CURIOUS, GEORGE

Dallas Zoo’s Stolen Monkeys Found in House Full of Animals, Pastor’s Family Says

The empty community house where emperor tamarins Bella and Finn were found had allegedly been broken into by an unknown man, who had filled it with stray animals.

Bella and Finn, the two emperor tamarin monkeys that vanished from their enclosure at the Dallas Zoo on Monday, were found the next day after members of a nearby church alerted the police that something odd was afoot at the property next door. Tonya Thomas, whose father is the pastor of Lancaster’s Family Center Church of God in Christ, told The Dallas Morning News that police, acting on the family’s tip, entered the empty community house next door and found the monkeys in a closet—as well as blankets, canned goods, chickens, pigeons, birds, and cats. The family owns the house and has boarded it up while attempting to raise funds to renovate it, Thomas said. They’d long suspected someone had been breaking into the home, and filling it with “stray animals,” but didn’t know who the individual was, she explained. On Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas Zoo tweeted that, though they’d lost “a bit of weight,” Bella and Finn were uninjured. The zoo also said it would be increasing its reward for information leading to any arrests to $25,000.