Original subtitles

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

After a wildly successful 30-year stint on the Vegas strip

with their iconic brand of magic --

making elephants, lions, and tigers disappear

into thin air -- master illusionists

Siegfried and Roy's world-renowned performances

came to an abrupt end.

Montecore, one of their famous white tigers,

grabbed Roy Horn by the neck

and dragged him off-stage in front of the live audience.

From that moment on, Siegfried and Roy

consistently presented one version

of what happened that night.

But some people are questioning the magicians' story.

Tonight, we will hear from eye-witnesses,

investigative journalists, big-cat experts,

about the shocking tiger attack onstage

at the MGM Mirage October 3, 2003.

Here's how it really happened.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

Jillette: I was always terrified by their act.

We would go see the Siegfried and Roy show.

Those animals in that close a proximity to humans --

terrifying.

Terrifying.

They were kings of the Las Vegas Strip.

They werethe of Las Vegas.

Siegfried and Roy were really spectacular at what they did.

[ Woman laughs ]

They were sort of bigger than life in so many ways.

I mean, I think everyone knew that they had a show

that had white tigers and white lions,

and that made them unique.

We started with a breeding program about 10 years ago.

Then, today, we can proudly say

we have 27 white tigers and five snow white tigers.

[ Cubs mewing ]

Animals that don't exist in the wild.

I mean, weird hybrids, you know?

Crazy white tigers, white lions.

I mean, white, white, white, white,

[Laughs] in every way.

Salmoni: Every night, they've got humongous,

full-grown lions and tigers onstage,

with a live audience, with no barrier between,

and you cannot prepare for all of the worst-case scenarios.

Smith: They were entertainers.

They were flamboyant.

They were real hams with the audience,

and the audience really ate that up.

They just -- They loved it.

They're kind of analogous to the rolling stones --

you know, big spectacle and big bombast and big

"Look at me onstage."

Tapert: They would always, at the end, have this tag line

about following your dreams, and it was very emotional.

It was very empowering.

You could see why people would come there.

They were like magical evangelists.

Since opening at Mirage in 1990,

they have sold out at a rate of 104% capacity for every show.

That's at $90 a seat.

For eight straight years,

they've drawn 15,000 people a week,

700,000 a year -- have been seen

by over 30 million people live in Las Vegas.

Their gross receipts over the last nine years --

more than a half-billion dollars.

How do you -- How do you explain it to yourselves?

It's unexplainable, really.

I mean, that sounds wonderful.

I feel we are only as good as our last show.

Burns: They made the animals in the show look really scary

and have that element of fear kind of built in.

Then they're taunting them --

making them, you know, reach out of the cage

and try to get the performers.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Bennett: It's sort of like Broadway on steroids

with tigers and lions,

and that made it spectacular.

Roy was doing stuff that I found tremendously dangerous,

and he was making it look like it wasn't.

That's what attracts me, is that eventual --

is that danger.

We have underlying danger all the time.

But if you understand and if you start learning it,

you don't need any of that.

You can make him do whatever you want him to do,

but then there are characteristics

where you can never change --

You want them to be tigers.

I want them to be tigers.

[ Tiger growling ]

De Laurentiis: Those lions and tigers were big. [ Laughs ]

I mean, they weren't little babies.

They were big guys.

And they were so beautiful.

You know, being that close without being behind a wall

was really amazing.

The physical size of them -- how Siegfried and Roy

treated the lions or treated the tigers

and, you know, what they made them do very easily.

I never felt that things weren't completely under control

and that there was a mutual respect

between the animals and him.

Now, is that naive on my part?

[ Tiger growls ] Probably.

Do you have any fear of your animals, Siegfried?

-No, I-- -You have to have respect.

I have respect. That's all.

But they're used to it, you know?

-Not worried that anything -- -Well, you can do no mistakes.

You know, you can make no mistakes.

Have you been hurt?

So far, so good. No.

Burns: And it was all very controlled.

Like, you could tell that

the performers knew what they were doing.

You could tell the animals had done this before,

and everyone had a good handle on what was going on.

Until the bite.

Until the accident happened.

And then it was like everything blew up.

[ Siren wailing ]

Moss: We're hearing over the two-way

that he was in extremely critical condition.

We were the first live truck there.

Mic on. Five, four, three, two, one.

People were kind of frantic.

Everybody was trying to get the story.

Tonight, a lot more on the story of the Vegas superstar

mauled by one of his beloved tigers.

Our other top story takes us to Las Vegas,

where entertainer Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy

was badly mauled.

It's at the MGM Mirage.

King: Hundreds of people watch in horror.

Roy is in critical condition.

He fights for his life tonight.

Jillette: When we found out that Roy had been hurt,

I was very upset, and part of what I was upset about was,

I was not entirely surprised.

Roy Horn might be dead.

"No, that's not possible."

It almost didn't sink in.

Burns: October 3, 2003.

We went to the Siegfried & Roy show.

After the first half of the show,

they put the curtains down,

and the lights came up a little bit.

And Roy walks out with the tiger to the front of the stage,

closer to where we were sitting, and he said,

"This is my friend Montecore.

It's his first night performing."

This is Montecore, and tonight is his first appearance

in front of an audience.

[ Gasps ]

The audience, you know -- "Oh, his first time."

You know, they kind of get a little chill when he says that.

Which of course, we found out later,

he was there for maybe -- what, six years?

Montecore was special to Roy.

He'd raised him from birth.

This was a tiger that was really close to Roy's heart.

I'll never forget -- he had a collar on

and a little leash about this big,

and it just -- that was the first thing I said.

"Wow, he's got this little,

tiny leash on this big, monster animal."

When you have a white tiger walking on a leash this long

and you're only 140 pounds and 60 years old,

that's just as good as untethered.

There is nothing Roy Horn could have done

if that tiger decided he wanted to jump out into the crowd.

De Laurentiis: He walks out and he gets about three-quarters

of the way down the runway.

Montecore, I guess, was supposed to turn around and come back,

and he wouldn't move.

And his chain -- tugged on the leash a little more,

and Montecore looked at him funny.

But all of the sudden, he grabbed his arm.

[ Sirens wailing ]

The tiger kind of turned its head and bit him on the arm.

He could have taken Roy's arm off without blinking,

but he looked like he was just kind of holding on to it,

and Roy didn't like that at all.

Roy started taking the microphone --

just started whamping the tiger on the head.

At that point, the tiger swatted at Roy.

You know, there was a little bit of commotion

between him and the tiger.

They're both down on the ground and he's --

and he's still holding him,

and he's still hitting the tiger on the head.

Boom -- you could hear it all over the audience.

Boom!

And in a blink, his legs went like --

two or three times like that.

It was so fast, you couldn't even see how fast

he jumped up and grabbed him.

Man: We just see him get -- He got attacked.

He was holding on to the tiger, and the tiger just,

like, grabbed his leg, knocked him down.

We thought it was part of the show.

Then we just noticed him pounding with his microphone

on the tiger, like, so hard.

Before you knew what happened -- boom.

Right up into his neck and shoulder area --

right here -- and just dragged him offstage really quickly.

It was really scary.

De Laurentiis: When Montecore grabbed him by the neck,

his feet went like this,

and -- boom -- he was, like, hanging.

And Montecore just slowly -- boom, boom.

Just like he maybe was walking through the jungle or something.

Just walked right past us.

Man: The tiger just grabs him.

Like, just locks on him, picks him up,

and just takes him back of the stage.

Roy was completely limp.

He wasn't struggling or screaming.

You didn't see any blood on his shirt.

You didn't see anything on the stage.

De Laurentiis: Someone had opened the curtain,

and Montecore just calmly, with Roy in his mouth,

walked behind the curtain.

When he went by, the look on his face was a dead person.

Burns:: When Montecore carried Roy offstage,

a couple stagehands or handlers ran from the opposite stage side

and were chasing after him.

And I do remember seeing some things on the stage,

and I think it was meat

to try to entice the tiger back another way.

I don't think Montecore was following the meat.

He was just on a mission [Chuckles] to go somewhere.

He had him by the neck.

He could have just bit his head off.

And he could have jumped in the audience, for that matter,

but I don't think anybody thought about that part of it.

Maybe a minute or two later,

I think they hit him with a fire extinguisher,

and that's when Montecore let Roy go.

And then, the sound...

of him moaning was the scariest part,

'cause you could tell that he was hurt behind the curtain.

It was like a moan of death, somebody dying.

You don't want to hear that in your life either.

Burns: And finally, someone said over the loudspeaker,

"The show is over.

This is how you get your money back for your tickets.

Sorry. Have a good night."

♪♪

Moss: We moved our live shot to UMC,

which is our biggest ER center.

Take a look behind me.

Family and friends are already out here.

People were already out there.

We could see Siegfried, through the emergency doors,

pacing back and forth.

They came out several times to update us.

The injury was to the left side of his neck.

They treated him for massive blood loss.

He was admitted immediately

and went into surgery almost immediately.

It's certainly a somber scene out here in Vegas.

We're told the surgery went well.

The Mirage says all their shows will be cancelled

until further notice,

and that tiger is being quarantined.

It was traumatic because nobody knew

what the ultimate conclusion was gonna be.

Was he gonna make it?

There were already dozens --

and within another hour, hundreds of people outside

holding a candlelight vigil just spontaneously.

No one had organized it.

It was just fans that were worried.

That was how big they were in the Las Vegas community.

We saw Penn outside.

He's hard to miss -- very tall man.

Obviously distraught over the situation,

and it was a very emotional sight

to see that many people holding candles outside a hospital.

I arrived over at the hospital,

and Bernie Yuman, their manager --

he said that he felt emotionally unable to speak to the press,

and Siegfried was unable to speak to the press.

Bernie asked if I would go down and speak to the TV cameras.

It's really not good.

I mean, I'm sure there's hope.

I mean, when I talked to Siegfried last night,

he said, you know, it was going to be okay.

You have no idea what that means.

It means a friend that he's loved dearly

and worked with for 28 years is --

his heart's still beating, and there's still hope.

The latest I've heard is, you know, critical but stable,

and he is reacting to doctors.

Moss: It took at least 48 hours

before we got any specifics on the surgeries.

We found out that there was a craniectomy that was performed.

It's not every day that you hear about surgery that sounds

almost like something, you know, out of science fiction.

They took off part of his skull

so his brain swelling could increase and then decrease.

And while it was off,

they put the part of the skull into his abdomen so --

to keep it viable until they were able to replace it

and put it back, you know --

back as part of his skull so that he could heal.

We had also heard from a doctor that, at one point,

they thought they had lost Roy.

[ Sirens wailing ]

King: Tonight -- exclusive --

master illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher

and Siegfried & Roy's longtime manager, Bernie Yuman.

What's the latest, Siegfried, on Roy's condition?

Well, I just left Roy two hours ago.

He responded excellent.

The doctors say it's magic, what's happening,

and I'm very grateful.

It's only four days ago.

What is his condition?

His condition is stable.

He's critical, and I don't think there's any way

that you can really give a long-term prognosis.

Was there ever a time, Siegfried,

you thought you lost him?

Yes and no.

Really not, because I know Roy, you know?

And I always say -- [Laughs] for all these years,

I always say I'm the magician, and he's the magic.

Moss: The concentration, of course, in the news was,

"Is this man going to survive?"

And when we knew that it was a matter of rehabilitation,

we had started to hear that,

possibly, the tiger was trying to help Roy off the stage

because he was acting differently.

[ Applause ]

What happened that night?

Where were you?

I was onstage.

We go our show through, like -- like clockwork.

Was -- something was just -- maybe a little confusion.

Something wrong. Did you sense --

Not wrong -- wrong at that time.

What did you -- What did you see?

I just saw the -- the tiger,

and it grabbed him on the sleeve like this,

and -- and Roy said, "Let go."

And the tiger let go, and Roy went back and he slipped.

He tripped.

Oh, he fell. He fell.

Do you think he was trying to help him?

That's exactly what I think. That was the way.

Roy fall, and he want protect.

So, he took Roy and put him backstage behind the curtain --

To protect him.

To protect him, and then he let Roy go and went back.

Montecore was helping save his friend --

to take him to safety.

That's -- This is not an attack.

This was not a mauling.

This was Montecore taking his friend to safety.

It was the very beginning of how they spun the story --

how they created the myth.

The story wasn't that this was maybe a failure of training

or a momentary slip.

The story was that this wild tiger

was actively trying to help the person he was attacking.

Goldman: Steve Wynn, the billionaire casino owner,

gives this bizarre interview...

For whatever reason, Montecore was fascinated by a woman

with a big hairdo at ringside.

...where he claims this woman with, like, a big beehive hairdo

[Laughing] had distracted Montecore.

And I'll never forget listening to this,

thinking to myself, "What?"

And on -- down on all four,

puts his face over 4 inches from the woman and looks at her.

Man: Mm.

The woman thinks this is part of the show

and thinks, "How adorable."

Montecore's head is 26 inches wide.

Roy is talking and sees this move,

and he sees the woman reach up to --

to give Montecore a rub under the chin.

That's way wrong all the way around.

He -- As usual, the heroic fellow that he is,

he jumps in between the woman and the tiger.

And I'm thinking to myself, "What ridiculous theories

are they trying to push out into the public?"

People were actually buying it.

But this is utter and complete nonsense,

and somehow, you know,

it started taking on a life of its own.

And there I was, having to, like,

write it in the copy that Steve Wynn --

who wasn't there, had no first-hand knowledge --

thinks that a woman with a beehive haircut

had somehow distracted the tiger, and --

and that caused the tiger to lose focus or something.

Now he wants to shock the cat into paying attention,

and he whacks him with the microphone, which is rubber.

Didn't hurt him, but it made a loud noise.

The cat lets go on command.

Roy falls backwards,

pulling over the paw of Montecore on his back.

There's four guys jumping on this cat,

trying to get the cat to behave.

Montecore gets confused.

"What's going on?"

Montecore gets up, cool as a cucumber, leans over,

and picks up Roy like a cub on the right side of his neck.

Not a bite, not an attack.

He picks him up.

The night of the event, when we were

spending time with -- with their manager, Bernie,

and waiting to do our --

our next interview, he told us a lot about Siegfried and Roy

and how they lived with the tigers

and how they slept in bed with the tigers

and how they had the tigers kind of as --

as pets like we'd have dogs.

And they have them roaming around free

in their house just like pets.

Goldman: You know, the whole idea is,

"Siegfried and Roy can control these wild animals!"

And then, one day, you find out they can't.

I'm here to announce to you tonight that the Siegfried & Roy

spectacle at the Mirage is now closed indefinitely.

Bernie was nervous about what would happen to Montecore

because, you know, what people would assume had happened

and what he thought really had happened didn't match.

It was not an attack.

I was standing on the side. I saw it.

It was an accident.

And when the cat dragged Roy back onstage,

and Roy said, "Don't harm.

Don't shoot.

Don't harm the cat."

Roy's partner, Siegfried Fischbacher,

now claims the mauling was actually an accident.

That is also the opinion of Steve Wynn.

He is the legendary casino developer in Las Vegas

who actually brought Siegfried & Roy to town

and remains a close friend to this day.

To suggest that a cat viscously attacked Roy

and tried to maul Roy because of something that happened

is a ridiculous statement,

if you know anything about Roy Horn

and the 44-year history of these animals with this man.

-I should make it clear -- -Cats don't attack Roy.

Salmoni: The trap is forgetting that it's a wild animal

with wild-animal instincts.

[ Laughs ]

Just because that tiger loves me has no bearing

on whether that tiger is gonna try and kill me.

[ Tiger roars ]

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

In the weeks following the heart-stopping night

where Montecore, a 380-pound white tiger,

sank his teeth into Roy Horn's neck

before dragging him offstage,

Siegfried and the performers's inner circle

distanced themselves from the word "attack,"

telling everyone that it was a life-saving act by the tiger,

who was not behaving as a deadly predator,

but as a loving pet.

♪♪

Roy always knew each animal --

who he was, like, what they liked, what they didn't like.

You could certainly watch just the friendly

tactile relationship, the touching.

In the video that they show, he's even riding the tiger.

Smith: That was how it was promoted.

These were friends.

These weren't animals that were wild and could kill

and you had to lock in a cage.

These were pals -- cuddly.

Bennett: He clearly loved his animals,

maybe even more than he loved people.

Tapert: I said, "Come on.

You tell me, Roy, why you really, really,

really have this rapport with animals."

And he unspilled his story for me as a --

in his childhood, which was horrific.

Let's get a little history. You're both from Germany.

How did this come about, Roy?

How did you two meet?

Well, we met on an ocean liner.

I run away from home as I was --

he loves it -- as I was a young boy.

Where was home? And --

North Germany. Bremerhaven.

Both of their fathers were sent by Hitler's Army

to fight on the Russian front, which was brutal,

and they both came back mentally unwell.

I guess today, we would call it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Siegfried really drowned himself in -- in magic.

Roy had a special relationship with --

with animals right from the beginning.

His first big cat was a cheetah named Chico

taken from a German zoo.

And on the ship, I met Siegfried.

He did a magic act.

And one day, Roy saw me there -- was also a steward --

and he saw when I pulled the rabbit out of the hat

and vanished birds and so on -- swallowed razor blades.

And he said, "Well, if you can do that with a --

a rabbit, could you do that with a cheetah?"

And I didn't know he had a pet cheetah.

So that's our little story in the --

Stop right there. Yes. [ Laughs ]

What -- What were you doing with a pet cheetah?

I know. Most people don't have that.

It sounds very unlogical, but it was very logical for me.

I was, as a child --

I was not very good in communicating with people

because we came from Germany after the war,

so we didn't had a whole lot, and I trusted more in my animals

than I trusted in people, and --

It's still true?

It's still true.

You trust -- More, actually. Actually more.

It's true. Animals are my passion.

So -- and magic became my life.

Tapert: Two guys get there to Las Vegas

with just a magic act and an animal.

They saw the writing on the wall.

They -- They always knew,

"How do we make ourselves better?

How do we make ourselves different?"

You have 24 tigers, eight lions.

They vanish and they reappear.

So does an Arabian horse and an elephant.

Right.

You yourselves appear and disappear, right?

Of course. When the curtain opens up,

they have to feel like this is something special.

You weren't just seeing two guys doing a magic act.

You were watching a production with dozens of cast members,

with a story line, with an evil queen,

with these amazing white tigers and lions,

and it became iconic very, very quickly.

King: "Forbes" magazine reports Siegfried & Roy

the highest-paid entertainers in Las Vegas history,

and they have an estimated net worth

of more than $100 million.

This is a very lucrative business entity.

At the end of the day, Siegfried and Roy

made millions of dollars for the Las Vegas Strip,

and part of their show -- the large part --

were these big cats. [ Tiger growls ]

I've actually been to their home,

at jungle palace in Las Vegas,

and seen the lions and tigers there.

They were almost like house pets in a way,

and I think that that carried over to the show.

There was just a -- a real love there.

When they are conceived, I am there,

when I meditate with them

and I heard the little ones's first time kicking,

and when they are born, I'm there.

When they open their eyes, I'm the first one they see.

When they are listening, I'm the first voice they hear.

[ Cub mews ]

He hated the word "trainer" because it reeked of the circus.

A trainer -- a lion trainer, a lion tamer --

he hated any connotation to that.

I shudder to think what would happen

if I had used that word -- or tamer.

You know, he would have probably thrown me out right on my rear.

Bennett: Siegfried focused on the magic part,

not so much on the animals.

That wasn't his thing, but very much was Roy's.

Fischbacher: He has a different way with the animals.

His lifestyle -- He's completely into it,

but for me, it was always the spiritual thinking of it, and --

King: He's more attached to the animals than you.

Oh, yeah.

For me, it -- it was always a challenge.

But now, I am also attached to it very much, of course,

and they teached me the idea that --

I think they made a better person out of me.

They were the bread and butter of their business operation.

Jillette: I think the animals were bonding with him,

and he really did have a relationship with them

in a very real way.

And that having been said, it-- it's also crazy dangerous.

[ Indistinct chatter, tiger growling ]

Friess: All over the Mirage hotel,

there were videos playing ad nauseam on little TVs.

The entire image of this show rested on the idea that,

yes, these are predators, but they have been tamed.

They're just choosing not to attack people

because they're so well-loved by these odd showmen

who want you to see what they can do with them.

Bennett: I don't want to say there was a cover-up.

That makes it sound very sinister.

But there was certainly an effort to make sure

that what happened to Roy Horn was kept within the family.

Goldman: I can't put my finger on that exact timing

when this theory started to emerge --

that the tiger, in fact, was trying to help Roy Horn,

who was having a stroke.

I remember watching this interview they did --

this exclusive with Maria Shriver.

Fischbacher: It's bitter and it's sweet.

Now I know life is a gift.

There you go.

Look at you! That's great!

Alright! You're doing it!

If I wouldn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah, yes!

Left. You're doing it, Roy!

Goldman: And, basically, she allows them to walk through this narrative

which perpetuates this idea that Montecore was,

like, trying to save his life.

I have high blood pressure.

It was the stroke.

So you believe you had a stroke. You fell --

Yes, correct. Absolutely.

I saw exactly what happened.

Roy tumbled, and Montecore, right away --

he realized and I realize he is in trouble.

He needs some help, and he went out, and that's what we did.

You believe that Montecore realized

you were in trouble... Yes.

...and just picked you up and took you offstage for help.

Yeah, that's how wonderful they are.

The story came that -- that Roy had suffered a stroke

that made him fall onstage and have Montecore drag him off.

That was gonna be the spin, if you will.

What we didn't know at the time was whether that was true,

and to be fair, it seems believable in a way.

If you knew Roy, if you knew how much he cared

for his animals and vice versa,

it almost -- for a second or two,

it's the story you wanted to believe.

Goldman: Did Montecore get Emergency Medical Technician training?

Montecore is an EMT?

We wanted to think that there was a protective moment

with Montecore seeing his owner,

his dad, his caretaker in trouble

and, therefore, help him in some way.

Even to Nancy O'Dell and "Entertainment Tonight,"

they went so far as to say that the tiger

was relieving some sort of pressure

because Roy was having a medical incident.

You're saying the doctor is saying

that had Montecore not relieved the pressure,

you would not have lived?

Goldman: Who taught the tiger how to staunch blood?

Oh, and by the way, the tiger's the one who did it.

It doesn't -- It doesn't make any --

It's comp-- It doesn't make any sense.

Siegfried said this to me personally --

that they believe that the tiger sensed

that Roy had high blood pressure and was biting his neck

to alleviate the high blood pressure.

Now, I have hypertension, and no doctor's ever suggested

me being bit in the neck by a tiger to help me,

and they've also never suggested bloodletting.

I mean, it doesn't seem like high blood pressure

is too much blood.

But how would a tiger know that?

This massive animal was, in some way, trying to save Roy Horn?

This predator that is programmed,

in its own DNA, to eat warm flesh?

Somehow, this tiger, Montecore,

had been trained to suppress its instincts?

[ Growls ]

[ Roars ]

Vegas kind of closed in on itself to protect its own.

Moss: You hear things from different reporters --

that maybe someone might have been behind the scenes

telling people to call it an attack,

or call it an accident -- those two terms.

"Use this one instead of that one."

Personally, no one had ever said that to me.

I realize that Roy, I think -- and Siegfried, too --

would take exception to me using the word "attack".

But I think that's -- that's the way I see it.

I think they would prefer the word "accident," perhaps.

The only thing that was ever gonna answer

any of these questions about what happened

that night was the tape, and was anyone gonna see that?

CNN has learned the Agriculture Department

is investigating the Siegfried & Roy show

for possible violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

There may be more to the attack

than what was played out before a horrified audience.

Goldman: The United States Department of Agriculture basically

has an enforcement arm that deals with exotic animals,

and they provide the license for people

who have these exotic exhibits with these animals.

I was a Senior Investigator with USDA,

and I got called to investigate the attack with Roy Horn.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is investigating.

That's normal in this kind of case.

They had four inspections in the last three years.

No problems were ever cited, right?

Stage set-up was inspected.

Years ago, one of the inspectors wrote up "no barrier,"

and nothing ever happened.

I was concerned that one of the tigers or lions

could jump down in the crowd,

but at the time, it was never even called up to --

for us to investigate the violation.

And the collar that was around Montecore's neck

looked like a dog collar,

and it's hard to control a dog sometime.

I'm sure it'd be hard to control a large tiger.

I think with no one doing anything about this,

they were playing with people's lives,

and if you don't have a problem right now, why worry about it?

Wait till the problem happens.

You've never had a problem with any authorities,

any questions about it?

Never, never, and we've always cooperated

with all of the regulatory agencies.

And -- And we've been the example.

Siegfried and Roy are held in -- in that light, you know?

You want to live up to their standard.

I wonder sometimes about how differently this story

would've played out today, because among other things,

those 1,500 people in the audience

all would've had their cellphones out,

and there would have been a flood of video on the Internet

showing exactly what happened.

During the investigation, we had several theories.

What caused the tiger to attack Roy?

I realized that they did film

all of the Siegfried & Roy performances.

Therefore, they had videoed the attack.

And, remember, the investigators had a real hard time

getting access to the official video.

I don't think anyone was surprised

that the USDA had trouble getting a copy of the tape.

I certainly wasn't.

It's the Sin City.

It's a town that was heavily involved

in the Mafia and mobsters for many years.

It has a side to it that doesn't necessarily want

to expose all of its secrets.

Goldman: And I thought, "You know what?

I'm gonna get the videotape of this thing."

I'm digging in because now I'm just annoyed by people who,

you know, just can't appreciate actually what happened.

For me, getting the video

was the holy grail of this investigation.

Bennett: I'm not saying anything criminal occurred,

but I don't think there was anyone

who was going to volunteer

to reveal anything that Siegfried and Roy

or that their management didn't want to be revealed.

Neal: I went to Siegfried and Roy's people --

their production people, their managers --

and everybody acted like they didn't have the video.

So, me being a little stubborn, I figured that somebody had it.

So I contacted our attorneys in Washington

and had subpoenas issued to Siegfried & Roy,

Feld Productions, Siegfried and Roy's manager, and the Mirage.

I don't think a subpoena anywhere could shake the bonds

of that culture and that community.

Goldman: Senator Harry Reid --

he was a long-time Democratic senator of Nevada,

and these were his constituents -- Roy Horn and Siegfried.

And he had decided that he was gonna block efforts from me,

"The Associated Press," from getting the video.

"The AP" would go on to report that Harry Reid sent a letter

to the USDA asking them not to make this video available.

People would argue, "Ah, it's a violation of privacy."

But because Steve Wynn and others had floated

these cockamamie conspiracy theories,

it was in the public's interest to see this video

and to see it actually -- what had really happened.

During my career with USDA as an investigator,

I had never had a senator or a congressman interfere

in any of my investigations up

until the Siegfried & Roy investigation,

and as far as my knowledge, it has never happened again.

So, Harry Reid was a power player --

very good friends with Siegfried and Roy --

and he actually issued a statement

saying that he would protect Roy on behalf of Roy's privacy.

When the report came out that Harry Reid had gotten involved,

it was another one of the moments in the story

where, at first, you're like, "Really?"

And then you're like, "Of course."

Because this is Vegas and this was Nevada.

Everybody's power and money

had propped up each other over all those years.

It is extraordinary.

A copy of that video would be embarrassing

because it would show what really happened.

It would be embarrassing because it would show

Siegfried and Roy in their worst moment.

Bennett: If it highlights Montecore in a bad way

or showcases the animal

in a way that makes it look like a predator

or like it was attacking,

I can't imagine that that is something

they would ever want to reveal or show.

There was some compromise reached, right?

MGM, I think, allowed

the USDA investigators to look at the video,

but they couldn't take possession of it.

It was a way to keep "The Associated Press"

from getting its hands on this video,

'cause if I had gotten this video, I would have --

I would have made it public.

We had to make appointments, and we had to do it behind

closed, locked doors to observe the video.

Friess: One of the things that I find most odious

about the whole thing is that by the time the USDA was trying

to do a legitimate investigation into a serious incident

that could have had catastrophic consequences

for members of the public --

by that time, the show was closed.

The marquee was changed.

Nobody was talking about some big return of Siegfried & Roy.

They were not coming back.

So, what were they protecting in trying to avoid

the actual story being made public?

Goldman: These are alternative facts.

It's a distortion of what really happened,

and it undermines the truth.

I couldn't begin to understand

why they would continue to perpetuate this myth.

It took 15 years for one of the animal trainers

there that night to come forward and sort of break

that story line that Siegfried and Roy

and their team had been putting out.

Neal: From seeing Chris Lawrence's interview on "Inside Edition"...

I won't call them liars.

I'll just tell my truth.

...it appears that his conclusion is the same

as what we found during our investigation.

Roy made a crucial mistake, and there was just no going back.

These animals had done something very dangerous in the past.

This wasn't a one-off event that happened.

There were other incidents.

Woman: Roy was holding a leash, and the leash was let go.

And the next thing they know it,

the tiger had jumped on my dad's back and bit his neck.

My son was crying and said, "Mama, am I gonna die?"

It went, "Blaow!" [ Roars ]

I mean, its face was just drenched in my blood.

This story could have been a national news story.

I think Siegfried and Roy often got a very soft press.

I would like them to tell the truth -- Siegfried and Roy.

It's not all magical.

It's not.

A wild animal is a wild animal.

From what I saw of the video, in my opinion,

Montecore didn't want to be there.

Salmoni: Tigers will kill you. They don't care.

They'll kiss you and then they'll kill you.

[ Tiger growls, roars ]

We reached out numerous times to Siegfried and Roy,

their former manager, Bernie Yuman, Steve Wynn,

Feld Entertainment, and MGM Resorts.

They all declined to comment.

And as for Senator Harry Reid, he sent us this statement.

"The arrangement I made with the USDA

was that they could look at the video, but not keep it,

and that's what they did."

In March 2019, a former employee --

a tiger trainer named Chris Lawrence --

went public and challenged their story

that Montecore sensed Roy Horn was in medical distress

and carried him offstage for help.

The whistle-blower re-ignited interest in the case,

and as we investigated his claims,

we unearthed some secrets that have remained buried for years.

Did the master illusionists make previous maulings disappear?

That in our next hour of "How It Really Happened."

Thanks for watching. Good night.