Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10

Summary

Big Time Podcast: "Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10" – Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Big Time
• Host/Author: Apple TV+ / Campside Media
• Description: Big Time delves into the audacious dreams of criminals, exploring larger-than-life scams and schemes that almost succeeded. Hosted by Steve Buscemi, each episode uncovers a new story of elaborate heists and cons.
• Episode: Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
• Release Date: May 26, 2025
• Produced By: Campside Media and Piece of Work Entertainment in association with Olive Productions

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

Steve Buscemi opens the episode with a vivid description of a touch tank in an aquarium, humorously expressing his aversion to getting slimy but hinting at the central heist that unfolds within such an environment.

"Today's caper takes place in the murky water of one of those touch tanks."
— Steve Buscemi [00:00]

Reporter Rajeev Gola introduces the narrative, emphasizing the eccentric lifestyles of exotic pet enthusiasts and hinting at the complex hierarchy within these communities.

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The Aquarium and Its Keepers

The San Antonio Aquarium is portrayed as a bustling hub with over 8,000 animals, interactive exhibits, and dedicated staff managing daily operations. Jamie Schenk, the Director of the Aquarium, and Jenny Spellman, the newly hired General Manager, are introduced as passionate fish enthusiasts committed to providing immersive experiences for visitors.

"We provide an experience for the guests to have an emotional attachment with that animal."
— Jamie Schenk [03:44]

Jenny Spellman recounts her first day managing the expansive facility, highlighting her extensive experience in similar roles and her reputation as a "brick wall" for security and operations.

"I walked up the stairs. I kind of followed the trail of leaking water out into the parking lot."
— Jenny Spellman [09:38]

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The Heist: Disappearance of Ms. Helen

On July 28, 2018, Jenny Spellman arrives for her first day as General Manager, unaware that it would mark the beginning of a high-profile theft. A suspicious incident unfolds involving two men seen exiting the cold water room with a leaking stroller.

Jenny immediately senses something amiss and confronts the suspects, who claim the water leakage was accidental due to a spilled drink. However, Jenny's intuition tells her otherwise.

"It was Ms. Helen."
— Jenny Spellman [15:39]

Upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that a prized horn shark, later named Ms. Helen, has been stolen from a touch tank designed for guest interaction.

"She was the only horn shark we had. I knew exactly which one she was."
— Jamie Schenk [16:00]

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Investigation and Pursuit

With the license plate number from the fleeing vehicle, Jenny contacts the Leon Valley Police Department. Initial skepticism from the authorities quickly shifts to serious investigation as video evidence points to a premeditated theft orchestrated by Anthony Michael Shannon, a 38-year-old plumber with a history of theft.

Jamie Schenk identifies the suspect from grainy security footage, revealing the meticulous planning behind the heist.

"He came a couple weeks before, and that's how I recognized him on the cameras."
— Jamie Schenk [12:17]

The police eventually trace the license plate to a suburban home, leading to a raid where Ms. Helen is found alive in the suspect's garage, much to the relief of the Aquarium staff.

"I was able to identify her. I couldn't believe she was alive."
— Jamie Schenk [22:26]

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Aftermath and Media Frenzy

Ms. Helen's rescue sparks an international media frenzy, thrusting the once-obscure horn shark into the spotlight. The Aquarium staff, overwhelmed by the attention, take measures to protect Ms. Helen and other horn sharks by dispersing them across various exhibits.

"We're gonna get more horn sharks and we're just gonna put them in a bunch of different random exhibits."
— Jamie Schenk [24:09]

Anthony Shannon faces public backlash despite his claims of activism, ultimately being sentenced to two years in prison for felony theft.

"I actually took a shark, which was wrong, but it needed help."
— Anthony Michael Shannon [26:18]

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Closing Remarks and Teaser for Part 2

The episode concludes with reflections on Shannon's motives and the lingering questions about potential mistreatment at the Aquarium, setting the stage for further exploration in the next installment.

"That's next week on Big Time."
— Rajeev Gola [26:38]

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Key Takeaways

• Dedication of Aquarium Staff: The unwavering commitment of Jenny Spellman and Jamie Schenk highlights the challenges of managing a large-scale aquarium and responding to emergencies.

• Premeditated Theft: Anthony Shannon's calculated heist underscores a blend of personal obsession and criminal behavior, revealing the lengths individuals may go to fulfill unconventional desires.

• Media Impact: The sudden spotlight on Ms. Helen illustrates how media attention can amplify ordinary incidents into global events, affecting both humans and animal subjects involved.

• Ethical Considerations: Shannon's self-proclaimed activism raises questions about the methods used to advocate for animal welfare and the consequences of such actions.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Steve Buscemi [00:00]:
  "Today's caper takes place in the murky water of one of those touch tanks."

• Jamie Schenk [03:44]:
  "We provide an experience for the guests to have an emotional attachment with that animal."

• Jenny Spellman [09:38]:
  "I walked up the stairs. I kind of followed the trail of leaking water out into the parking lot."

• Jenny Spellman [15:39]:
  "She was Ms. Helen."

• Jamie Schenk [22:26]:
  "I was able to identify her. I couldn't believe she was alive."

• Jamie Schenk [24:09]:
  "We're gonna get more horn sharks and we're just gonna put them in a bunch of different random exhibits."

• Anthony Michael Shannon [26:18]:
  "I actually took a shark, which was wrong, but it needed help."

---

Conclusion

"Missing Helen: Part 1" masterfully intertwines the passion of aquarium staff with the audacity of criminal endeavor, painting a vivid picture of a unique heist that captivated audiences worldwide. As the investigation unfolds, listeners are left eagerly anticipating the resolution and deeper insights into the motives behind Anthony Shannon's actions in the upcoming part of the story.

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Follow and Listen:
Big Time is available on Apple Podcasts. Stay tuned for the next episode, where Anthony Shannon reveals all about his infamous heist.

Transcript

[Steve Buscemi]

If you've ever been to an aquarium, you've probably seen a touch tank. It's an interactive exhibit with shallow basins of water where you can stick your hands in to try to touch sea creatures. Usually you'll find crabs, sea anemones, stingrays, and even sometimes sharks in there. Here's what I have to say to that. No thanks. I don't need to get my hands slimy and sleeves wet with dirty fish water. And it's none of my business what those fish are doing in there anyways. Now, the reason I bring this up at all is because today's caper takes place in the murky water of one of those touch tanks. It's a story about folks who definitely didn't mind getting their hands dirty and most certainly didn't grant these sea creatures the respect they deserve. I'm Steve Buscemi, and you're listening to Big Time, an Apple original podcast from Piece of Work Entertainment and Campside Media in association with with Olive Productions. Today's episode, Part one of a two part story is reported by Rajeev Gola.

[Rajeev Gola]

If you've ever spent time around anyone who keeps exotic pets as a hobby, you know they can be more on the eccentric end of the spectrum. Even calling it a hobby seems like underselling it for them. It's really a lifestyle. It defines their entire personality and consumes an inordinate amount of their square footage and bank accounts. And personally, I say more power to them. Wave that freak flag high. The exotic pet community encompasses a lot of different types of folks. And among the different communities of bug people and reptile people and rodent people and fish people and bird people, there's a definite hierarchy of weird.

[Jamie Schenk]

Fish people are very, very different because they love their fish, but it's not like you get to go cuddle it and scratch it. There's an emotional connection, but there's not a lot of touching that happens like it would for, let's say, a parrot or a mammal. Bird people take like, bites like crazy. Like they're like, oh, yeah, I totally bit my finger and I love you so much.

[Rajeev Gola]

That's Jamie Schenk. She's a fish person and so is Jenny Spellman.

[Jenny Spellman]

I have driven 15 hours from San Antonio, Texas, to Atlanta, Georgia, just to go see the whale sharks in the aquarium there. They're absolutely amazing. I'm fortunate enough to live about four hours from there now, so I go see them on the regular basis.

[Rajeev Gola]

There really is nothing that can stand between a fish person and a fish they love. Except for, well, another fish person. Which is exactly what happened on a summer morning in 2018 when a fish went miss at the San Antonio Aquarium. That fish, like many other fish in aquariums around the world, was a no name talent. A background actor with a snowball's chance in hell at making a name for itself. But after the great 2018 aquarium heist, that fish became an international celebrity. Became so famous that its exact location remains a closely guarded secret even today. One of the few people tasked with keeping that secret is self proclaimed fish person, Jamie Shank. She also serves as the director of the San Antonio Aquarium, a place that tries its best to bridge the physical gap between fish and fish person.

[Jamie Schenk]

What's unique about us, we make it possible so guests can come and touch and feed our octopus, touch and feed our sting rays. And a lot of our tanks are set up that way so that we can provide an experience for the guests to have an emotional attachment with that animal.

[Rajeev Gola]

As you can imagine, providing that sort of interactive experience is a pretty demanding job.

[Jamie Schenk]

My days and my nights are pretty much merged together.

[Rajeev Gola]

But that's the sort of commitment you only find when you're dealing with fish people. And it's absolutely necessary when you're overseeing over 8,000 animals.

[Jamie Schenk]

I mean, you're dealing with life, right? So you never know who's going to be sick, who's going to do this, Babies being born, new projects being completed, everything like that.

[Rajeev Gola]

The folks running the San Antonio Aquarium have seen just about everything. Newborn lemur needs to be hand fed overnight, no problem. Iguana escape the terrarium. They can catch them with one arm tied behind their back. That's the kind of folks that keep the aquarium ticking, keep all the guests happy and all the animals safe. Folks like whale shark superfan, Jenny Spellman.

[Jenny Spellman]

My name is Jenny Spellman. I was the general manager at the San Antonio Aquarium.

[Rajeev Gola]

Jenny Smelen pulled into work on July 28, 2018, expecting it to go like any other day. She unlocked the doors and started running down the checklist of her duties as general manager.

[Jenny Spellman]

We opened up the facility, we put cash in the registers, we made sure all the staff showed up. We had a morning meeting, just like every morning, kind of introducing myself to the staff I hadn't met yet.

[Rajeev Gola]

The reason that she hadn't met all the staff yet was that Jenny had just been hired on as general manager a few days earlier.

[Jenny Spellman]

They showed me how to unlock the doors, how to reset the alarm code, showed me where the bathrooms were, and how to get money to the bank. I'd done some training for two days. And then day three, this happens.

[Rajeev Gola]

Her name tag might have been born yesterday, but Jenny sure wasn't. She'd worked in zoos, aquariums, and vet offices her whole life. And if Jenny had a nickname, it would be the brick wall, because nothing got past her. This was a big job for Jenny, and the aquarium was gigantic. Over 50,000 square feet, almost the size of a football field. Aside from 8,000 animals and about a dozen touch pools, there was a gift shop, a bouncy house, an arcade, snorkeling pools, an AV area, interactive lemur and otter exhibits, and a handful of mermaids waddling around posing for photos. Managing a place like that was like riding a bull, except you had to hold on for a whole day. The rodeo kicked off as soon as the doors opened.

[Jenny Spellman]

And at some point in the early morning, there was a truck that parked in a towaway zone. It was this big red truck right by the gift shop, which is where people exited from. So I also was trying to track down the owner of that. We had announcements go out over the page trying to get the owner of the truck to move it, but I got busy and kind of forgot about that. So I went up to the office to have lunch. And there was a call over our radio. A guest was exiting the cold water area with their stroller leaking water.

[Rajeev Gola]

As it turned out, one of the fish keepers had seen two men leaving the cold water room, an employees only area where highly sensitive fish were kept. The two men left in a hurry, and one of them was carrying something rolled up in a blanket. They placed the blanket in a stroller and just started walking away. The fish keeper rushed into the cold water room and saw nothing out of place. And when she stepped back out, she saw the men carrying the baby stroller up the stairs. And each time the stroller tilted back, water poured out the bottom.

[Jenny Spellman]

That sounds really suspicious coming from an aquarium.

[Rajeev Gola]

What did I tell you earlier? Brick wall.

[Jenny Spellman]

So I decided to go confront them and see what happened.

[Rajeev Gola]

But while Jenny's on her way out the door to find this guest, the fish keepers find a big problem in the cold water room.

[Jamie Schenk]

So in the back, we have sanitization buckets. We have a bleach diluted bucket so we can sanitize our scrub brushes or anything that we put into the tank so we're not cross scrap contaminating. So he took it and he dumped bleach into our system. And if you're familiar with aquariums, bleach kills fish. So it was Kind of like, okay, this guy took our shark. He's also trying to crash one of our systems.

[Rajeev Gola]

It's a big enough emergency that it warrants calling the assistant animal husbandry director, Jamie Schenck on her day off.

[Jamie Schenk]

You're kind of in a bit of a state of shark, state of shock. Then it's like you're trying to take care of almost two things at one time. Then the staff members were on the phone with me. What do we do? What do we do?

[Rajeev Gola]

This was the aquarium equivalent of a robber throwing marbles behind him. But these aren't just any old runticops. These are San Antonio's finest marine caretakers.

[Jamie Schenk]

Basically, we did a large water change, and we're able to put dechlorinators into the water really fast. So in the end, we actually had zero loss, which is amazing. And then at the same time, go hunt him down. So we were moving pretty fast.

[Rajeev Gola]

With Jamie and her staff taking care of the fish tank. It's all on Jamie to track down the thief, and she is in hot pursuit.

[Jenny Spellman]

I walked up the stairs. I kind of followed the trail of leaking water out into the parking lot. And there we have that truck that was parked in the towway zone by the gift shop, that exit. It was an older style red pickup truck. There were two men standing there. There was a woman with a baby. So I went up to the taller man and I said, hey, I need to work. Look and see what's in your truck. It's really suspicious that you guys are leaking water coming out of an aquarium.

[Rajeev Gola]

According to the fish keeper that called in the possible theft, Jenny then bent over and smelled and tasted the water that was in their stroller. She looked up and said to the man, this is fresh water.

[Jenny Spellman]

He said his girlfriend had spilled some water into the stroller and that's why it was leaking. But he didn't have an empty cup, and that was a lot of water for it to be leaking, just a cup. So if you would please allow me to look through your stroller and see what's going on. And they said, absolutely not.

[Rajeev Gola]

The taller man also told Jenny they needed to leave. His baby was sick, so Jenny let him go.

[Jenny Spellman]

They're bigger men. I'm not going to get in a physical altercation with somebody over searching their car.

[Rajeev Gola]

The two men got into the red truck, the stroller inside with him. They hightailed it out of the parking lot, leaving the woman stranded, looking dazed and nervous.

[Jenny Spellman]

And I thought it was incredibly suspicious that she was not staying with them, especially since he said that his baby was sick. And why would you walk down the road along the side of a highway with nothing around except, like car dealerships, when you have a sick baby and not get in the air conditioned car?

[Rajeev Gola]

It looked like the thief had just slipped through Jenny's fingers.

[Jenny Spellman]

But I did get their license plate number as they drove away.

[Rajeev Gola]

That's right. You're dealing with a brick wall, baby. But before Jenny could call the cops to file a report, she had to gather some evidence.

[Jenny Spellman]

I went back to my office. I called the former GM to figure out how to use the security equipment because I had absolutely no idea how to get passwords. So I went back and the security cameras.

[Rajeev Gola]

The video was grainy black and white and a little tough to make out, but the thief's face was clear. Jenny had never seen the man in her life, but Jamie Schenck recognized him immediately. And she realized that this wasn't just some crazy fluke or some prank. This heist was premeditated.

[Jamie Schenk]

He came a couple weeks before, and that's how I recognized him on the cameras. Because the whole situation was very unique and different and raised red flags.

[Rajeev Gola]

The thief had come to the aquarium under the guise of a salesman from Instant Oceans, a salt supply company that helps aquariums maintain their mineral levels and check on its water quality. However.

[Jamie Schenk]

Well, Instant Oceans never come through. We just talk to them on the phone. The only vendors we have that come through on a regular basis would be vendors for our gift shop. So he shows up and he's like, we want to test your salt, and we think the salt is a bad batch and is going to hurt your fish or livestock, whatever you have, blah, blah, blah. There was no company shirt, no card. We hadn't received an email or anything like that. And I was like, well, we haven't had any issues, so I think we're okay. And he kept pressing the matter and want to do a walkthrough.

[Rajeev Gola]

In fairness, it didn't seem like a big deal to Jamie. Everything at the aquarium seemed to be running smoothly, and she didn't seem the harm in showing him around. Best case scenario, the guy was legit and could help her catch a bad batch before the fish got sick. Worst case, this was just a weird guy trying to get a free tour. So Jamie agreed to show him around.

[Jamie Schenk]

So we did do a walkthrough through the aquarium. Nothing serious, Nothing outside of what a normal guest would be able to do.

[Rajeev Gola]

The fishy salesman got a tour and left. And that was that. To be clear, Instant Oceans Was never actually involved in any of this. But as soon as Jamie saw the man in the grainy security footage, and.

[Jamie Schenk]

At that time, it just clicked. He was totally scooping out the place.

[Rajeev Gola]

Now they had a prime suspect and video evidence, but they still didn't know what had actually been stolen.

[Jenny Spellman]

I thought maybe he had sold like a starfish or something. Something really easy, something kind of portable. You can just throw in a little bucket or whatever.

[Rajeev Gola]

But once they examined the video, we.

[Jenny Spellman]

Realized that he wasn't in the starfish tank. He was in the shark tank.

[Rajeev Gola]

Now, before you start imagining the shark tank from Austin Powers, a little jacuzzi with two great white sharks in it, Let me clarify things here. The sharks we're talking about are not big man eating, shark week nightmare fuel type sharks. The sharks in question were a lot smaller, about a foot or two long and a hell of a lot cuter. The tank was about the size and height of a dinner table, and the top was totally open because you were allowed, encouraged to reach inside and touch the sharks.

[Jenny Spellman]

Yeah, we saw exactly what happened. Stirring up the sharks to get them real excited, and pulling a net out of his pants, reaching down, scooping one up, and then like hurriedly walking over to one of our back rooms and disappearing. With that.

[Rajeev Gola]

Jenny called the animal caretakers to check on the tank.

[Jenny Spellman]

They went and looked and did inventory.

[Jamie Schenk]

If he took a bamboo shark, it would have been a lot harder for us to identify because we have like hundreds of bamboos. And it would have been more difficult for me to identify.

[Rajeev Gola]

After a quick headcount, it was clear which shark was missing.

[Jamie Schenk]

They had to take the one horned shark. And that was so easy.

[Jenny Spellman]

It was Ms. Helen.

[Rajeev Gola]

Of course, Jamie was concerned. Before what professional animal caretaker wouldn't be. But this was different. This was Ms. Helen.

[Jamie Schenk]

She was the only horn shark we had. I knew exactly which one she was. I knew her really well because I really wanted to care for a horn shark. They're one of my favorite species. They're very cute and they have great personalities.

[Rajeev Gola]

A horn shark like Ms. Helen was perfect for a touch tank aquarium. Horn sharks are pretty small, about the same size as a catfish, with the same dour whiskered face and the fins and tail you'd expect on a shark.

[Jamie Schenk]

She was fairly young. She was a juvenile. She was really sweet. She was a polite eater. I just called her like a little lady because she was very patient and she wasn't just going to rush to the dinner plate.

[Rajeev Gola]

But now, now she was gone. So with the license plate number in hand, Jenny placed a call to the Leon Valley Police Department.

[Jenny Spellman]

I said, hey, we have somebody here. I have their license plates. But they stole the shark. And they all just laughed. They took the license plate number. They laughed some more. You could hear laughing in the background. And then they said, okay, we'll be in touch. And three days later, they weren't in touch. So I reached out to my friend at the police department in San Antonio and had him kind of talk to his superior officers. And that's when they actually started getting some traction on the case. As soon as the cops got more involved, that's when the media circus began. I was taking calls until about 3 in the morning. It was insane.

[Jamie Schenk]

I did so many interviews, I lost my voice.

[Jenny Spellman]

It was absolutely out of body. I spent the first two weeks that I was there, like, not only learning my job, but also fielding as many interview requests as possible. You know, get all the publicity we could. And I understand, like, it's, you know, any publicity is good publicity for them.

[Rajeev Gola]

Almost overnight, Ms. Helen became an international celebrity. Something about the absurdity of the theft, a shark in a baby stroller, was just absolutely captivating. All right.

[Steve Buscemi]

A trio of thieves took Shark Week too far. They walk right into a busy Texas.

[Jenny Spellman]

Aquarium, and then right out with a.

[Steve Buscemi]

Live shark on the camera. Three people accused of taking a horn shark from a tank and putting it in a baby stroller, then driving away with it before authorities could find them.

[Rajeev Gola]

Yes, we love Ms. Helen's the name. Just alone. Good morning to you. Something about the name Ms. Helen just made the shark so knowable and familiar, like she was your first grade teacher or the nice old lady you see at the post office. Sometimes it felt personal.

[Jenny Spellman]

Actually. If you want to know a secret, she was given that name on that day for the media. I'm sorry to ruin your world. She had another name, but Jamie just didn't know what it was, and she just threw out miss Helen.

[Rajeev Gola]

Yeah, well, now I'm upset, you're upset, no one's happy. But the story isn't over yet.

[Jamie Schenk]

The main mission at the time was how do we get her back? What do we need to prep? We didn't think we would get her back alive. That's really the truth. But we still prepped and made preparations.

[Rajeev Gola]

Most sharks can only survive a few minutes out of water. Horn sharks are also super sensitive to light, super sensitive to chemical changes, and require pretty large tanks for their size. So being yoinked out of a touchpool, wrapped in a towel, thrown into a bucket, taken to God knows where in the bed of a truck isn't exactly optimal conditions, and the San Antonio police were dragging their feet. It took them two days to follow up on the license plate number that Jenny had written down. They traced it back to an address in a small suburb outside town. And when they drove by the house, they saw the red truck sitting in the driveway. They knocked on the door, and the owner of the truck stepped out. He told the cops he'd been out of town, that his truck may have been used without his knowledge. Before the cops left, however, they spoke with a neighbor who said they'd seen another guy next door carry a large fish into his house a few days earlier. Now, they had a solid lead, and the cops returned later that day to investigate. But they didn't really have a protocol for what to do if they actually found the shark. So the police called up Jenny and Jamie and asked them to come over.

[Jenny Spellman]

So I rushed over there because I wanted to be a part of it. And Jamie came as well and brought equipment for bringing her back. An officer showed up, and then two or three other police cars showed up. And then they went and knocked on the door. We were made to wait in the driveway while they searched the house.

[Jamie Schenk]

I'm just watching all this, and I'm just like, I just want my shark back. Like, you can take him away. I just want my shark.

[Jenny Spellman]

They walked in. They walked through the living room, looked at some of the fish tanks in the living room, and then the man that stole the shark volunteered that it was in the garage. So they opened the garage door.

[Rajeev Gola]

As the garage door slowly raised and rolled up, a full picture came into focus for Jenny and Jamie. And finally the police let them come inside to see everything for themselves.

[Jamie Schenk]

The whole back wall was covered with tanks and fish. So he was a hobbyist. He definitely had experience. He wasn't some newbie that never took care of fish before.

[Jenny Spellman]

There was a huge above ground swimming pool full of salt water.

[Jamie Schenk]

So it was about a 400 gallon tank. It was large. However, the filtration system, it was like, ran on something really small, like a canister filter or something like that. And in the center of it, he had some live rock and some faux coral.

[Jenny Spellman]

They had a file fish and three or four bonnethead sharks, little babies.

[Jamie Schenk]

And then I saw Ms. Helen. I was able to identify her. I couldn't believe she was alive. I really couldn't believe she was alive. I was like, oh, my gosh, she's swimming, she's swimming, she's alive.

[Jenny Spellman]

I was absolutely Elated to see that she was still alive and kicking.

[Jamie Schenk]

I was kind of pranked. Man. She's a hearty little shark and she had a strong will to survive.

[Rajeev Gola]

God truly saves his biggest battles for his littlest sharks.

[Jamie Schenk]

You know, I am grateful that he wasn't some newbie person that just grabbed her and had no idea what they were doing, because if that was the case, then she probably wouldn't be with us. So we brought her back, then we acclimated her to her QT pool. We had her in the back in quarantine because we wanted to monitor and make sure she was okay.

[Rajeev Gola]

The headlines went crazy. Once again, missing shark found Ms. Helen was dominating the news cycle for the whole week, and the aquarium was getting more attention than ever.

[Steve Buscemi]

Tonight, an exclusive update on the condition of the horn shark named Ms. Helen that grabbed national attention.

[Rajeev Gola]

Needless to say, the story has captivated the Internet, which isn't surprising considering it's Shark Week. But all of that fame was dangerous for such a little fish who at the time didn't have an agent, a manager, or a bodyguard.

[Jamie Schenk]

The hype hadn't gone down and we had to brainstorm and come up with a plan and like, hey, we can't just put her back. What if somebody tries to come in thinking they can do it again? Or something like that? Or just all the attention itself could be stressful for one individual animal. And that's when we came up with, okay, we're gonna get more horn sharks and we're just gonna put them in a bunch of different random exhibits. And one of the exhibits she'll be in, we don't release where Ms. Helen is, because after that incident, a lot of people was walking in to be like, Where's Ms. Helen? Where's Ms. Helen? We're like, well, we don't know. She's here somewhere.

[Rajeev Gola]

With Ms. Helen in witness protection, things began to settle down and return to normal at the San Antonio Aquarium. News slowly dribbled out about the theft as the thief, a 38 year old plumber named Anthony Michael Shannon, went through the court system. The two accomplices that had been caught on video alongside Shannon had been his wife and his neighbor. Both claimed that they had no idea what Shannon had in mind when he took them to the aquarium that day. Which explained why he also left his wife in the dust making his getaway. And when they all got home, he told his neighbor to tell the cops that he'd been out of town. Shannon had seemed cool as a cucumber through the entire Heist, which made sense considering it hadn't been his first time using the five finger discount.

[Jenny Spellman]

I think he has a problem with stealing. I think he's kind of addicted to it. Based on his prior record, he had a long rap sheet with stolen cars, all kinds of stuff like that.

[Rajeev Gola]

Rumors were floating around about why Anthony had taken the shark, especially given all the work he did planning the operation. One theory was that he'd had a horn shark before, but that it had died, so he went out to find a replacement. Another theory was that he'd done some plumbing for the aquarium but had been stiffed. There was no evidence to support either theory. Eventually, Anthony did an interview with a local news station to settle the question.

[Anthony Michael Shannon]

I actually took a shark, which was wrong, but it needed help. At that point in time, as an activist, you know, I have a mission. So it's not a mission to steal for profit. It's a mission just to give the fish to better help. But if there's any other animals that need help, yes, I will still do it. I still will go out there and rescue them. I'm sure with the media what's going on, they'll take better care of their animals from now on.

[Rajeev Gola]

Well, I'm sorry to say, Anthony, but your activism wasn't really received the way you thought it would be. By and large, Anthony was painted as a kleptomaniac who'd combined his two favorite hobbies, marine life and petty crime. Eventually, he was sentenced to two years in prison on felony theft charges. And the whole thing was simply forgotten. Another crazy Texan behind bars and another weird series of headlines to put to bed Nice and tidy. But that's a damn shame, because it turns out that all of Anthony Shannon's crazy claims of mistreatment and negligence at the aquarium, well, they might not have been totally untrue. Whatever you think about his methods, Anthony might have been onto something after all. That's next week on Big Time.

[Jenny Spellman]

Amen. Covino pled guilty to wildlife trafficking charges.

[Rajeev Gola]

I spent two years, 23 months in federal prison lockup. And why? Why do that? What did I do?

[Steve Buscemi]

I bought a fish from a guy.

[Rajeev Gola]

Who lied about catching it. We're the fastest growing zoo aquarium company in the world. We have continuous disputes with animal rights activists and over 35,000 animals. But it's the crew of seaquest that make this place one fishy business.

[Steve Buscemi]

Next week on Big Time, Ammon tells all. This has been big Time. An Apple original podcast produced by Piece of Work Entertainment and Campside Media in association with Olive Productions. It's hosted by me, Steve Buscemi. This episode was reported and produced by Rajeev Gola and Morgan Jaffe. Our story editor is Audrey Quinn. Lane Rose is our showrunner and managing producer. Our production team includes Amy Padula and associate producer Dania Abdelhamid. Fact checking by Mary Mathis Sound design and mixing by Shawnee Aviram. Our theme was written by Nicholas Principe and Peter Silberman of Spatial Relations. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Adam Hoff and Matt Sher. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening.

[Rajeev Gola]

Sam.