Residents of Heidelberg, Mississippi, have been on edge all week after an unusual accident — a truck carrying rhesus monkeys overturned on Interstate 59, scattering more than twenty animals across nearby neighborhoods and woods. For most locals, the story sounded unbelievable. But for Jessica Bond Ferguson, it became a nightmare in her own backyard.
Early Sunday morning, the 35-year-old mother was making breakfast for her five children when her 16-year-old son burst through the door, pale and shaking. “He said something was moving by the fence,” Ferguson recalled. At first, she thought it might be a raccoon or stray dog. Then she looked outside — and realized it wasn’t.
About sixty feet away, a rhesus monkey stood, its eyes fixed on the house. “It just stood there, like it didn’t know what to do,” Ferguson said. “And I knew my kids were inside, watching.”
Without hesitation, Ferguson grabbed her phone and legally registered firearm and stepped outside. “I’m not the kind of person to overreact,” she explained. “But when you have five kids in the house and something wild shows up, you don’t take chances.”
She fired a warning shot into the ground. The monkey hesitated, then backed up. A second shot made it retreat and flee safely into the woods.
Continue reading on next page…