‘If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,’ said Jessica Bond Ferguson, a mother of five who shot the primate.
One of three virus-infected monkeys that escaped on a highway in Mississippi this past week was shot and killed by a homeowner who said she feared for her children’s safety.
Jessica Bond Ferguson told authorities that her 16-year-old son walked into their home and told her he thought he spotted one of the primates.
“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson said.
The mom, who lives near Heidelberg, Mississippi, with five children aged 4 to 16, first called the police, who told her to keep an eye on the monkey. But she said she worried that if it got away, it would threaten children at another house.
“If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,” Bond Ferguson said.
She said she grabbed her gun and cellphone and went outside, and found the monkey about 60 feet away in the yard.
“I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell,” she said.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that a homeowner near Heidelberg found one of the monkeys on her property Sunday morning. The state’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks responded and took the animal away, the sheriff’s department said on Facebook.
Bond Ferguson, a 35-year-old professional chef, was being hailed locally as a hero.
“Ya don’t mess with a Mississippi momma’s young’uns,” Doug Jernigan, of Meridian, Mississippi, commented on Facebook on Nov. 3.
The local community had been on alert since last Tuesday, when a semi-truck carrying 21 monkeys overturned while transporting them from Tulane University to an out-of-state testing facility.
Initial reports said that only one of the monkeys, which were infected with COVID, herpes, and hepatitis C, escaped capture, but that number was increased to three.
The accident happened at about 2 p.m. local time on Interstate 59, about 86 miles east of Jackson, Mississippi, near Heidelberg.
