In a world where too many people strive to just fit in, she stood out as a true individual. She marched to the beat of her own drum and was proud of it. Prior to the attack, Herold and Nash had been friends for more than 30 years after riding horses in Loretta Lynn's traveling rodeo in the '70s. Nash was attacked at Herold's Stamford, Conn. Paramedics responding to a call after the attack said they found pieces of Nash's fingers strewn on the floor and her hands looked as though they had been through a meat grinder.
Today, Nash still wears a veil to avoid scaring people. In a November interview with Oprah Winfrey, Nash said she hopes others learn from her experience. The seven-minute video, released to Connecticut state legislators, features an interview with Nash and footage of her walking around the private medical facility where she lives and receives daily assistance for her injuries.
By law, anyone seeking to sue the state of Connecticut must seek permission to do so. Since the attack five years ago, Nash has had numerous surgeries, including a face transplant. Nash hopes they will be able to try again. Nash is still waiting for an opportunity to square off against the state for injuries she contends could've been prevented. Sindland said authorities at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection ignored a memo sent in October , four months before the attack, from Connecticut state biologist Elaine Hinsch that said Travis the chimp was "an accident waiting to happen.
The state, Sindland alleges, "knew that the chimp was a danger" but didn't do anything to remove it from the home. All three were cheering for the Yankees. Sandy and Jerry decided they needed to make a trip to the tow shop. They asked Travis whether he had any interest in a ride. It was a rhetorical question. Travis looked, grunted, unbuckled his seat belt, unlocked and opened the door, and began knuckle-running across the road. He stood, surveying the area in his extra-large adult diaper though he was potty-trained, he often wore diapers when he was out.
At one point, he lunged at a passerby. And then, all of a sudden, he lay down in the street and began rolling on his back. People in their cars honked and pointed.
Traffic at the intersection came to a standstill. Neighbors came out to watch. Travis was clearly enjoying himself, climbing over cars, hooting, smiling. Cookies and ice cream could not coax him back. Each time they lured him into the 4Runner, Travis opened the door and got out again before they could lock it. This continued for two hours. Finally, when he began to tire, Travis climbed into the SUV and buckled his seat belt.
No charges were pressed; several of the police officers who knew Travis personally wrote in their reports that his attitude was only playful. They escorted the Herolds home. Travis spent the next day in his room, grounded. Virtually everyone made light of the escapade downtown. The state Department of Environmental Protection was aware of what happened, and also that the Herolds were in violation of a new statute that required a permit to keep a primate over 50 pounds.
After contacting primatologists, she spoke with Sandy, arguing that Travis was by now a fully sexualized adult chimpanzees in the wild have sex, nonmonogamously, as often as 50 times a day ; that he had the strength of at least five men; that adult chimpanzees are known to be unpredictable and potentially violent which is why all chimp actors are prepubescent ; and that maintaining Travis for the duration of his five- or six-decade lifetime was not viable.
There was one piece of information, however, that Sandy chose not to share with the officer. Two years earlier, the Herolds had received a phone call from Connie Casey, the breeder in Festus. Coats claimed the chimps approached his Chevy Cavalier and trapped the teenagers inside, baring their teeth and rocking the car. Coats eventually got out, ran into his house, and grabbed a shotgun.
Casey had by then arrived at the driveway and tranquilized Suzy, who was now, according to Casey and several eyewitnesses, sitting at the edge of the road, stoned, fingering the grass and flowers. Casey begged Coats not to shoot. He fired three rounds at Suzy; she died two hours later. Coats nevertheless remained steadfast in his belief that the chimps were dangerous. The Herolds stopped taking Travis out in public after the incident in downtown Stamford, and they spent most of their time away from work at home with him.
One night, over takeout spaghetti dinners at the kitchen table, Travis was sulking. He was sitting next to Jerry, facing away from him. Jerry and Sandy were trying to engage Travis.
Travis turned, glanced begrudgingly. Which one? Travis looked finally. Jerry opened his mouth. Travis looked for a second before extending his long index finger. Travis looked at her, looked at Jerry, puckered his lips again, exposed his teeth, and tilted his head up toward Jerry. Jerry cheered. Travis opened his mouth and unfurled his giant pink tongue. Once again, they cheered. By now Travis could not contain himself: He smiled broadly and grunted, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter. He patted Jerry on the back.
Finally he wrapped his long arm around him. After playing with Travis one morning in March , he went off to work, where his discomfort sharpened. He asked one of his employees to take him to the hospital. One night he said he wanted to talk to her about Travis. He asked her what she would do if he were to die—if it were to become just her, alone with Travis. As much as he said it pained him, he urged her to send Travis to a sanctuary. He told her Travis was too much for her to manage alone. He said it was best for both of them.
Several times Sandy put Travis on the phone to talk to Jerry; each time Travis became so upset that she had to take the phone away. Travis sat rocking back and forth for hours. He lifted pictures of Jerry off the wall, put his lips to the glass, held them to his chest. Sandy took them all down and put them in a box. On April 12, Jerry died.
Travis continued his rocking. When she sat on the sofa crying, Travis gently brushed her hair. He bit her nails and used an emery board to file them. When almost a year had passed, Sandy sat down to write a letter. She drafted it in longhand, and addressed it to a woman in Florida who runs a respected chimpanzee sanctuary. These were the last two paragraphs. Travis still waits for him especially at supper time, because at that time they both had a glass of wine with their supper and if my husband ever cooked anything you can bet it has garlic in it.
Try having two guys breathing on your sleep time with garlic breath. Travis would go to the bedroom window many nights sit on the bench seat look out, get very vocal and happy then come back to sleep, this was always very late at night. Finally I went to psychic and she told me Jerry would visit at night and talk to Travis and my husband would always kiss me good night. I live alone with Travis, we eat and sleep together but I am worried that if something happens to me as suddenly as my husband what would happen to Travis, therefore I have to try to do something before that happens.
I am flying down to see your member event enclosed is our donation. I am looking forward to meeting you.
She put everything in a stamped envelope. She never mailed the letter and never made the trip. Charla and her thenyear-old daughter had lived itinerantly, at one point staying for more than a year in a homeless shelter.
Charla had taken odd jobs, picked up occasional yard work, cleaned horse stalls. She gave Charla a job, handling towing dispatch and bookkeeping. She rarely was. For four years, Travis never left home, and Sandy only sporadically did, aside from compulsive shopping trips: She spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at stores like T.
Maxx and Marshalls, stuffing bags of clothes in dozens of plastic bins that filled almost every room of the house. She and Travis relegated themselves to the kitchen and the suite in the rear of the house. In early , construction was under way on a gigantic new addition that Jerry had designed for Travis years earlier.
Travis, by this point, no longer bore much physical resemblance to his former self. He was 14 years old, five feet tall, pounds, and morbidly obese. His hairline had receded dramatically, and his center torso had gone gray. His face was black and wrinkled. His chest sagged. He spent the majority of his days snacking, watching TV, playing on the computer, and roaming the house. It was February 16, and Sandy and Charla had just returned from a weekend at the Mohegan Sun casino; before leaving, Sandy had taken Charla to get her hair colored and curled, in case, Sandy had joked, two eligible bachelors crossed their paths.
Sandy had offered Charla some gambling money. At dinner one night, Sandy had opened her purse and showed the waiter several pictures of Travis. Now it was after 3 p. He did not want to draw or color.
He did not want to pet his cat, Misty. Sandy, slightly concerned, had dropped a Xanax in his mug of afternoon tea. She was on the phone with Charla. She told her about Travis. Later, Sandy would say that Charla volunteered to come over and help; Charla would maintain she was asked.
In any case, Charla arrived at about , opened the iron gate at the end of the driveway, and drove to the front of the house. Travis was in the front yard, about 35 feet away. He knuckle-ran toward her, then came up on his two legs. What are you doing? Travis knocked her into the side of her car.
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