JASPER COUNTY, Miss. —

One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi highway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out of bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet away.

Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned that the escaped monkeys carried diseases so she fired her gun.

“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated

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