Following the botched rhinoceros “hunt,” the wilderness veldt plantation was raided by federal wildlife agents, who broke into the compounds and discovered twelve impalas, eight Thompson’s gazelles, a defanged Malaysian cobra, a juvenile Cape buffalo, three missing circus chimpanzees, a troop of heavily sedated baboons, a mule painted to resemble a zebra, and a feisty two-legged ocelot. The facility was swiftly shut down by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which alleged multiple violations of the Endangered Species Act and other statutes. The rhinoceros known as el jefe was safely recaptured, tranquilized and transported to a protected game reserve in Kenya, not far from where it had been born thirty-one years earlier. Its massive front horn was painlessly removed, so that the animal would have no value to poachers or hunters.
john randolph durgess relocated to West Texas, where he took a job as a guide on a private 22,000-acre hunting reserve called Serengeti Pines. There he was killed and partially devoured by a wild cougar, which had jumped the fence to feast on imported dik-diks.
asa lando was hired as an animal handler at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom theme park, near Orlando. Two months later he was quietly dismissed, following the unexplained disappearance of the attraction’s only male cheetah.
Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Pain, featuring katya gudonov and tish karpinski, Was released by Avalon Brown Productions and went instantly to home video. Within weeks, the Mattel Corporation obtained an emergency injunction prohibiting the two stars of the film from “performing, portraying, attiring, advertising or in any way representing themselves as Barbie dolls, a trademarked symbol; this order to include but not expressly be limited to such oral and visual depictions as ‘Goth Barbies,’ ‘Undead Barbies,’ and ‘Double-Jointed Vampire Barbies.’ ” Both women received unfriendly visits from agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and soon thereafter left the United States on an extended working vacation to the Caribbean.
estella hyde, also known to Fort Lauderdale vice officers as Crystal Barr, Raven McCollum and Raven Bush, became volunteer treasurer of the Broward County Chapter of Citizens for Quayle. During a fund-raising brunch for the former vice president at Pier 66, she met and befriended Governor Dick Artemus, who soon afterward invited her to Tallahassee to serve on the Public Service Commission.
After surrendering his California real estate license to avoid prosecution, phillip spree, jr., moved to Beaufort, South Carolina, where he specialized in peddling oceanfront property on low-lying barrier islands. Before long, Little Phil came to believe his own bubbly sales pitch, and built himself a getaway house on pilings at the edge of the Atlantic. He, his fourth wife and their architect perished there one summer, when Hurricane Barbara smashed the beach bungalow to matchsticks.
amy spree married her yoga instructor and moved to Cassadaga, Florida, where she is faithfully visited by her son every year on her birthday.
lt. jim tile retired from the Florida Highway Patrol and opened a fish camp and diner near Apalachicola. The following Christmas, he received in the mail a gaily wrapped package. Inside was a new Nokia cellular phone, the speed dial programmed to an unlisted number in North Key Largo. Callers are treated to a voice-mail greeting that consists entirely of the solo guitar lead-in to “Fortunate Son,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
lisa june peterson resigned her job as executive assistant to Governor Dick Artemus and went to work as a lobbyist for the Clean Water Action Group. The following spring, she was instrumental in pushing for a new anti-pollution law that resulted in a $5,000-a-day fine against a notoriously virulent Magnusson Phosphate plant in Polk County. As a result, mine owner Dag Magnusson angrily switched political parties and spent the rest of his days bitterly funneling thousands of dollars in illicit campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.
Ten months after the hunting fiasco at Wilderness Veldt, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Miami on the future site of the willie vasquez-washington senior high school. Governor dick artemus attended the event and posed graciously with the honoree, both men wielding gold-painted shovels while photographers took their picture.
The peregrine bay lighthouse remains closed to the public, though on occasion mariners along Florida’s southeast coast claim to see a bright light flashing at the dome of the barber-striped tower. The Coast Guard routinely discounts these sightings as an illusion caused by foul weather, since the lighthouse is known to be empty and out of service.