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- [Narrator] Humans are the only species on earth
to keep other animals as pets.
While the overwhelming majority
of these symbolic relationships are beneficial
to both the pets and the people.
There are some instances where these bonds end in tragedy,
especially when the pets are exotic,
wild beasts capable of seriously injuring their owners.
What is up EWU crew?
Today, we're going to uncage three horrific encounters
of animals attacking humans.
Should the owners of these animals have known better?
Did their lack of fear for their pets lead
to these vicious clashes between species?
For the pet owner in the following story,
he'd find out the hard way that it's best not
to monkey around with powerful primates.
Let's get into it.
It's estimated that over 15,000 primates are kept
as pets in the US,
living side-by-side with their human owners.
Many times the adorable babies fill the void
of children for their keepers.
One of the most closely related primates
to humans is the chimpanzee,
sharing 99% of their DNA with homo sapiens.
It's no wonder
that many people can feel a deeper connection when staring
into their large hazel eyes.
That was the case for Moe the Chimp,
who lived most of his long life in a single-family home
in a sunny Los Angeles suburb.
St. James Davis,
a professional race car driver left his fiance
at the alter before setting sail
on a cargo ship to travel the world.
His journey would land him
in Africa and lead him into Tanzania.
However, when he left Africa,
he didn't return home alone.
Davis rescued an infantile chimpanzee,
telling others that poachers had shot its mother.
It was the 1960s
and chimpanzees were all the rage in pop culture.
Between television and movies and the popularity
of Jane Goodall's research on the species,
chimps had a friendly
and recognizable image in the United States.
Despite the reality that chimpanzees
are extremely dangerous, wild animals,
St. James Davis felt it was his duty to return home
to Southern California with little Moe.
St. James eventually married the girl he left behind,
LaDonna, and together they raised the animal in their home
in city of West Covina.
They treated Moe as their child
and taught him how to eat with utensils and use the toilet.
LaDonna couldn't have her own children due
to a previous battle with cancer,
but they loved Moe like their own.
And it appeared that Moe was living the high life.
The chimpanzee would even go on
to achieve fame in Hollywood.
He starred on television and in ads,
drawing huge lines for meet-and-greets with some
of his fellow furry colleagues.
For over 30 years,
Moe lived as part of the family.
He slept in their bed,
loved breakfast burritos,
rides in the car, watching TV,
and overall just being pampered.
On one joy ride, however,
Moe escaped from the vehicle
and raided the kitchen of a nearby restaurant.
The city wasn't happy
with the fact that there was a chimp looming
in the suburban neighborhoods,
but was unsuccessful in their legal attempts to remove him.
Unfortunately, the day would come when Moe
would eventually hurt a human.
The 32-year-old chimpanzee mauled the hand
of a police officer after breaking out into the street.
And in 1999, he injured a neighbor when she stuck her hand
in his outdoor cage.
St. James and his wife, LaDonna,
defended their beloved pet,
explaining that the neighbor
was wearing bright red nail polish
and Moe mistook her fingers for his favorite licorice candy.
However, the city had had enough and Moe was sent
to live in an animal sanctuary.
The Davis' were devastated.
St. James and LaDonna traveled to visit Moe regularly.
Moe would always jump
for joy when he saw his owner's return,
many times bringing him
his favorite beverage, hot chocolate.
In 2005, the Davis' set out
to see Moe with a special surprise for his birthday.
But they would end up wishing they'd never gone.
Despite their cute faces,
Chimpanzees are ferocious beasts.
They're extremely intelligent,
armed with large fangs,
and the full grown adults are strong enough
to rip a person apart with only their hands.
In the wild,
chimps have been documented going
to war with rival groups.
St. James would experience first hand the brutish power
that primates are capable of.
About to greet the birthday boy
with a decorated cake in hand,
St. James and LaDonna noticed movement out
of the corner of their eyes.
It was two other male chimps who managed to break
out of their cages.
When LaDonna made eye contact with one of them,
the situation escalated quickly.
In a flash the two chimps descended upon them
with a battle-like fury.
One animal bit off Ladonna's thumb,
but it was her husband who suffered the worst of the attack.
The chimps chewed off a large portion of his face,
ripped off his testicles,
removed one of his feet,
and to bit off large chunks of flesh.
With St. James Davis barely clinging to life,
animal sanctuary employees arrived just
in time to subdue the two chimps.
Shooting them both with a hand gun.
St. James was transported to receive medical care
but now is forever altered by the encounter.
The animal sanctuary attempted to rationalize the attack,
saying that the species is very territorial
and the arrival of Moe into the sanctuary made
the other chimps jealous.
When the two chimps had an opportunity
to show dominance over Moe by hurting his owners,
they took it.
Although the Davis' will never fully recover
from the trauma,
they still longed for Moe,
who was transported to a different facility.
Moe The Chimp would never return to his human parents.
Instead on June 30th of 2008,
he broke out use enclosure
and escaped into San Bernardino County's forests.
The search for Moe turned up no results,
with the Davis' even privately funding a helicopter charter
to look for the chimp.
St. James and LaDonna are heartbroken
that their baby is potentially still out there
somewhere roaming the California wilderness,
worried that he might get bitten by a rattlesnake.
Even though St. James
and LaDonna were brutally attacked by chimpanzees
and witnessed what they are capable of firsthand,
they still have so much love for their chimp.
Most people would agree,
that it isn't wise to harbor such a wild animal,
knowing disaster may inevitably occur.
However, sometimes a seemingly normal house pet
will wreak havoc upon a family.
Ferrets are the third most popular pet in America,
behind cats and dogs,
with over 7 million raised as pets.
Even though the vast majority
of them are kept without incident,
multiple reports of the small animals attacking infants
have been reported.
In January of 2015,
police were called to the gruesome mauling scene
of a helpless baby in Darby, Pennsylvania.
Inside the home police discovered a sight of pure horror.
Skyy Fraim, a one-month-old girl,
was strapped into her car seat while her mother
was getting ready to leave the home.
The mother placed the infant on the floor,
next to the front door,
and went upstairs to use the restroom,
while her fiance was taking a nap.
In the moments that Skyy was left alone
on the floor, tragedy struck.
Two of the family's pet ferrets managed to weasel
out of their mesh cage and made their way over
to the helpless infant.
The mother heard screams of agony
from the child as the ferrets attacked the baby,
their tiny fangs,
gnashing and slicing in a horrific mutilation.
By the time the parents reached the child,
the ferrets had eaten away over 25% of her face,
removing her nose, lips,
and large parts of her cheek.
The baby was rushed to the hospital
to receive a life-saving surgery.
Doctors had to insert stints into the nostril areas
of the face so she could continue to breathe.
The Police Chief, Robert Smythe,
said of the mauling,
"I'm a cop.
"I've been one for over 45 years
"and this is the most horrific thing I've seen happen
"to a child in 45 years in this town."
Police would go on to describe
the horrendous living conditions that the family maintained
in what they termed as a flea-infested home.
42-year-old Bernie Fraim lived with his fiance,
24-year-old Jessica Benales,
their five children under the age of five, two dogs,
six cats, three ferrets and two turtles.
Police described the living conditions as deplorable,
stinking of feces and filth.
Police Chief Smythe said,
"The parents, I believe have problems.
"They are challenged.
"They can't take care of these kids."
Smythe also said that the only food
the police found in the home was a jar of peanut butter
and a can of cranberry sauce.
After these discoveries,
the remaining children were placed in other's care.
And the two ferrets were euthanized.
The parents are facing five counts
of endangering the welfare of a child.
Bernie Fraim, the children's father,
would explain later in an interview,
"We're good parents.
"It's just, we made one mistake by leaving them alone.
"We regret it and we blame ourselves for it."
Skyy had to undergo several reconstructive surgeries
and her face will be scarred forever.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests
that ferrets are attracted to babies
because infants release odors that ferrets perceive
to be similar to those of suckling rabbits.
It also appears that ferrets are more likely
to bite than dogs are.
It doesn't matter the animal's size,
sharp teeth and gripping jaws can do damage,
especially to an infant.
Although this young girl's face may never be the same again,
at least responders were able to save her
before the ferrets ended her life.
This however, was not the case for a Pennsylvanian woman.
A dog is man's best friend
but wolves are dangerous predators that
have struck fear into humans for thousands of years.
Even though all modern dogs have descended from wolves,
some people like to blur the lines
between the two,
and own wolf-dog hybrids as pets.
This was the case for Sandra Piovesan
of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
Sandra, who loved wolves kept wolf-dog hybrids as pets.
In fact, she had constructed an electrified fenced in pen
on her property to hold her pack of nine wolf hybrids.
Each animal was around eight-years-old
and weighed up to 100 pounds.
One of the wolf hybrids aptly named Spirit,
was Sandra's favorite and she allowed it
to live in the house.
Sandra registered the pack as mixed breed dogs,
to not draw negative attention from the County.
But when there was a litter of puppies
she would sell them off as wolves.
Neighbors complained of the howling and vile stench
of rotting meat that would stew out of the pen.
Sandra collected roadkill to feed her fur babies,
sometimes throwing deer carcasses
into the pen for them to devour.
She was blindly in love with the animals
and this is why she never saw it coming,
when in July of 2006,
she herself ended up on the menu.
Sandra's daughter was worried when her mom didn't show
up to a morning meeting
the two had arranged the night before,
and only became increasingly concerned
when her mother wasn't answering her cell phone.
After calling her father to share her concern,
he went over to the house to check on Sandra.
It was inside the wolf-dogs pen
that Sandra was finally found.
Sandra laid motionless on the ground.
On closer inspection it was soon realized
that she was dead and that her body
had been partially eaten by the wolves.
Police were called in to investigate the scene.
After assessing the situation,
they decided to euthanize eight of the wolf-dogs,
utilizing life-ending chemical-filled darts.
A city official justified this by saying,
"They had to be killed.
"There was no way of knowing which one killed her."
Autopsy reports confirmed,
that Sandra did not suffer a heart attack
or any other medical emergency that would cause her
to fall dead while in the pen,
determining instead that it was in fact
the attack from her wolves that led to her death.
The worst of the mauling was clustered
around Sandra's head and feet.
The examiner presumed that Sandra
was probably dead within the first couple
of minutes of the attack as she had likely bled to death.
After returning to the property,
law enforcement discovered two more wolves roaming the pen.
Leading them to suspect,
there was a hidden den buried somewhere in the enclosure.
They commissioned construction equipment
to demolish a metal shed on the property
but found no other animals.
But what could have caused the hybrid animals to attack?
Elaine Gower of the Westmoreland County Humane Society,
theorized that the animals might've grown agitated
by their enclosure,
as a similar size pack in the wild
would have a territory of 50 to 100 miles.
It could have also been the case of one
of the animals attempting to show dominance.
Gower also reiterated the risks
of owning wolf-dog hybrids, saying,
"Wolves run away from people out of fear.
"Breeding them with dogs takes the fear out of them,
"which can make them more dangerous."
It is unknown how many hybrid puppies Sandra sold
but city officials agreed that since one
of her wolf-dogs killed and ate a human,
all of the offspring should therefore be euthanized.
However, there are no reports
of Westmoreland County acting on this.
All three of these cases are a stark reminder
that you can take an animal out of the wild
but you can't take the wild out of an animal.
Do these horrifying cases
have you looking at your pet differently?
Let us know in the comments below.