Conn. Chimp Was on Xanax During Attack

Animal was surrogate spouse for his owner

(NEWSER) - Sandra Herold and her chimp, Travis—who viciously mauled her friend—were unusually close, sharing wine and lobster and exchanging gifts, the New York Post reports. “What she had with that monkey was not normal,” one friend said. But Herold said outsiders don’t understand: “Until you've eaten with a chimp and bathed with a chimp, you don't know a chimp,” she said. “He slept with me every night. He combed my hair.” More»

(NEWSER) - Travis, the Connecticut chimpanzee who was killed after he viciously attacked his owner’s friend, had a history of violence, the AP reports. A woman says he bit her hand in a 1996 incident, and then tried to pull her into a car. Leslie Mostel-Paul says she contacted police, to no avail. “If they had followed through,” she said, “maybe the laws would have been changed sooner.” More»

Owner gave pet Xanax before it attacked friend

(NEWSER) - "He's killing my girlfriend! He's eating her!" the frantic owner of a chimpanzee screamed in a call to police as the animal viciously attacked her friend. "You have to shoot him!" the Connecticut woman tells the dispatcher in a chilling tape of the call as the crazed animal's screeches are heard in the background, reports the New York Daily News. More»

Victim fighting for her life after Connecticut family's pet goes berserk

(NEWSER) - Connecticut police shot dead a pet chimpanzee yesterday after it critically injured a woman in a vicious attack, the Stamford Advocate reports. The owner of the 200-pound chimp stabbed it with a butcher knife after it leaped on her visiting friend for no apparent reason. A police officer who arrived on the scene shot the animal when it yanked open his car door. More»

Sandra Herold was being sued for $50M

(NEWSER) - The owner of the chimpanzee that mauled and blinded a Connecticut woman in 2009 has died, her lawyer tells the Stamford Advocate . Sandra Herold, 72, suffered an aortic aneurysm. She was being sued for $50 million by the family of mauling victim Charla Nash, and "her heart, which had been broken so many times before could take no more," the lawyer said. More»