Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and today's podcast features three stories that demonstrate that.
The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.
The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.
The first story you'll hear is called Rest Stop, and it's a stark reminder that you never know who you might run into.
The second story you'll hear is called Luggage, and it's about a real-life James Bond who is found in an impossible place.
And the third and final story you'll hear is called The Bear, the Plane, and the Duffel, and it's about the crazy true story of a rogue bear in Georgia.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the Amazon Music Follow button a ham and cheese sandwich, but when you make it, don't unwrap the cheese slices.
Okay, let's get into our first story called Rest Stop.
Let's be honest, we all want a better understanding of our physical health, but we might not know what's truly going on in our own body.
We need to be well-prepared with data to see trends and make informed decisions about our wellness and future.
This is not science fiction. This is function health.
Function Health is your pivot to proactive care.
Function Health can assess your body's data all in one place, from 160 biomarkers, heart health, hormones to toxins, and so much more.
Imagine combining your own personal health data with multi-region MRI and CT scans, giving you a full 360-degree view of what's happening inside of your body.
That's why people are choosing Function Health as the game-changer in preventative healthcare.
With Function, you can get cutting-edge insights that are unique to your own health for just $499 a year, just $1.37 per day.
For reference, this could cost over $10,000 if you did them on your own.
And the best part? There aren't any unnecessary incentives.
Function feels like empowerment, designed to help you own your own health with unbiased healthcare data.
Learn more and join using our link. Visit functionhealth.com slash mrballin.
In October of 2002, Mark and his wife Kathy were on their way to a baby shower in Baltimore, Maryland that was being held for them by Kathy's family.
It would be a seven-hour drive from their home in Ohio, so Mark and Kathy tried to get out the door as early as possible, but one thing led to another and they got a pretty late start.
By midnight, they were only about an hour away from their final destination, but they both desperately needed a bathroom break.
And so they pulled into a rest stop in Frederick County, Maryland, which is about an hour outside of Washington, D.C.
The rest area parking lot was completely vacant except for one car, which was a dark blue late model four door sedan that was parked head in right in front of the bathroom.
Mark and Kathy pulled into a spot that was a few over from the sedan.
They got out, they walked up to the restroom.
Mark was done first, so he waited outside of the women's restroom for his wife.
As he waited, he turned around to face the sedan that initially, when he first pulled in the lot, he believed was empty.
But now, as he's looking at it, he can clearly see there are two people in the front two seats.
A middle-aged man who's sitting behind the steering wheel looking directly at Mark, and then next to this guy is a sleeping teenager.
And immediately, Mark felt really creeped out by these two guys.
I mean, they're in this random rest stop in the middle of the night.
They're the only ones there. And this guy is just staring menacingly at Mark.
And so Mark's doing his best not to be intimidated and to stand his ground and not act phased by what's happening right in front of him.
But in the back of his mind, he is just praying his wife comes out of that bathroom as soon as possible so they can get the heck out of here and away from these two creepy guys.
Finally, his wife did come out. He grabbed her by the hand and without any explanation, rushed them back to their car, hopped in, locked the doors, turned it on and began backing out.
And as he did, he looked over at the sedan and he saw the guy behind the steering wheel, the middle-aged guy, was looking over at Mark with that same menacing look on his face.
Mark also noticed there was something odd about the sedan's trunk.
There was a fist-sized hole right above the license plate where you would normally put the key inside of.
So the whole scene was just totally bizarre.
And after Mark and Kathy sped out and were back on the highway, Mark explained to Kathy that there were actually two people inside of that sedan and they really creeped him out.
And that's why he had grabbed her and rushed them back into the car.
And so she agreed that was pretty creepy.
But by the time the couple got to the baby shower in Baltimore, they had completely forgotten about their experience at the rest stop.
The baby shower went well, and before long, Mark and Kathy were back home in Ohio.
About a week later, the couple was watching TV in their home when a breaking news bulletin came across, and it showed a reporter who was standing at the exact same rest stop that they had stopped in on the way to Baltimore in Frederick County, Maryland, and behind them was the same late model sedan that they had seen parked at that rest stop when they had pulled in.
The headline of this special news bulletin was, DC Snipers Caught.
It would turn out that middle-aged man sitting in the driver's seat of the sedan staring at Mark was none other than John Allen Muhammad, and the guy next to him, the teenager who was sleeping, was Lee Boyd Malvo.
These were the two men that were responsible for the highly coordinated three-week-long attack that left 10 people dead in the Washington, D.C. area.
The fist-sized hole that Mark saw on the back of their trunk was what they used to shoot through because it allowed them to stay concealed in the trunk while they were shooting.
Mohamed and Malvo had been using that particular rest stop in Frederick County as a place to hide out in between their killings.
When Mark and Kathy pulled in next to them, they were only halfway through their killing spree.
Mark believes the only reason he and his wife were not targeted is because the killers most likely were trying to keep this rest stop off the radar because it was their hiding spot and so they wouldn't have risked an attack there.
Although, ironically, they would ultimately be caught in that rest stop.
Muhammad was executed by lethal injection in 2009 and Malvo is serving a life sentence.
Our next story is called Luggage. From the time Gareth Williams was a young boy, his parents knew he was extremely gifted.
When he was just 17 years old, he achieved a first-class honors mathematics degree from a university in his hometown of Wales.
A couple of years after that, he had his PhD from the University of Manchester in England.
And after that, he was accepted into a postgraduate course at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Cambridge.
But he wouldn't finish that degree because his incredible academic achievements had got the attention of Britain's intelligence agencies, and they began recruiting him.
In 2001, when Gareth was 23, Britain's communication headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, which is one of Britain's main intelligence agencies, offered him a job as a codebreaker.
He eagerly accepted the job, dropped out of Cambridge and then moved into a modest apartment in Cheltenham, which is the resort town about 88 miles away from London, where GCHQ is located.
And there he would live and work for the next 10 years.
Despite being an intensely private and shy person, Gareth was a highly valued team player whose genius in mathematics and technology helped his group win a number of Britain's highest awards for international code breaking.
In 2009, one of Britain's other main intelligence agencies, the famous Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 for short, they were so impressed with Garrett that they offered him a job to come over and work for them.
This was a very rare chance for Garrett to go operational and become a spy in the kind of Hollywood sense of the word.
He would effectively become a real-life James Bond, and so he jumped at the chance.
But shortly after taking the job and moving to London, he regretted his decision.
He hated the intense competitiveness within MI6, the flashy cars and flashy lifestyles, and the pressure to go out and party with your coworkers every weekend.
Gareth just wanted to do his job and then be left alone.
At GCHQ, nobody cared he felt that way. But at MI6, this behavior made him an outsider.
Before he left MI6, he took his annual two-week vacation.
But when the vacation was over, he didn't come back to work at his office in London.
And for some reason, MI6 never checked in on him to see where he was.
It wasn't until his sister called police after not hearing from him that anybody looked into his disappearance.
On August 23rd, a uniformed officer went to Gareth's apartment in London to do a welfare check.
After knocking on the door and not getting an answer from Gareth, the officer got the key to the apartment from the landlord and went inside.
He yelled out for Gareth. There was no sign of him on the first floor.
He went upstairs to see if maybe Gareth was up there.
He's yelling for him the whole way as he's going up.
He gets to the second floor. There's nobody up there, but there's a closed door.
And what he finds on the other side of that closed door would make international headlines for weeks.
When he opened the door, he walked into a bathroom and there was nothing unusual about the bathroom except in the bathtub there was this big red duffel bag and inside of that duffel bag was the badly decomposed body of Gareth Williams.
The zipper of the bag was padlocked shut on the outside and the key to this padlock was underneath Gareth's body inside of the bag.
There were no fingerprints on the rim or inside the bathtub There were also no fingerprints on the bag itself or on the two zippers or on the padlock or on the keys.
Gareth's iPhone had been found nearby sitting on a table and it had been factory reset.
And later investigators would determine it had been reset on August 15th, which was the last day Gareth was seen on CCTV footage.
And it was also the day that they believe he died.
According to the coroner, Gareth's body had no injuries on it.
There was no sign of a struggle, and his toxicology report showed that he had no drugs or alcohol in his system.
The thermostat inside of Gareth's apartment was jacked way up, so it was very hot inside of his apartment, despite the fact it was summer and it was the height of the summer in August.
But regardless, the excessive heat in his apartment sped up the decomposition process and made it impossible to precisely determine a cause of death.
Despite a lengthy investigation by police, there was never a conclusive determination as to what exactly happened to Gareth, although there are many theories.
Some say the Russian mafia killed him because right before he died, he had been focusing on money laundering in Britain that was tied to the Russian mafia, which would have made him a target.
Another theory is MI6 had something to do with Gareth's death, which is why they were not so eager to go looking for him when he didn't come back from his vacations.
In fact, one former MI6 agent has come out and said he believes there was a cover-up.
He was interviewed by CNN and said that it looked like MI6 had gone into Gareth's apartment ahead of the police and wiped it all down, removing fingerprints and DNA evidence.
The last prominent theory is that Gareth did this to himself.
It was discovered that he made occasional online visits to bondage sites and at least one time he'd had to yell out to his landlord to help get him out of his bed because he had tied his wrist to the bed frame and couldn't get himself undone.
But when two experts who were a part of the investigation attempted to put themselves inside of a similar sized duffel bag and lock it with the padlock on the outside, they couldn't do it despite trying over 400 times.
And even if Gareth could have somehow physically got himself inside of this bag and locked it from the outside, how could he have done that without leaving fingerprints all over the bag, all over the lock, the zippers, all over the tub?
Because when he was found, he didn't have gloves on.
Ultimately, despite the red flags, Gareth's death was determined to be probably an accident and was closed three years after his death.
Most people know that having good credit is a big deal.
It can help you qualify for better credit cards, lower interest rates, even rent an apartment or buy a home.
But building your credit? That's where a lot of people get stuck.
It's confusing, it's slow, and frankly, it's pretty easy to mess up.
But that's where Chime comes in. Chime can help you build your credit history with everyday purchases and regular on-time payments.
Set aside money with no annual fees, credit checks, interest, or minimum deposits while building credit.
Use it everywhere Visa credit cards are accepted and increase your credit scores with automatic credit reporting.
Plus, get access to credit tracking tools and personalized tips designed to help you build, protect, and maintain your credit for a stress-free experience.
With Chime, you can be smarter about how you manage your credit.
Make everyday purchases count with Chime's secured Credit Builder Visa credit card.
Get started today at Chime.com slash Ballin.
That's Chime.com slash Ballin. Chime. Feels like progress.
The Chime Credit Builder Visa Credit Card is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.
Chime checking account required to apply.
Money added to Credit Builder will be held in your secured deposit account as collateral and is your Credit Builder cards available to spend amount.
This is money you can use to pay off your monthly charges.
Out-of-network ATM withdrawal and OTC advance fees may apply.
Late payment may negatively impact your credit score.
Results may vary. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.
Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers.
You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts, completely ad-free.
No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest...
Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin.
That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
The next and final story of today's episode is called The Bear, The Plane, and The Duffel.
In early December of 1985, in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Northern Georgia, a hunter was very carefully making his way through the trees, trying to track a deer.
Now, this hunter had been tracking this deer for over a mile, but it had been a while since he had seen any signs of it being anywhere nearby.
And as this hunter continued to creep along, he became increasingly aware of how loud each of his steps were, because the ground all around him was covered in dry leaves, and so every step he was taking was creating a loud crunching sound.
And so eventually, this hunter just came to a stop and decided stalking this deer was totally pointless, because he was basically scaring it away with these crunching sounds as he got closer to it.
But before this hunter was ready to just give up and head back to his vehicle, he continued on a little bit further, and when he pushed through this particularly dense brush area, he saw this clearing up ahead.
And the second he saw what was in this clearing, he froze, took a step back into the brush, and then ducked down behind a rock.
Because in that clearing, he saw an animal, and it wasn't a deer.
It was a huge American black bear. Now, generally speaking, American black bears are not aggressive towards humans.
However, if, for example, you were to accidentally sneak up on a black bear, like this hunter had done, and you suddenly startled it by just showing your presence, the bear might react by pouncing on you and ripping you to bits.
And so this hunter with his back pressed up against the rock and his rifle gripped tightly across his chest, he's thinking about that and wondering what he's gonna do to get out of this situation.
At first he thought, okay, I'll just stand up and quietly walk away.
But then he remembered how loud the leaves were.
And even though he had been lucky walking in, he hadn't alerted the bear to his presence, on the way out, he was worried he wouldn't be so lucky that those leaves would alert the bear to his position.
And so the hunter began thinking, OK, well, what if I just stand up and start shooting at this bear?
But the hunter knew the big issue with that plan is he had a deer hunting rifle, which is not nearly powerful enough to quickly take down a black bear, if at all.
And so if he starts shooting at this bear, there was a very good chance that the bear would just turn around and maul him before he was able to put the bear down with his rifle.
And so as this hunter is going through these scenarios behind the rock, he realizes something.
He hasn't heard this bear at all. Now, bears in general are very loud animals.
Just their regular breathing is so guttural and noisy that you can hear it a pretty good distance away.
And the hunter's thinking to himself, I can't hear it breathing.
And come to think of it, I haven't heard this bear once since I've been near it.
And so the hunter very carefully stood up from behind his rock and turned around, and then he kind of peered forward into the brush, looking back into this clearing.
And when he spotted the bear again, he realized immediately the bear was dead.
The bear was kind of slumped forward and its body almost looked like a deflated balloon.
The hunter was so relieved, he almost started laughing.
And so he stepped out from behind his rock and he made his way through the brush into the clearing to get a better look at this bear.
And when the hunter was right over the top of this bear looking down at it, something immediately struck him as very odd.
This bear was far too young to have died of natural causes.
However, after this hunter kind of poked and prodded the bear and lifted it up on either side to try to look underneath it, he couldn't see any visible injuries.
It was like this bear had just randomly dropped dead.
But the hunter didn't spend much time thinking about what happened to this bear.
Instead, he thought to himself, you know, there has to be some sort of logical explanation for what killed it.
And with one last look at the bear on the ground, the hunter turned around and began the long walk back through the woods, back to his vehicle.
It would turn out there was an explanation for what happened to that bear.
However, it was anything but logical. But to get to that non-logical explanation, we first have to go back in time.
Around 1130 p.m. on September 10th, 1985, so three months before the hunter discovered this dead bear, two pilots were flying their little six-seater Cessna airplane over northern Georgia, making their way north towards Tennessee.
And as these pilots flew along very casually, they suddenly intercepted over their radio a voice message that they definitely were not supposed to hear.
It sounded like other pilots communicating with each other.
And what they were talking about was how they were now going to follow this little Cessna airplane that they could see that was currently flying over northern Georgia.
Now, radio traffic like this can only really be intercepted if your radio that's doing the intercepting is physically close to the person doing the transmitting.
And so knowing this, the two pilots in this little Cessna knew that whoever was talking about following that little Cessna, they had to be talking about them, the two pilots in that Cessna.
Now, for most pilots, if you suddenly overheard a radio transmission that your plane was getting followed by some other pilots, you might reach out to those pilots and say, hey, why are you following me?
What's going on? Now, the co-pilot of this little Cessna might have wanted to react that way.
However, before he could, the main pilot stopped him and said, I actually know exactly why somebody might want to tail us.
And unfortunately, we're both going to have to jump out of this plane.
Before the co-pilot could really even react to this news, the main pilot had set the Cessna on autopilot, which sets the plane to fly in a straight direction, going at a constant speed at a constant altitude until either a pilot comes back and takes the craft back over, or if it just stays on autopilot, it eventually will run out of fuel and crash or run into something.
And so after the main pilot had done that, he turned to the co-pilot and gestured for him to come with him into the main cabin of the aircraft, basically the main body of the craft where all their luggage was.
And the co-pilot, he's so confused about what's happening, he's so panicked that he just follows the main pilot.
So the two of them, they climb back over the two front seats that go into the main body of the craft and the main pilot begins strapping parachutes onto some of their luggage.
And as he's doing this, he tells the co-pilot to open up the side door of the plane.
And so again, the co-pilot is just so caught off guard.
He has no idea how to handle this. And so he reaches over and he slides open this door of this moving plane.
And as soon as he did, this huge rush of cold night air blasted inside of the cabin, and it became so loud from the howling wind coming in that the two pilots couldn't even talk to each other.
And then the main pilot just began pushing the luggage out of the plane just into the night, falling straight down to the ground far, far below them.
And at some point, the co-pilot just joined him and began pushing the luggage out of the plane.
And then after all the luggage was out, the main pilot shoved a parachute into the hands of the co-pilot and said, you know, put it on.
He had to gesture for it because they couldn't hear each other.
And so as this co-pilot struggling to get on his parachute, the main pilot puts on his chute.
And then right after the co-pilot has just barely got his parachute on, the main pilot pushes him out the side of the plane.
And then the main pilot jumps out after him.
So they basically abandoned their plane, which was still set to autopilot, so at some point, it was just going to crash.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
About five hours later, in a suburb of Knoxville, Tennessee, an 85-year-old man named Fred Myers was just waking up.
Fred always got up before sunrise. It was part of his daily routine.
He would wake up, he would get dressed, he would wash and shave his face, and then he would sit down and read the local newspaper.
This simple routine was actually very important to Fred because recently he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which is a progressive disease that destroys memory.
And so having this sort of set routine helped him manage his symptoms.
Basically, at least in the morning, he could go into autopilot and go through this routine and not get confused.
However, on this particular morning, something would happen that would leave Fred more confused than he had ever been in his entire life.
Fred had made it to his bathroom, he had washed his face, and he had begun shaving, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something strange outside in his driveway.
He could see it through a nearby window, but it was still so dark outside, Fred couldn't tell what this thing was out there.
And so feeling very curious, Fred put his razor blade down and he made his way over to the window to get a better look.
And when he reached the window and looked out at his driveway and saw what this strange thing was, he could not believe his eyes.
There was this huge parachute out on his driveway and on the parachute was the main pilot of the Cessna.
After the main pilot had pushed the co-pilot out and leapt out himself, when he pulled his ripcord, his chute either didn't deploy, or when it deployed, it didn't inflate fully, and so he was forced to go to his reserve chute, but it didn't inflate fast enough to stop him from crashing into the ground.
And so the main pilot slammed into the ground basically at terminal velocity.
And so he sustained catastrophic internal injuries and he died within a couple of minutes of hitting the ground.
Fred was so stunned and confused at what he was looking at that without saying a word, he just turned away from his window and walked over to his phone and called the police, shaving cream still on his face.
When the police arrived at Fred's house that morning, they were expecting to see a dead recreational skydiver on Fred's property.
But when they walked up the driveway and saw the dead man for themselves, they knew right away this was not some recreational skydiver.
He actually looked more like a soldier. He was wearing a bulletproof vest over some camouflage fatigues, and he had night vision goggles strapped to his head.
But the dead man's shoe choice made the police think this guy could not possibly have been military.
Because on this guy's feet were not military-style combat boots like you would expect with the rest of his getup.
Instead, he was wearing loafers, specifically Gucci loafers, so very expensive designer shoes.
And so the police are thinking to themselves, who the heck was this guy, and what was he doing?
The police would figure that out. However, first, we have to fast forward two months to late November 1985, so roughly two weeks before that bear was discovered by that hunter in Chattahoochee National Forest.
Now, at this point in late November, that black bear was alive and well and living a typical black bear life in the Chattahoochee National Forest, which meant he mostly spent his time wandering around the woods looking for something to eat.
And on this particular day in November, the bear was doing just that when out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something strange lying on the forest floor.
It was one of the pieces of luggage that the two pilots had pushed out of their plane.
It was this big, heavy duffel bag. Now, the bear had no idea if this duffel bag contained food, but the bear was optimistic, so it meandered its way over and began pawing at the bag with its massive claws, and pretty much immediately, his claws tore open a hole in this bag.
And suddenly, the air all around this bear was filled with this glorious, flowery smell, so the bear put its nose directly into this rip in the bag and began sniffing and licking the contents of this bag.
And apparently, the bear just loved it because it ate whatever was inside of the bag, all of it.
And when he was done, the bear felt so good, he was so full of energy, that he just started sprinting in a straight direction.
And after running at top speed about 100 yards, every major system inside of this bear shut down all at once, and he died on the spot, collapsing in that clearing.
And then about two weeks later, that hunter walked into the Chattahoochee National Forest and discovered this dead bear.
And then within 24 hours, the hunter was back home and he told one of his friends about discovering this dead bear.
And when he told his friend about seeing this bear, he also kind of casually mentioned that he had seen a duffel bag in the forest not far from this dead bear.
Now, to understand what this friend did next, you need some context.
By this point in time, the police had actually figured out a lot about that dead man on Fred Myers' driveway, the main pilot of the Cessna.
They knew he was a 40-year-old man named Andrew Thornton who had served in the US Army as a paratrooper, but after getting out of the service, he had kind of gone astray in his life and become a big-time smuggler of illegal goods.
The police had also figured out by this point that Andrew, along with a copilot, had been the people flying that Cessna that eventually was found crashed into a mountainside in North Carolina.
The copilot had survived the jump out of the Cessna, and so the police tracked him down, and they very quickly realized this copilot was really just a victim of Andrew.
Andrew had told this guy they were just going to fly to the Bahamas for a vacation.
And so when that plan completely evaporated and suddenly Andrew is barking orders at this guy to open up the plane and push the luggage out and jump out, the co-pilot said he just totally panicked and just started doing whatever Andrew wanted.
And so this guy was just totally terrified and really all he could offer police was just to confirm that, yup, Andrew was the main pilot and yes, we really did push his luggage out of the side of the plane over some forest in Northern Georgia.
The police believed the co-pilot and did not charge him with any crime.
The police would go and search all over northern Georgia, and they would find the majority of the missing bags.
However, they knew they were still missing some, and they knew they really needed to recover them.
And so, around the time that this hunter is telling his friend about this bear encounter and this duffel bag, the police were constantly having news outlets tell people in northern Georgia that if you see one of these duffel bags attached to a big parachute or something, please come forward and tell us.
We are looking for these. And so the hunter's friend thought, you know what, that duffel bag he mentioned out in Chattahoochee National Forest, which is in northern Georgia, might be one of those bags.
And so the friend called authorities. Authorities were thrilled to get this tip, and so they charged out to the Chattahoochee National Forest, and they made their way out to where this dead bear was.
And then sure enough, about 100 yards away from this bear was this bag, and it was one of the bags they were missing.
Except the bag was empty. Because, as we already know, that black bear had eaten everything inside of this bag.
And as you might have guessed, that bag, along with every other bag that had been cast out of the Cessna that night, was full of cocaine. because Andrew was a drug smuggler.
And on the night he and his co-pilot leapt from the Cessna, he was trying to smuggle 900 pounds of cocaine from South America into the United States.
That transmission that Andrew and the co-pilot suddenly overheard on their radio as they were cruising along in their Cessna was the sound of federal agents within the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection Agency who had been tipped off about Andrew's big drug run, and so they really had sent two planes to go follow him and potentially intercept him.
And so the authorities standing in the Chattahoochee National Forest looking down at this empty duffel bag had no idea where the cocaine went that was supposed to be inside of it.
But on a hunch, they decided to bring the body of the dead black bear back with them and perform an autopsy on it.
And sure enough, during this autopsy, the medical examiner would open up the bear's stomach and the examiner would say the stomach was, quote, packed to the brim with cocaine, thus ending the mystery of how this bear died.
It died from a massive, massive cocaine overdose.
But the bear's story did not end there. Normally, after an animal is autopsied, they are cremated.
But for some reason, this medical examiner decided not to do that, and instead, he had the bear taxidermied, and then he gifted this taxidermied bear to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.
And then from there, the bear changed hands many times.
Over the next two decades, no one knows exactly who had the bear and for what reason, but there were reports that at least at one point it was stolen from a storage facility, and then it was sold at a pawn shop, and then at some point the bear was in the possession of famous country singer Waylon Jennings, and then finally the bear found its forever home.
Today, the bear is on display at the Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky, and around its neck is a placard that reads, Cocaine Bear.
A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.
There's this one, of course, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, and there's Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, Redacted, and Late Nights with Nexpo.
All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts.
To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.
So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music.
Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Wherever you go, whatever they get into.
From chill time to everyday adventures, protect your dog from parasites with Credelio Quattro.
For full safety information, side effects, and warnings, visit credelioquattrolabel.com.
Consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973.
Ask your vet for Credelio Quattro and visit quadrodog.com.
