Tyrannosaurus rex or T-rex has become one of the most popular dinosaurs in popular culture. Since Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" was released in 1993, the T-Rex has become a fan favorite. Additionally, arguably the most famous T-Rex fossil ever found was Sue the T-Rex. Sue is one of the largest, most extensive, and best-preserved T-Rex ever found. It was discovered in 1990 and was named after its discoverer, Sue Hendrickson. Today, Sue can be found at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
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00:00In 1990, a fossilized dinosaur dubbed Sue the T-Rex was discovered by the Black Hills
00:06Institute.
00:07It was a triumph for science, until betrayal, lawsuits, and the FBI turned the whole thing
00:13into a tragic morality play.
00:16Here's the real-life story of Sue the T-Rex.
00:20On the morning of August 12, 1990, Sue Hendrickson left the other members of her fossil-hunting
00:25team to walk alone on the South Dakota ranch where they'd been looking for specimens.
00:30The ranch's owner, Morris Williams, had given them permission to look on his land.
00:35Hendrickson spotted some dark shapes in the rock and knew she had found something big
00:39— literally.
00:41She took a fragment back to her team from South Dakota's Black Hills Institute, led
00:45by Peter Larson.
00:46Larson later told PBS,
00:48"...I'd never seen the inside of a T-Rex vertebrae before, but I knew that was what I was looking
00:53at the minute I saw these things."
00:56He was right.
00:57Sue had stumbled on the most intact T-Rex skeleton ever discovered, including 250 bones.
01:04It would eventually stand at 42 feet long, but first, the team had to dig it out of the
01:08rock — a process that took 17 days.
01:12Once that was done, they shipped the fossils back to the Institute, paid Williams $5,000,
01:18and nicknamed the T-Rex Sue after its discoverer.
01:22It wasn't easy being a dinosaur.
01:24A post-mortem conducted on Sue found that the T-Rex survived numerous injuries before
01:29dying of, as of yet, unknown causes.
01:33According to New Scientist, the post-mortem found healed fractures on ribs on Sue's right
01:38and left sides, indicating that it must have survived two traumatic attacks.
01:43Bones in the arms and legs showed signs of healing from infections, and it had some sizable
01:48holes in its jaw, which the researchers believed were caused by parasites rather than other
01:54dinosaurs.
01:55Sue also apparently suffered from back problems and possibly even arthritis.
01:59Despite its various injuries and illnesses, though, Sue is thought to have been the ripe
02:03old age of 28 when it died.
02:05Not bad, considering that life expectancy for a T-Rex has been estimated at 35.
02:12Located in Hill City, South Dakota, the Black Hills Institute is a fossil collection, fossil
02:17shop, and fossil-preparing workshop founded by brothers Peter and Neil Larson in 1974.
02:24Although the Larsons and their team take a scientific approach to hunting and excavating
02:28fossils, they are a for-profit business, which makes them controversial in the world of dinosaur
02:34digging.
02:35Some academics argue that amateur fossil hunters and their sometimes legally questionable fossil-finding
02:41practices contribute to our collective scientific knowledge.
02:45In 1993, an anonymous paleontologist told the New York Times,
02:49"...the collection methods of many museums and universities would not bear too close
02:54scrutiny.
02:55Some of our best specimens have been found by amateurs and commercial dealers.
02:59As long as fossil dealers work in scientifically responsible ways, they have a right to make
03:03a living."
03:04However, some paleontologists worry that when fossils come with price tags, and when prices
03:09are consistently increasing, specimens will end up in private collections where they can't
03:14be studied by researchers or viewed by the public.
03:17As paleontologist Paul Sereno told the Chicago Tribune,
03:20"...with prospectors carrying off bones for commercial sale before scientists can study
03:24them in the ground, we are losing information on an escalating pace."
03:30Getting Sue out of the cliff and back to the Institute was just the start of the hard work.
03:34Peter Larson put the Institute's best preparator, Terry Wentz, to work preparing the fossil.
03:40In the documentary Dinosaur 13, Wentz recalled,
03:44"...that was a big job.
03:45It took me literally a year just to remove individual bones from around the skull.
03:50One of the hardest parts was disconnecting the skull from where it was resting on the
03:54pelvis."
03:55In the documentary, Wentz described the moment they were finally safely separated as, quote,
04:00"...probably the highest point of my life."
04:02As Wentz worked, Larson invited scientists and members of the public to watch his progress,
04:08and invited a team of 30 paleontologists to put together a comprehensive monograph on
04:13the T. rex.
04:14Larson maintained that he had no intention of selling Sue.
04:17He wanted her to become the centerpiece of a museum at the Institute.
04:22It wasn't only scientists.
04:24Hill City residents and schoolchildren were fascinated by Sue.
04:27The T. rex in the Institute received a lot of press coverage.
04:31This attracted the attention of Vincent Santucci, a paleontologist and geologist for the National
04:36Park Service.
04:37In Dinosaur 13, Santucci explained that he was outraged watching fossil collectors waltz
04:43off with valuable artifacts without, in his view, the proper permissions.
04:48He suspected that Larson hadn't gotten the permissions he needed to claim Sue, because
04:52Morris Williams technically hadn't had the right to sell it.
04:56As a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Williams owned the land Sue was found on.
05:01But because it was tribal land, it was technically held in trust by the Department of the Interior,
05:06which means that even though he supposedly owned the land, he actually was required to
05:10get permission from the federal government to sell Sue.
05:14And he hadn't.
05:15Santucci alerted the Park Service, who alerted the tribe, who felt that Sue belonged to them.
05:21And their reservation desperately needed the revenue a T. rex fossil could generate.
05:25The tribe pleaded their case to acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Schieffer, who authorized an
05:29FBI raid.
05:31On the morning of May 12th, 1992, the Black Hills Institute team woke to find FBI agents
05:38and National Guard raiding their facility.
05:40The agents demanded they turn over Sue, as well as any documents related to it, and any
05:45other fossils found on Williams' land.
05:48"...our workers came over and said, the whole place is crawling with FBI.
05:52And I said…"
05:55Larson protested, as the 67-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton was very fragile and could
06:01easily be damaged.
06:02The FBI, however, had guns.
06:04They brought in a team from the South Dakota Museum of Geology at the School of Mines to
06:09move the bones to their facility.
06:11Then they brought in the Army.
06:12Hundreds of protesters then showed up, demanding that Sue be left where she was.
06:17But the government refused to budge.
06:19Larson told PBS,
06:21When the trucks drove away, everybody was just crying.
06:24It was like Sue had died for the second time.
06:26The Institute filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior,
06:31the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the School of Mines and Technology, claiming that Sue
06:35was their property.
06:36Shortly after, Williams jumped into the fray, claiming that the $5,000 he'd received at
06:41the dig site wasn't toward purchasing Sue anyway, and therefore, he actually still owned
06:47the fossil.
06:48The lawsuit over who owned Sue was a civil matter, but things soon got more serious for
06:54the Institute.
06:55While supporters continued their Free Sue campaign, the media coverage convinced the
06:59Justice Department to make a high-profile example of the Institute in order to try and
07:04discourage other commercial fossil hunters who had been taking advantage of lackluster
07:09protection of federal property.
07:11In November 1993, five months after the FBI raid, the Department of Justice brought 39
07:17counts and 153 charges against six members of the Black Hills Institute.
07:22The charges included wire fraud, theft of government property, and making false statements
07:27to government agencies.
07:28Peter Larson was charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, illegal collection
07:33of fossils, theft of government property, and customs violations, though the charges
07:38were technically all related to fossils other than Sue.
07:43There was one clear winner in the case of who owned Sue.
07:46In 1994, United States District Judge Richard Batty ruled that Williams hadn't had the right
07:52to sell Sue to the Institute in 1990 because he hadn't requested permission from the federal
07:57government.
07:58So the $5,000 purchase was void.
08:01This meant that the ownership of Sue went back to Williams.
08:05This was bad news for the Institute and for the Cheyenne River Sue.
08:09Greg Borland, superintendent of the Cheyenne River Agency, later told PBS,
08:15We have a long-standing history of getting screwed by some unscrupulous-type folks around
08:19the country, including other governments, so we're pretty much used to this kind of
08:23stuff."
08:24Things quickly got worse for the Institute.
08:26Several members were convicted of various misdemeanors and felonies, but while most
08:30of the sentencing was light, Larson had the book thrown at him.
08:34Though he was only convicted of two misdemeanors, in 1996 he was sentenced to two years in prison,
08:40a $5,000 fine, and two years' supervised release.
08:44An example had been made.
08:47After the decision to return the ownership of Sue to landowner Williams, he officially
08:52requested permission from the federal government to sell Sue, which was granted.
08:57In 1996, Sue was moved to Sotheby's Auction House in New York, where it was finally reunited
09:03with one member of the Institute.
09:05Terry Wendt spent 2,000 hours helping to prepare Sue for sale, but it was bittersweet.
09:11He told the Los Angeles Times,
09:12"...I've had a long relationship with her.
09:14I may never be able to work with her again."
09:16The auction took place on October 5, 1997.
09:20Wendt was joined by Sue Hendrickson, and like many in the scientific community, they were
09:24concerned that Sue the T-Rex would be purchased by a private collector, costing the general
09:29public the opportunity to learn more about dinosaurs.
09:32Luckily for the people of the world, a couple of unlikely benefactors stepped in to help
09:37make sure that didn't happen.
09:39McDonald's and The Walt Disney Company
09:41Yes, Mickey and Mickey D's banded together with private donors to help the Field Museum
09:47in Chicago raise the money to buy Sue.
09:49The final price tag?
09:51$8,362,500, $7.6 million of which ultimately went to Williams after the auction house took
10:00its cut.
10:01As a reward for their effort, both McDonald's and The Walt Disney Company were given replicas
10:06of the T-Rex.
10:07So, now you also know the untold truth of where Chicken McNuggets come from.
10:13Larson's appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court against his unusually harsh penalty was denied.
10:18He started serving his two-year sentence in February 1996, ultimately getting out in December
10:231998.
10:25He tried to make the best of it.
10:26He told RogerEbert.com,
10:28"...during bad times, there are some wonderful things that happen as well.
10:32Even before I went to the slammer, that's what I wanted to concentrate on."
10:37This strange case made him something of a prison celebrity.
10:39He taught classes on paleontology and life on Mars.
10:43But it still wasn't much fun.
10:45Shortly after being released from prison, Larson and his wife divorced.
10:49He told The Telegraph that he felt, quote, "...very unhinged for six months."
10:54Once he was back on his feet, though, he wrote a book and went right back to fossil hunting
10:58with the Black Hills Institute.
11:00The team has since discovered nine more T-Rexes, and has even managed to get involved in another
11:05drawn-out civil suit over the so-called Dueling Dinosaurs, a pair of dinosaurs who died in
11:11mid-battle.
11:12And in 2020, following yet another lawsuit, Peter Larson's brother Neil sold off the museum's
11:18T-Rex skeleton called Stan over Peter's objections, a sale which brought in more than $31 million.
11:26Like other members of the Institute, Sue Hendrickson was pursued by the FBI, which was looking
11:31for evidence that they had illegally taken fossils from government property.
11:36She became too scared to use landline phones, thinking they might be bugged, stopped contacting
11:40her former colleagues and friends, and dropped out of the limelight.
11:44But she continued exploring.
11:46In addition to dinosaurs, Sue specializes in marine archaeology.
11:50According to the Los Angeles Times, she was part of the team that discovered the San Diego,
11:55a Spanish galleon which sank in 1600, and she also explored Cleopatra's palace and Napoleon's
12:00warships, both submerged in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt.
12:05Sue the T-Rex is a much more public figure.
12:08It took 12 museum preparators 30,000 hours to get the fossil ready for display in the
12:13Field Museum's huge main hall, which it joined in 2000.
12:17But one crucial bit was missing.
12:19The incredibly well-preserved skull was too heavy to put on the body.
12:23Instead, a cast was used, with the original skull on display above the main hall.
12:28As well as captivating visitors, Sue the T-Rex has helped scientists learn more about
12:33T-Rex and dinosaurs generally.
12:35In 2018, Sue was moved again, this time into its own private suite near the museum's other
12:42dinosaurs.
12:43Peter Larson still visits Sue whenever he's in Chicago, telling the Billings Gazette,
12:47"...I have visitation rights."