Cocaine Bear: Real-Life Agent Recalls Surreal 1985 Case, and One Even Crazier

“I’ve had a crazy life,” admits Fran Wiley, the former Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent speaking to me from the Blue Heron Antique Mall in Cleveland, Georgia. You wouldn’t guess it from her present-day surroundings—folksy artwork, Wedgwood china, estate pottery—but Wiley has dodged gunfire, bought narcotics undercover, flown in helicopters without doors, and staked out mountaintops waiting for private planes transporting cocaine. As she tells it, she was the first female special agent in charge of North Georgia. Wiley also worked on an infamous 1980s case involving a bear who overdosed on cocaine in Chattahoochee National Forest. That detail… Read Full Article