condition of the inside of the cages,

they probably were not let out much. This, though, no longer feels like an accident, so he needs to know where Terry is now. John explains that the last time he heard from Terry was the night before, and he shares some concerning things. Terry, who was 62 at the time, told John that he received a letter

from an unknown sender, claiming that his wife, Marion, had been unfaithful. Terry had recently been in prison for some time, and the letter hinted at the fact that the infidelity had happened while Terry had been locked up. Marion and John were taking care of the animals together during Terry's incarceration. John had asked Terry if he believed

Marion had been cheating. And he responded cryptically with, quote, "'Well, I have a plan to find out "'and you will know when it happens.'" What that meant, they were unsure of. But where was Terry now? Was this all part of some plan? Blake was still waiting for backup, nervously looking around to make sure there weren't

any lions watching him from the distance. He could hear sirens about a mile away approaching the property, but if he were to be pounced on by 56 wild animals right now, would it even matter? Just then, in the back corner of the cages, he sees a white tiger. Blake tightens his grip on his weapon, but it's not looking at him, it's occupied with something. Eating, maybe?

Blake squints to try and see. He does not want to go over there. And as he does, John covers his mouth. Oh my God. The tiger is eating Terry's lifeless body. John muffles a scream, but the sounds of the sirens reaching the base of Terry's driveway drown him out anyways.

Before he knows it, dozens of officers are on the scene. Guns drawn, asking the same question, where is Terry? All Blake can do is point. Who Terry Thompson was as a man is complicated. And before we get more into his death, it's important to understand his life. Terry was born in 1949 on a farm near where he raised his animals in Zanesville. Hearing about the animal hoarding that occurred later in his life, it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that he had a complicated childhood.

But no, according to those who knew him, he had a beautiful, smiley upbringing. He was described as a good-looking young man who always had a girlfriend. But everything changed the day he got drafted. See, Terry was born at a particularly unlucky time in American history. Born just in time to come of age

during one of the most ill-advised wars America has ever partaken in. No one knew why we were getting involved in Vietnam's civil war. To fight communism, Americans were told. But young people wanted peace. And then, one day, those young people started being called one by one to go hunt other young men hiding

in the thick jungle of a foreign country. When Terry came back from Vietnam, the same people who watched him grow up said they no longer recognized him. The once vibrant, charming young man was now quiet, a loner. Some thought it was from agent orange exposure. Others just said that Vietnam never left him. He apparently confessed to a friend one night that, quote, I guess I'll never go to heaven because I killed people. He wrestled with the morality of what he had done.

If he hadn't killed, as his country had told him to, he would have been killed, just like many of his friends were. And after watching so many of his friends die in the jungle, he struggled to understand why he had been spared. But there was one good thing that happened when he was in Vietnam, he said. While he was there,

he lived in a small tent with a wooden floor. Sleeping was torture, but one day a little monkey came by and really took a liking to Terry. They became buds and Terry looked forward to the times in his day when the monkey would come by looking for food. It wasn't long after he returned home from the war that he started collecting wild animals.

First it was a baby tiger for his new wife Marion, then it was another, then it was monkeys, lions, panthers, more, more, more. He hardly had the money to feed all of them, but there was something inside him that couldn't be stopped. He just kept collecting and collecting. And animals were not the only thing Terry collected. He also started stockpiling weapons. He loved to be surrounded by dangerous things.

It made him feel safe. He thought they would always be pointed outwards and never towards him. But words spread around town that there was a Vietnam vet who lost his mind in the war and now had hundreds of guns and wild animals. So one day the feds showed up. It's worth it to say though,

that they showed up mostly because of the guns. There were more laws around gun ownership at the time than there were around buying and selling wild animals. And there were no laws around that. Because of the lack of laws, many regular people in Ohio had dangerous animals in their homes. The private owners of these animals

typically felt they were helping the animal. They thought, well, if I don't buy them, someone else will. They convinced themselves that the animal would never survive in the wild and therefore should live in their home or that if the animal was endangered, it was a good thing to own one. It didn't matter where it was.

Chris Heath, who wrote an article about Terry Thompson and his at-home zoo for GQ, interviewed some of the people in Zanesville who also owned wild animals at the time. One man slept in bed with a leopard for 19 years. Another woman hadn't been on vacation in seven years because she didn't want to leave her six bobcats behind. These animals were often easy and cheap to get, usually costing far less than a purebred dog. Maybe that's why in 2005, around the time

that Terry was collecting his pets, it was estimated that there were more tigers in the United States than there were in the wild. So when police were going over to check on Terry's guns, they knew they wouldn't be able to bust him for anything regarding the animals, but they wished they could have. The scene was dismal, sickly, angry animals locked in cages,

sitting in their own waste. Roadkill that Terry had scraped off the road to feed the animals was everywhere, and on top of that, there were over 130 firearms and loads of ammo. Whatever was going on at this house, they didn't really like it. And it didn't seem like Terry was in the proper mental place to own that many dangerous things, both feline and firearm. But at the end of the day, the only charge he walked away with was owning one firearm without a serial number

and owning one machine gun. Terry pleaded guilty and in 2010, went to the Federal Correctional Institute in Morgan Town. That's where he was when his wife allegedly cheated on him. As Sergeant Blake is pointing at Terry's body, all he knows is that the night before, Terry had discovered his wife maybe had an affair. But why let the animals out of their cages?

Why not just get a divorce? Well, there were a few more disturbing details surrounding Terry's death that illustrated the mental space he was in. We're going to take a quick break before I get into those, and just a heads up, this next part is intense. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. When I went to do my New Year's resolutions for this year, I started how I usually do by saying,

okay, what do I wanna change about myself? And this year, it was a little strange, because honestly, I feel pretty good about myself finally. I don't want to change myself so much as I want to work harder in the areas that I'm doing really well in. I have a workout routine I love, I'm cutting down on screen time, you know all that good stuff. My point is sometimes it's nice to focus on the things you're doing right. And therapy helps you find your strengths, so you can ditch the extreme resolutions and make changes that really stick.

A big thing that therapy helped me with personally was learning coping skills, things that I still use today and have really benefited from. And if your thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's designed to be convenient and fit into your schedule by being totally online, which is great because I would rather have

any conversation in sweatpants. Celebrate the progress you've already made. Visit betterhelp.com percent off your first month, that's better help H-E-L-P dot com slash stay curious. Sergeant Blake watched as Terry's body was being slowly eaten by one of the tigers, but he knew he needed to go check on it for clues. And mind you, as all of this is happening, other officers were deployed in town with a shoot to kill mandate for any wild animals they came across. One of the officers who described himself as a cat person said it was one of his worst days on the job. Trucks of local law enforcement were patrolling the town, one person driving four in the bed of the truck, weapons aimed out at the woods. Most of the animals were still on Terry's property though.

So while some officers went with Blake to look at Terry's body, others circled the property, shooting at any big cat, bear, wolf, and monkey they could find, no questions asked. So Sergeant Blake and the other officers approached Terry's body, and they see that not only is the tiger eating him,

but there's raw chicken all around his body, like it was put there to entice the animals. It's also apparent that Terry died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But if Terry's plan was to let all of the animals out and then take his own life, why cut the cages instead of just opening them? The best guess we have is that Terry knew

his wife loved the animals. The couple never had kids, they just had their animals. And to her, the big cats were her babies. Maybe Terry wasn't trying to unleash the animals on the town to attack civilians. Maybe he was just letting them out so his wife wouldn't be able to keep them. Destroying their cages so they had no place to come back to. Another strange and incredibly dark detail of Terry's death, and I told you this part is intense.

Is that when his body was brought into the coroner's office, they noted that he had no genitalia. It was inconclusive if it was removed before or after the tiger started eating him. According to others that knew Terry and were interrogated by the police, Terry had been talking about a plan similar to this for some time, even before he went to prison.

He had mentioned to someone that he was thinking of killing his wife and then himself. This left officers to wonder how impulsive this decision really was. At the end of the day, no one in town besides Terry was injured and the police were able to put down all of the escaped animals, which included 18 tigers, 17 lions, eight bears, three cougars,

two wolves and two monkeys. Terry thought he had lost his wife and so he made the decision to lose everything. It's still unclear what he thought would happen to the animals when he let them out. But his actions led to 49 of their deaths. This led many to wonder if he loved them at all. How could he have claimed to have loved the animals

when he kept them in cages their whole lives and then released them to be killed? I mentioned earlier that some people claim all these animals need is love, but this treatment is not love. In the time since Terry let all of his animals out, Ohio has passed laws regarding wild animal ownership. They passed the Dangerous Animal Act, which requires owners to have special permits and enough space for animals to live.

It may have come a little late, but hopefully it's a law that protects both people and the animals. While researching this episode, I found that the internet in general does not look kindly on people who own dangerous animals. They think those people are dumb, that they're narcissistic to believe they have a unique connection to an animal that otherwise would rip their heads off. But I kept going back to the Christian the Lion video.

Even knowing what I know about it now, it still gets me. There's just something about a lion recognizing its old owners and wanting to embrace them that's so hopeful, like it almost reinforces that, yes, our dogs do actually love us, our cats do too. Animals do remember humans, and we do share a special bond. But then I read some of the other stories and I realize that most animals do not care

if we live or die. So word to the wise, if you ever come across a hippo, run. Be like Steve Irwin and run. And if you ever see a chimp, don't try to interact with it. I didn't even get to chimps in this episode, but that is a whole other world, people who think that chimps are their children. And that really does not work out for anyone.

Anyways, thank you for tuning in this week. This has been Heart Starts Pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelin Moore. Sound Design and Mixed by Peach Tree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan, the team at WME and Ben Jaffe. And a special thanks to our new Patreon members over at the Rogue Detecting Society. You will all be thanked by name in the show's newsletter, which you can sign up for on the show's website,

heartstartspounding.com. If you have a case request or a story of your own you want to share, you can also check out our website. Again, that's heartstartspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.