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True Story Of Legendary Cannabis Outlaws

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By news.saerio.com

True Story Of Legendary Cannabis Outlaws


Cornbread Mafia might sound like just another wild true-crime title, but for those in Kentucky, it’s a legend that’s been whispered about for decades. Long before it became a documentary, the story lived on as a kind of local folklore: a sprawling cannabis operation, a group of unlikely outlaws, and a name that stuck whether people fully understood it or not.

That personal connection is exactly what drew director Evan Mascagni in. Growing up with ties to Marion County, where the story originates, he was already familiar with the mythology surrounding the group — something he says most people in Kentucky have at least heard of, even if the details were always a bit murky. It wasn’t until he connected with Drew Morris, who shared that same curiosity, that the documentary really took shape.

ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan spoke to the Cornbread Mafia crew at SXSW in Austin, Texas, last week, where she learned about the film’s unique origin story and the cat-and-mouse chase that landed many of its members behind bars.

Evan Mascagni: In the state, I feel like everybody grew up hearing about The Cornbread Mafia. No one really quite understood it. But outside the state, not much is known, but I feel like it’s something … If you grew up in Kentucky, and you’re into cannabis at all, you’ve heard of the Cornbread Mafia. And yeah, Joe Keith actually introduced Drew and me here because we were both interested in pursuing a story on this, and we teamed up, and the rest is history.

As for where the name came from for the cannabis crowing crew, former member Joe Keith, told ScreenRant that while “several versions” of the story exist, his story is the “true” telling of how the term came about.

Joe Keith: There’s several versions of how that term come about. My version of it is that it occurred back in 1978. We were growing some marijuana down in Nelson County, and the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department busted us. We had three crops down there — I call them crops, these were fields — and two of them got busted by the Nelson County Police Department, our sheriff’s department. There was about one crop left, and they come in, and they busted a number of us, and they were going to get that third crop. So they locked up all the partners. And while they were in jail, we learned that they wasn’t going to cut this big field of marijuana down.

When the guys got out of jail, they were saying, “Hey, look, [the] sheriff’s department is going to watch Muhammad Ali.” I forget [which fight] it was. So we devised a plan to go back in, cut that crop down ourselves, and sneak it out underneath the police’s nose. But one of the guys at that time said, when we were all conspiring and figuring out what to do, he said, “What we got here is our own little Cornbread Mafia.”

Keith said, while federal officials claim the group formed in 1989, he, Jimmy Bickett, and Bobby Joe Shewmaker all say it happened “way before that.”

Joe Keith: There’s various versions of it. The feds claimed it occurred in ’89, but as everyone here can attest, it happened way before that. It come out that the feds labeled us that, but that’s not true. This is the story that we tell in this documentary, the true story of how that term come about.

The Bizarre Way Lions Led To The Cornbread Mafia’s Demise

The Cornbread Mafia cast and crew talk the doc at SXSW.
ScreenRant

ScreenRant: So, tell me how you all met, and just like a little bit about who you are.

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: We all went to the same high school. Jimmy’s a little younger than me, and Joe Keith, but me and Joe Keith was — I graduated a year before him. It’s a small rural community, so everybody knows everybody. From the mayor to the governor, to whatever.

Evan Mascagni: These two are brothers.

ScreenRant: What are some of the highlights we can look forward to?

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: About the lions?

Evan Mascagni: How’d you come about those?

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: I went to buy a herd of cattle. Well, I was on the run, but I was going to dope crop out west. I went to buy some cattle, and the guy wasn’t there when I got there. I was waiting for him to get there, and I walked around. I looked in the corn crib, and he had a big coug in there— a live cougar. So I said, “Damn, that’s cool there. I’d like to have one of them cats.” And he comes back, and long story short, I didn’t buy the cattle, didn’t buy his cat, but he gave me the name of the guy that sold African lions. So I went down to central Kansas and bought two lions that day. And then he had a bear running around, and said, “I’d like to have a bear too.” So, I ended up going back later and buying the bear, and then I bought two more lions later on.

ScreenRant: What?

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: They was African lions.

Joe Keith: The kicker on that story is that at that time, Bobby Joe was on the run from a federal case in Savannah, Georgia, and he was convicted, and he was supposed to report to the Marshall Service. Well, he had a different idea. He decided that he didn’t want to turn himself in and serve time on a federal case. So he went to Kansas, set up a big grow operation, and in the process, that’s when he decided they needed a few lions and a bear. Not a guard dog or anything, he just wanted to buy some lion cubs. So that’s how that started. We had a huge grow operation out there. How many plants was out there? 60,000?

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: Well, less than what they said. They said 74,000.

Joe Keith: 74,000 plants on six counties out there.

Evan Mascagni: But then, when they end up getting busted, and there are these farms in Kansas that got busted, and the farms in Kentucky — Bobby Joe had given one of those lion cubs to Jimmy Bickett. So, the prosecutors were trying to connect these farms and show this large conspiracy by connecting these lion cubs that were now in multiple states, to help show the size of this organization.

ScreenRant: The lions were the part of the downfall?

Jimmy Bickett: Well, Bobby Joe gave me a female lion. She’s kind of like most women, kind of overacting all the time and cutting up all the time. So, I decided to drive to Kansas and trade it off for a male lion. So, we go out there to Kansas, and we look at the patches, and go through the Rocky Mountains, and we’ve got our old ladies with us, or whatever you want to call them. So I get a male lion, I go back home, and here comes the federal game wardens one day, with some DEA or something. So, I try to get away. Of course, I don’t get away from ’em. And they said, “You got a lion cub down at your house?” I said, “Yeah.” They said, “Let’s go look at it. Where’d you get it?” I said, “Bought it from some guy coming through town there.” Of course, I cut out the Kansas part. They said, “He didn’t give it to you?” I said, “No, what are you talking about?” So they asked me about 10 times when they had me under arrest, they asked me about the lion: “Who’d you get it from? What’d he look like? What was he driving?” So, I told them all this bulls–t story. Anyway, they take my lion, the federal game wardens. What it come down to is the reason they came down to my house, they were looking for him. [Laughs] He was on the run. They used the federal game wardens, asking about the lion to see if they could find Shewmaker down there.

Joe Keith: They had discovered the lions on one of Bobby Joe’s farms out there, but after that went down, they found out, the DEA did, that Jimmy Bickett also had a lion cub, so they wanted to tie the two things together. That’s what it was. One was on the distribution end, which is in Kentucky. The grow operation was in Kansas. And so, to tie that conspiracy together, they were trying to use lion cubs that he had, and the one he had in Kentucky.

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: And the lion cubs wasn’t even related.

Drew Morris: They tried to say during a trial that this lion had to come from Kansas, where they found on the patch up there, the lions and bears, but the judge didn’t go along with it.

Bobby Joe Shewmaker: They couldn’t find out where the lion come from.

Cornbread Mafia premiered at SXSW on March 12, but has not yet had a wide public release.

Location

Austin, Texas

Description

The SXSW Conference is an annual event held in Austin, Texas, that celebrates the convergence of technology, film, music, education, and culture. It features a diverse range of programming, including keynote speeches, panel discussions, exhibitions, networking events, and live performances, attracting professionals, creators, and innovators from around the world to explore new ideas and emerging trends.

Dates

March 12–18, 2026


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