Word: thorntons
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...unlucky parachutist was Andrew Carter Thornton II, 40, a failed Kentucky lawyer turned smuggler and adventurer. He died while trying out the newest and most daring method yet of smuggling cocaine from South America to the U.S. Airplanes have long been a favored way to haul drugs, but federal authorities now use radar to track suspicious planes and keep watch on out-of-the-way airstrips. So smugglers have been trying to outwit police, and outdo James Bond, by using parachutes, night-vision goggles and radio beacons to make free-fall drops...
...case of Andrew Thornton is still hazy, but it appears that he used extra fuel bladders to equip his Cessna, a favorite of smugglers because its ability to fly slowly permits accurate drops. He then flew eight hours from Colombia to Tennessee before jumping. Along the way, he apparently dropped 200 lbs. of cocaine by parachute in the vicinity of Georgia's Chattahoochee River, where it landed in a tree and was recovered by narcotics agents...
Fred Myers, 84, got up to shave last week in his Knoxville home, looked out the window and saw a body in his backyard. Police found the remains of Andrew Carter Thornton II, 40, snarled in a parachute. Along with 79 lbs. of cocaine, two pistols, knives and $4,500 in cash, Thornton carried night-vision goggles and wore a bulletproof vest. Police believe he had smuggled the drugs, with a value of $15 million, in a twin-engine Cessna. He put the plane on * automatic pilot and bailed out. At treetop level, his chute became fouled. Instead of landing...
...member of a well-to-do Kentucky family, Thornton went to Sewanee Military Academy, then joined the Army and trained as a paratrooper. Back home in Lexington, he became a narcotics officer, then went on to earn a law degree from the University of Kentucky and worked as an attorney. But he soon strayed to the other side of the law. He had been implicated in marijuana smuggling, and he was on probation from a drug-possession conviction...
...also scalded by the boycott of the Moscow Olympics, which left him with $34 million worth of dead summer air. Moreover, there was turmoil at the top of NBC's parent corporation, RCA: three presidents and four chairmen within a decade. It was not until the fifth chairman, Thornton Bradshaw, hired Tinker to run NBC in July 1981 that hope and trust were restored to the network. Says Steven Bochco, whose Hill Street Blues had been spawned by Silverman and produced by Tinker: "The day Grant went to NBC, the industry's attitude toward that network changed profoundly, overnight...