The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

April 29, 2001, Sunday, FIVE STAR LIFT EDITION

SECTION: METRO, Pg. C1

HEADLINE: CHIMPANZEES;
A FATAL SHOOTING HAS SPURRED DEBATE OVER WHETHER ARE HARMLESS NEIGHBORS OR;
DANGEROUS WILD ANIMALS

BYLINE: Chris Carroll; Of The Post-Dispatch

BODY:


* Authorities continue to investigate the killing this month of a
chimpanzee by a teen-ager in Jefferson County. Experts say chimps can be
dangerous. But some neighbors say the animal was no threat.

One of the perks of living in her neighborhood, Lynn Boischel says, is that
she gets to watch the neighbors mow the lawn.

Boischel will sometimes stroll down the side of Highway CC in southern
Jefferson County to take in a madcap scene: chimpanzees heading out with
their toothy grins on a riding mower, cutting erratic patterns across the
grass.

"They do fine," Boischel said, with a laugh. "I'm not saying they mow in
perfectly straight lines or anything."

The neighborhood chimps live in a compound owned by Connie and Mike Casey.
They run Chimparty, a federally licensed business that supplies young
chimps for parties, TV commercials and other entertainment uses. The Caseys
also run the Missouri Primate Foundation, a home for older chimps.
 
The recent killing of one of the chimps has shaken the area.

Boischel and others who have grown fond of the chimpanzees over the years
say they are enraged by the fatal shooting of Suzy, a 28-year-old chimp who
had lived at the primate facility for years.

A neighbor, 18, shot Suzy on April 19 after she escaped with two other
chimps from an unlocked cage at the 15-acre Chimparty facility.

Killing a chimp in captivity can be a federal offense. It's also a big deal
in this neighborhood, where the apes are considered neighbors, and
children's birthday parties have been held that had humans and chimps as
guests. There are even tales of parents becoming concerned about children
assuming apelike behavior after too much time spent with young chimps.

According to neighbors, the escaped apes were essentially out for a walk
when the teen took a shotgun and mortally wounded Suzy, who was nearly
unconscious from a tranquilizer dart shot by Connie Casey. The dying animal
was euthanized soon afterward.

"These chimps have been here for so long and they've never bothered anyone.
In fact, everyone really likes them,"   Boischel said. "To me, I consider
what he did cold-blooded murder."

But the shooter, whose name is being withheld because he has not been
charged, painted a far different picture for investigators. He refused to
speak to a reporter who made numerous attempts to contact him.

In his version of events, the chimps appear not as funny animals on riding
mowers and certainly not as neighbors but as large, frightening wild
beasts.

He and his friends arrived home to be confronted by angry chimps, which
surrounded and began to attack the car - rocking it back and forth and
leaving a dent, he told investigators. When the people tried to leave the
vehicle, the chimps charged, the shooter said.

He ran for the house, where he retrieved a shotgun, he told authorities.
With his friends, his dog and his property threatened, he decided to shoot,
he said.

Bob Wilkins, Jefferson County's prosecuting attorney, has said the shooting
could lead to felony animal cruelty and felony property destruction charges
if it is found to have been needless.

But for now, he says, he's having a hard time making heads or tails of what
went on.

"From the (police) report, you can't make sense of it," he said. "It was
like these people were in two different states. The shooter says they were
attacked and he had to make a break for it, and the other people say, no,
(the chimps) were just out walking around."

Primate experts from zoos - who disapprove of people like the Caseys using
chimps for entertainment or breeding them for sale - say that regardless of
exactly what happened on April 19, there's truth in both views of chimps:
They can appear as entertaining neighbors, but they are also dangerous wild
animals.

Scientists at the St. Louis Zoo declined to comment other than to say the
American Association of Zoos and Aquariums condemns privately selling
chimps or using them for entertainment.

The Caseys counter by saying their parties have educational and
conservation value and that chimps are sold only after an extensive
background check and with a no-resale policy.

Tammie Bettinger of the Cleveland Metro Park Zoo, the vice chairwoman of
the zoos and aquarium association's Survival Plan for chimpanzees, says
chimps can be extremely dangerous to humans.

"No matter how much they might seem like us sometimes, they are chimps and
not people," she said. "They don't share our Judeo-Christian ethics. They
don't share our code of conduct. They are five times stronger than the
average human male."

They may be even more dangerous to themselves and humans if they live in
close contact with humans, she says.
 
"They are no longer afraid of you at all," she said.

Some physical evidence at the scene, including the dent on the car and a
broken window, seemed to support the boys' claims about an ape onslaught,
Wilkins says.

But every witness who spoke to a reporter disputed the account of the
shooter. Each denied there was any danger to anyone by the time the
shooting took place.

"Those kids were all over the place, cussing and hollering and saying,
'Kill the blankety-blank monkeys,'" said Mark Lahmann, a contractor from
Sullivan working at the Caseys' who was helping to recapture the apes at
the time of the shooting. "Wasn't a one of them scared or in danger."

J.C. Wills, the next-door neighbor of the Caseys and the shooter, said the
boy had plenty of time to think over his actions. He then took aim and shot
the chimp, which was motionless and facing away from him near the road.

"The woman who owns the chimp was putting herself between the boy with the
gun and the chimp, trying to save it," he said. "She was begging him not
to, but he went ahead and shot anyway."
 
Connie Casey and her husband want the teen who shot Suzy punished.

"This was a murder," she said. "She was no threat to him. He just wanted to
kill her, and that's what he did."

After Jefferson County sheriff's deputies left and took the shotgun with
them, Boischel's husband approached the shooter. She could hear his boast
plainly, she said.

"'I just got myself a monkey' is what he said," Boischel said. "He was all
hyped up that he'd just killed Suzy."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO (1) Color Photo by DAVID Y. LEE / POST-DISPATCH - Connie
Casey kisses Hannah, her 9-month-old chimpanzee, inside her home in Festus
on Monday. Casey and her husband, Mike Casey, run an entertainment and
education business called Chimparty, and a chimpanzee and monkey rescue
operation called the Missouri Primate Foundation. The shooting death of a
28-year-old chimpanzee belonging to the Caseys by a neighbor this month has
shaken their neighborhood, where the Caseys' primates were a common sight.
(2) Color Photo - Suzy, seen here in a Casey family photo, was fatally shot
April 19 by a teen who says the chimpanzee threatened him.
(3) Photo by DAVID Y. LEE /POST-DISPATCH - Neighbors have left stuffed
animals and flowers on the fence outside the home of Mike and Connie Casey
in Jefferson County to honor the memory of Suzy, the Caseys' chimpanzee.
Suzy was fatally shot by a teen-age neighbor, who said the chimp threatened
him and his friends.