Jessica Bond Ferguson

Jessica Bond Ferguson is a mother of five from Heidelberg, Mississippi, who gained media attention after she shot a rhesus monkey that had escaped from a research facility following a traffic accident. Concerned for the safety of her children, aged 4 to 16, she acted on her son's report of the monkey's presence near their home. Ferguson justified her actions by emphasizing the need to protect her family from potential diseases associated with the escaped animals, stating, 'I did what any mother would do to protect her children.'