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Last month, some Mississippi residents were placed on a high alert after monkeys that were supposedly infected with some dangerous diseases escaped from a van that was transporting them from a research center at Tulane. One of them ended up being a shot by a woman who sniped it after spotting the animal in her backyard, and she’s getting a pass from authorities who’ve determined she didn’t break any laws by doing so.
On October 28th, we were treated to the kind of news story you’d hear about on the radio at the start of a horror movie when a truck carrying 21 monkeys sourced from the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, Louisiana crashed on Interstate 59 in the vicinity of Heidelberg, Mississippi.
The driver who was transporting the rhesus macaques told police the primates were research subjects that had been infected with diseases including Hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID-19. Tulane quickly issued a statement asserting they were all “pathogen-free,” but that didn’t do much to assuage local residents who were warned to keep an eye out for the three monkeys that had managed to flee the scene by the time authorities arrived.
As of this writing, that trio of fugitives now stands at one after two of the monkeys were shot and killed by civilians who spotted them. That includes a woman who grabbed her gun after one of them ended up on her property and was initially unsure if her decision to pull the trigger would land her in legal trouble.
Authorities have cleared a Mississippi woman who shot and killed a monkey that escaped from a truck while being transported to a research facility
The number of monkeys that remained on the lam was reduced to one when someone shot the primate that was spotted crossing a highway on Monday.
That transpired a day after another one met the same fate courtesy of Jessica Bond Ferguson, the 35-year-old mother of five who was still under the impression they were infected with some disease when her 16-year-old son informed her she saw one hanging out in their backyard.
Ferguson said she decided to take matters into her own hands by shooting the monkey that was perched atop a structure approximately 60 feet from where she was standing when she fired at it, telling the Associated Press:
“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children… If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me.
It’s kind of scary and dangerous that they are running around, and people have kids playing in their yards.”
The animal’s carcass was subsequently claimed by officials with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, and according to TMZ, the agency has confirmed it is “not planning on taking any action against” Ferguson for killing the monkey.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson also told the outlet his office has no plans to pursue any charges, noting “she was justified in killing the animal because she feared for her kids’ safety” and adding “people in the community do not trust the explanation given by Tulane University officials” when it comes to their claims the monkeys were not infected with anything.