The Murder of Leanne Salinas

Notes by Mikey Monroe

July 17, 2023

Yesterday, on July 16th, animal handler Leanne Salinas was killed in front of an audience of spectators for the afternoon Tyrannosaurus feeding time show. The death itself made nationwide coverage as it occurred, according to eyewitness testimonies as well as videos taken of the event (all of which have been removed from social media platforms) show the victim, Leanne Salinas, attempting to feed Mesozoic Kingdom’s resident T-rex, a male named Barnum, when she was knocked off the platform by Barnum who rammed his head into the supports, causing Leanne to tumble into the enclosure. She survived the fall but was eaten alive by Barnum as the onlookers watched.

I managed to see the videos before they were removed. I won’t forget Salinas’s screams or the screams of onlookers any time soon. Mesozoic Kingdom has a complicated history, even if the attraction itself is only ten years old. It has racked up its fair share of controversies in that time. Animal rights activists complaining about how the attractions are treated by handlers as well as guests. Regular things you hear those types complaining about such as enrichment or habitat size. Whilst Salinas’s death is the most well-known, not just for the fact it’s fresh, there have been reports of other ‘workplace accidents’ at Mesozoic Kingdom. However as far as I am concerned this is the first one involving Barnum. From what I could gather some other noteworthy incidents include:

• July 3 2014, shortly after the park’s opening, Colton Klerk, a zookeeper was trampled by a Lambeosaurus whilst cleaning the enclosure after hours. Since this park was in its infancy the powers that be tried to keep this under wraps,

• February 16 2017, A visitor whose name I could not find, snuck into the Gigantopithecus enclosure. Was attacked by an adolescent ape. Survived after keepers intervened but was left paralysed from the waist down. The visitor and their family were made to sign an NDA.

• August 5 2019, A group of five teenagers snuck into Mesozoic Kingdom, either knowingly or under the influence managed to climb into the Pachycephalosaurus paddock. One died, two were paralysed, one needed an amputation on her left leg and another barely escaped unscathed.

• May 10 2021, a keeper by the name of Zeb Turley was mauled by the park’s resident Deinonychus pack after an attempt to take a publicity photo to celebrate Mesozoic Kingdom’s reopening. It was only after Salinas’s death that Turley spoke out.

• These are but a few of the incidents that I have found. A few others have occurred. Some resulted in barely any injury to the victims; only a handful have resulted in confirmed deaths.

I have arranged interviews with one of Salinas’s colleagues who also worked closely with Barnum as well as an interview with a family member which will occur at a later date. I have asked one of the park managers for an interview; they have yet to respond, however.

July 18 2023

Today I met with Salinas’s colleague and fellow animal handler, Kiera Tucker. She has worked with animals most of her life, first at a local rescue centre before landing a job at Mesozoic Kingdom. Tucker has been working with Barnum since early 2020 but has experience with the other large carnivores at Mesozoic Kingdom. We spoke in a nearby Starbucks not too far from Tucker’s home or Mesozoic Kingdom. I also purchased a ticket today as I plan to visit and see the park for myself. Maybe find more leads?

Anyway, I met Tucker, she was visibly shaken, understandably so. She was nearby when Barnum attacked. And she was good friends with Salinas from what I gathered. She was determined for this interview, however.

Mikey: Good morning, you’re sure you’re okay for the interview?

Tucker: Yes. Yes, I think so.

M: Of course if you wanna stop at any time just say the word.

T: Thanks.

M: How was Barnum like with Salinas before?

T: Barnum was friendly towards most of his keepers, as friendly as a several ton reptile can be I guess. After hours he would just watch us clean his enclosure. Leanne too. He’d just… watch her. Sometimes we’d get close to him and stroke him, scratch him and pat him on the head. As well as give him hugs. Officially we weren’t supposed to get too close to the animals but a Tyrannosaurus in real life is nothing like the movies. They’re much more… fat and goofy looking I’d say. Like a massive hairless dog (slight chuckle).

M: I see, and did Salinas ever do shows with Barnum before?

T: Loads of times. Leanne started doing shows about a month after she joined. Barnum trusted her quite a bit and would always do the little tricks and everything Leanne wanted him to do. She was convinced that she had a special bond with Barnum. We all sorta believed her. Leanne pretty much did all the afternoon shows. She was great with crowds too. Made them feel… involved. And she would get very personal to the audience…

M: Before this incident there were others at the park. Do you have anything you want to say about those?

T: I heard a lot about other accidents. Like that guy who got attacked by the Deinonychus. I didn’t know these keepers personally. It’s upsetting and personal for us since well, we all work there and after every attack we think ‘It could have been me’. But we knew what Barnum was like. We thought he wasn’t capable of such things.

M: I’m sorry this must be all very shocking to you.

T: Yeah, it’s like I’m happy it wasn’t me… that’s messed up isn’t it?

M: It’s natural. Everyone’s felt that at some point. What about this show? Was anything particularly different?

T: Again, I wasn’t there when it happened. I was working with Barnum that morning though and he didn’t seem out of the ordinary. Leanne seemed fine too. Happy as ever. She wanted it to just be a regular show. Maybe something happened during the show that triggered him?

M: That’ll be all. I’ll leave you alone Miss Tucker.

According to Tucker Leanne and Barnum were somewhat close. Barnum was friendly but something doesn’t really add up. Why would Barnum suddenly lash out now? Tucker claims nothing was out of the ordinary but I have a feeling I’m not getting the full picture. I knew that many of the questions would be answered by tomorrow’s trip to where it all happened. An outing to Mesozoic Kingdom.

July 20 2023

Not much progress yesterday. Other than finding some other eyewitnesses of Salinas’s death. Although what they said wasn’t anything I already heard before. However, today is my visit to Mesozoic Kingdom itself. Costs an exorbitant amount for day passes but I doubt they’d be letting journalists in this soon after a death like this. The park itself is located about an hour and a half outside Miami, although it felt like most of that journey was trying to navigate the damn parking lot. With the amount of space the parking lot takes up you could probably house two whole herds of Brontosaurus or something.

Anyway, having shown my ticket at the gate I was allowed in. Naturally Barnum’s shows were cancelled for the foreseeable future. I thought I’d have a look around the park a bit before I checked out Barnum. There was a lot here to do. Dinosaurs, rides, shops, a corporate paradise. There was a lot of foot traffic too, I guess this is light by normal Mesozoic Kingdom standards but everywhere I turned there were entire crowds of people. This was good. It allowed me to remain inconspicuous.

I thought I’d do a quick whistle stop tour of some of the well known offenders before finally heading to Barnum. As well as some other exhibits, not just to satisfy my inner child but to get a general idea of what the conditions are like in this park. The previous night I studied animal welfare laws in zoos and nature parks the world over. Good and bad. As well as what enrichments different animals need. Mesozoic Park claims that we can never be too sure what enrichment these animals have, since we can only speculate. But I decided to research anyway. It’s probably best to try and compare the prehistoric animals to their modern day relatives and niche counterparts.

My first stop was the aquarium, or as the massive sign above the sleek, glass entrance put it “Primordial Oceans”, A tour of Life’s origins and the sea monsters of prehistory. Worth a look. For the most part the smaller tanks looked fine. They appeared to be clean, regularly maintained. I’m not an expert in telling if a giant shrimp is happy or not, but it just swam about its tank. Although some did appear small or too stuffed with animals. Which probably isn’t good for the comfort of the creatures. One tank boasted eight different species of primitive “agnathan” fish. Although the tank itself looked like it was above capacity. However the centre of the aquarium boasted Dunkleosteus, the armoured fish of the Devonian seas. Although it did little but swim back and forth the edge of its tank, which was fully exposed in glass with a rock formation in the middle. Guests would walk around to reach the other zones of the aquarium. There were other fish in there too but they all gave the Dunkleosteus a wide girth.

The final tank you pass upon exiting belonged to an animal I wasn’t all too familiar with, a weird giant otter looking thing which is apparently called Ambulocetus, it's an ancestor of whales, according to the signs at least and had a pretty large, if not somewhat bare tank which had a pool, about half the size of an Olympic swimming pool and some areas to rest on land. There were two in there, a male and a female. Both were just lounging by the water when I saw them. Watched them for a bit but they weren’t up to much.

Next I decided to check out Mesozoic Kingdom’s oldest offenders, The Lambeosaurus. Their enclosure was pretty big, as was the animal itself. The sign said full grown adults could reach lengths of 25 feet and 3.6 tons and boy did they look it. There were different enclosures with other Hadrosaurs too. I don’t get why the old movies depict these guys as pushovers. The colouration was striking. The lone bull male, who had to be kept separate from the females and calves, had a bright blue and red crest, with orange stripes going along his body from the top of his neck. In my research prior to my visit I had seen Lambeosaurus fossils and their crests looked impressive. But something about the crests on the herd seemed off. They seemed often bent and dented in places. My first thought was usual wear and tear until I saw odd marks on the walls, about head height for a Lambeosaurus. I also noted how the two calves never really strayed far from their mother. Not even to inspect something. Always staying in her shadow.

After that it was the Gigantopithecus. The signs in the front of the Gigantopithecus hide touted it to be “the real life King Kong”. The actual ape itself was 9 feet but nothing to scoff at. It was muscular and covered in a rusty red fur, like a giant orangutan, even sporting the face flaps males possess. Although he was doing little besides sitting facing the corner. Some kids next to me were making exaggerated monkey noises and banging on the glass. There was a sign forbidding that kinda thing but nobody was stopping them. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna draw attention to myself. Eventually the Gigantopithecus went into some kind of hide away from the viewing glass, much to the disappointment of the kids. He never came close to the glass so I never got that true sense of scale. Nonetheless seeing him walk next to his climbing frame was a site to behold.

Now for what Mesozoic Kingdom called ‘Raptor Ranch’, a group of enclosures housing various ‘raptor’ species. Although a sign on the entrance stated that ‘raptor’ refers to the family ‘Dromeosauridae’. Various dinosaurs could be found here. There were eight enclosures in total housing Bambiraptor, Deinonychus, Pyroraptor, Halszkaraptor, Velociraptor, Dineobellator, Microraptor and Utahraptor. All the enclosures were pretty similar. Besides Microraptor which was a small aviary and Halszkaraptor which had an enclosure composed of an artificial pond with underwater viewing areas. The enclosures all pretty much consisted of some open area, some plants and artificial rocks as well as climbing frames. Size of enclosure varied from species to species although I noted that from the raptors that were out in the open, which were Dineobellator and Velociraptor, were only pacing around the perimeters of their enclosure or just resting on their climbing frames. Not up to too much.

My final stop before Barnum was to see my favourite dinosaur as a kid, Stegosaurus, which had a large paddock dug into the ground with a walkway so visitors could get a closer look at Stegosaurus, as well as the two other dinosaurs sharing its exhibit, Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus. The enclosure itself looked well maintained and appeared to be going for a desert theme with desert plants as well as orange-brown coloured rocks dotted here in there, often being climbed by the Dryosaurus. There were three stegosaurus in the enclosure, three females according to the signs. Their plates were impressive, although they were the same brownish yellow that the rest of their bodies were. However I noticed their tail spikes, which the signs called Thagomizers, were blunt. A sign nearby said that they were genetically modified to be blunt so as to not harm the guests, keepers or other animals, but taking a closer look with my camera they looked like they were filed in some way. The tails were drooping a bit too, not really dragging on the ground but not held high either. The stegosaurus mostly just stood there. The Dryosaurus however, in their best attempt to steal the show, would run laps around the other dinosaurs, climb the rocks, screech and defecate before repeating the process.

Now for my final stop, Barnum. According to friends who had visited previously, Mesozoic Kingdom aggressively marketed Barnum as their star attraction. I have found no such advertisements but I guess the park was doing its bit to show respect for its late employee. Approaching Barnum’s enclosure I noted a makeshift pile of flowers and candles, a memorial for Salinas. The centre was a picture of a smiling woman of Hispanic descent with her hair in a pony tail wearing a red and blue plaid shirt, smiling awkwardly. This was no doubt Leanne Salinas. I paid my respects briefly before moving onto Barnum. The tyrant lizard king himself was snoozing right in the middle of the enclosure. There were a few other visitors next to me. Silent. Either in awe of this great predator or silent due to the recent tragedy. We were some way away from Barnum. The enclosure was some 15 feet below us, with concrete walls covered in scratch marks all about the height of a T. rex. Across from me was a semi-circular seating area for what I imagine was the show as well as a platform jutting out from the stands. The scene where she fell. The enclosure itself was sort of bare besides some mounds of rock, some meat hanging off a hook and some cycads and other plants. I have seen the skeletons of T.rex as well as reconstructions in movies, TV Shows and documentaries. So even if Barnum was inactive it felt like an honour to be in his presence. Nature’s perfected killing machine. However when Barnum yawned I expected to see a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, each the size of large kitchen knives and sharper than blades. Yet all that were blunt yellowish knubs.

I caught a brief glimpse of the disgraced ruler’s mouth. Looking back at the marks on the concrete walls I noticed how they seemed to match up to the height of Barnum’s mouth and appeared to fit the size of T. rex teeth more so than claws. Squinting I noticed patches of red on the walls. I assumed it was either the blood from past meals but they were all across the walls, like a rushed paint job. At the same height as the bite marks as well almost corresponding to them. Poor thing must have let his gums bleed. It was at that moment something else clicked with me. For a previous story I spoke to a palaeontologist friend of mine, Stephan Brannick who had studied many carnivorous dinosaurs in his career. After the interview I joked about how many humans a T. rex would need to eat in one sitting. But Brannick told me large carnivores like T. rex wouldn’t eat humans, at least fully grown adults probably wouldn’t, since we were too small to satiate the hunger of a beast that big. So Barnum didn’t kill Salinas because he was hungry. He was fed regularly, by Salinas and others. T. rex may be dumb but it Einstein by dinosaur standards, surely it wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds it.

I muttered this under my breath, fortunately nobody heard me: “It lashed out”. Then something else from my interview with Brannick came to mind. In the interview proper he told me how T. rex skulls suggest they had sensitive faces, which meant they probably touched faces to bond. And Turner said they touched Barnum’s face all the time. I also remembered hearing that T. rex had a very good sense of sight, on par with that of birds of prey, yet they kept Barnum in a stuffy enclosure where all the sights and sounds of visitors and crowds above were in full attack range.

But why would they do that? Do they not know? They work with the animal after all.

The tyrant spent his days in constant sensory hell. A small cubicle to call home. A constant barrage of alien sounds, sights and smells coupled with the keepers unwittingly overstimulating his touch…

It all began to paint a picture. Salinas had done nothing wrong that day that she knew of. She was the victim of mismanagement, as were others like her. This mismanagement not only costs the happiness of the dinosaurs and animals of this park but the lives of their keepers. The editor probably won’t want me to publish this but they need to know. The world needs to know. It wasn’t just a killing. Barnum wasn’t fully to blame. This was a murder. This is the murder of Leanne Salinas.