(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Bear Believed To Have Overdosed On Cocaine Dropped By Parachutist [1]
[]
Date: 2023-01
Bear Believed To Have Overdosed On Cocaine Dropped By Parachutist
BLUE RIDGE, Ga. (AP) _ Investigators searching for cocaine dropped by an airborne smuggler have found a ripped-up shipment of the sweet-smelling powder and the remains of a bear that apparently died of a multimillion-dollar high.
The cocaine was believed to be the last trace of the drug dropped from a small plane by a former Kentucky narcotics investigator who fell to his death in Tennessee because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting, said Gary Garner, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
″The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine and OD’d (overdosed),″ Garner said.
″There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide,″ said Garner.
Investigators said the black bear, weighing more than 150 pounds, had been dead about four weeks.
GBI agents found the bear’s remains Friday in Fannin County in the mountains, about 80 miles north of Atlanta and just south of the Tennessee line, near the duffel bag and 40 packages of cocaine that had been ripped open and scattered over a hillside.
The agents were searching for cocaine believed dropped by Andrew Thornton, 40, who was carrying 77 pounds of cocaine on Sept. 11 when he was killed.
Officials believe the bear, and maybe some others, ate several million dollars worth of the cocaine. Each of the 40 packages is believed to have contained one kilogram of cocaine, or about 88 pounds in all, and valued at as much as $20 million.
The Georgia State Crime Lab will conduct an autopsy on the bear Monday.
It was the third such find in Georgia, and was less than 100 yards from where GBI agents found about 75 pounds of cocaine in duffel bags in early November.
Fran Wiley of the GBI said agents have linked Friday’s find to the others because the duffel bags were identical.
Thornton fell in Knoxville an hour before an unmanned Cessna airplane crashed into a mountain in North Carolina. A key bearing the same identification as the plane was found in his pocket.
A few days later, clothes, maps of Jamaica and a pilot’s logbook bearing the Cessna’s number were found in Butts County, about 30 miles south of Atlanta.
GBI agents have not determined the identity of the intended recipient of Thornton’s cocaine.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://apnews.com/article/1aa23991920be67a37fcb1908001dc0a
Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/
