Cocaine Bear

The story from 1985 reads, "A 175-pound black bear apparently died of an overdose of cocaine after discovering a batch of the drug, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said today. The cocaine was apparently dropped from a plane piloted by Andrew Thornton, a convicted drug smuggler who died Sept. 11 in Knoxville, Tenn., because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting. The bear was found Friday in northern Georgia among 40 opened plastic containers with traces of cocaine."

The bear was stuffed and put on display at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Georgia.

A medical examiner conducted an narcolepsy on the bear and found problems expected from a massive cocaine overdose: cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, stroke and heart failure. The cocaine in question fell from the sky. A dead parachutist, Andrew Thornton was found in the front yard of a Knoxville home on Sept. 11, 1985, surrounded by cocaine.

At one point the bear was stolen. It later resurfaced among Waylon Jennings's collection of preserved animals in Las Vegas.