The monkey, named Nina, had lived with an Alton woman for nine months until it bit the boy in the arm at a dog festival in Godfrey. After that, officials temporarily placed the monkey with a Bethalto woman named Cynthia Ray since the Madison County Animal Control facility was not able to handle a primate.
But at an emotion-filled hearing Friday in Circuit Judge Barb Crowder’s courtroom, Ray acknowledged that she had sent the monkey to live with another woman in Indiana. That prompted Madison County Assistant State’s Attorney Phil Alfeld to step in and ask Crowder to make Nina a ward of the state.
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| This photo was taken hours before the monkey attacked the little boy at the festival |
Madison County Sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Halbrooks testified that Nina’s owner, Kendra Hougland, told him the monkey had bit her several times including shortly before the “Bark in the Park” festival.
After the hearing, Hougland said she fears Nina will be placed with other monkeys. “She was raised as a child, not a primate,” Hougland said. “She’s loyal to one person, and that one person is myself. I made a mistake, and I’m willing to pay for that mistake, but I don’t feel that she should have to pay as well.”
The monkey originally lived with two men in Alton. But soon after Hougland met Nina the two bonded and the men agreed that Hougland would better be able to care for her. “She was in a cage behind the house, and I used to sleep with her at night,” Hougland said. “I would get up at 3 o’clock in the morning and go to her, hold her and sleep in her cage, because she was deathly afraid of storms. She’s afraid of lightning and thunder, and she’s also afraid of people.”
Once she took possession of the monkey, Hougland says they often bathed together. That’s when she would sometimes be bitten. On at least one instance, the bite drew blood. Still, Hougland said, the bites were never as serious as Alfred made it seem at the hearing. “They made it sound like she was biting all the time,” she said. “It was never a vicious bite, it was always a playful bite.”
A veterinarian recommended that Nina lose weight so that one day she can safely undergo surgery to have her teeth extracted.
The June 2 “Bark in the Park” festival was attended by hundreds of dog lovers and their dogs.
Hougland said she had Nina on a leash moments before the incident, with her dog nearby. When one of the boys picked the dog up, Nina grabbed his shirt as a warning. “He brushed her arms away from his t-shirt, and that’s when she bit him,” she said.
State law says that no one may possess a primate unless they had lawful possession before Jan. 1, 2011. The primate must also have been registered with the animal control administrator by April 1, 2011.
The boy has since recovered. No criminal charges have been filed yet, but State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons said the situation is still being reviewed. The parents of the boy have filed a civil lawsuit against Hougland.
Gibbons said that a company representing the St. Louis Zoo will go to Indiana and bring the monkey back to the area. Where Nina ends up has yet to be determined, he said.
Gibbons said that to his knowledge, the Madison County State’s Attorney’s office has never handled a monkey case before. “This is so unusual and something outside our normal realm that we knew we needed to reach out to get some help.”
(The Edwardsville Intelligencer - July 1, 2013)
