FAQ

The story is based on a script written by Jimmy Warden inspired by real events.

On September 11, 1985, narcotics officer and drug smuggler Andrew C. Thornton II and an accomplice dumped forty containers of cocaine out of a small airplane above Knoxville, Tennessee. Thornton was killed instantly when his parachute failed to open. This is presented, minus the unnamed accomplice, in the first scene.

Three months later on December 23, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found a dead black bear. He, not a she as in the film, had gone through every single box containing seventy-five pounds of cocaine, valued at about $2 million. A medical examination revealed the stomach was literally packed with cocaine and that every possible organ damage that can happen to a cocaine addict had happened to the bear. Unlike the film, there is no evidence he ever came into contact with any human while high.

The bear was stuffed and dubbed Pablo Escobear. After exchanging hands several times, he made his way to the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky where he currently remains.

Andrew C. Thornton II was an American narcotics officer and lawyer who became the head member of "The Company", a drug smuggling ring in Kentucky. He was born on October 30, 1944, in Bourbon County, Kentucky. He served in the Army and participated in the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. He joined the Lexington Police Department in 1968 and worked on narcotics investigations with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He also earned a law degree from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1976.

He resigned from the police in 1977 and practiced law in Lexington. In 1981, he was among 25 men accused in California of stealing weapons from a naval base and conspiring to smuggle marijuana into the United States. He fled California and was arrested as a fugitive in North Carolina. He pled no contest to a misdemeanor drug charge and was sentenced to six months in prison, fined $500, and had his law license suspended.

On September 11, 1985, while on a smuggling run from Colombia, Thornton and a partner jumped from his auto-piloted plane, after dumping packages of cocaine off near Blairsville, Georgia. Thornton became caught in his parachute and ended up in a free fall to the ground. His body was found by an elderly man in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, night-vision goggles and Gucci loafers. He had $4,500 in cash and two pistols on him. The cocaine that he had strapped to his body was worth $15 million.

His partner was never identified or caught by the authorities. He presumably landed safely and escaped with some of the cocaine that Thornton had dropped off near Blairsville, Georgia. The rest of the cocaine was either recovered by the police or eaten by a black bear that later died of an overdose. The bear's stuffed body is now on display at a store in Kentucky.