Even with training and domestication, pets have been known to turn on their owners and kill them. Sadly, this is all the more common with exotic animals that are difficult or impossible to train, such as lions, bears, and snakes. These stories are tragic, usually of devoted pet guardians attempting to simply do what can't be done—tame a wild beast.
Pets who have killed include a famous chimpanzee, various reptiles, a hippo that inspired a TV special, bears, and even spiders. A few of these cases resulted from people who were clearly hoarders and should never have been allowed to keep any pets, but many were just animal owners who had fallen in love with an exotic creature, and paid the ultimate price.
Here are terrifying stories of people killed by their own pets.
15 Terrifying Stories of Pets Who Turned on Their Owners,
Simba the Pet Lion Mauls Its Owner
Illinois resident Al Abell kept a brood of exotic animals in a small zoo he called Cougar Bluff Enterprise, including a 500-pound African lion called Simba. Abell was usually careful in the handling of his exotic pets, but one afternoon he made a fatal mistake—he forgot to lock the door to the secondary pen that he put the lion in when cleaning its cage.
The details surrounding Abell’s death are uncertain, but Abell's wife returned to the property to find Al missing, the lion roaming free, and the other animals on the farm agitated. What followed was a tense standoff between local police and the lion, which ended with Simba shot dead by assault rifles. Abell was found dead near the animal cage, having bled to death from a massive bite in his leg.
Scarface the Pitbull Mauls His Owner Over a Sweater
A Florida woman and her family were mauled by her pet pitbull after she tried to put a sweater on him.
The pitbull - ironically named Scarface - attacked Brenda Guerrero, 52, in her Tampa home on New Year's Day in 2017. When her husband Ismael stepped in to help her, the dog turned on him. The couple's 22-year-old son tried to intervene - this time with a knife - and even after he stabbed Scarface the dog still attacked.
The three eventually managed to escape into the house, leaving the dog outside. Animal Control officers were called to the home and had to subdue the dog with a Taser. Officials said the dog was "aggressive." Sounds like an understatement.
Travis the Chimpanzee
Travis the Chimpanzee became famous after he appeared in TV shows, commercials, and on talk shows with his owner, Sandra Herold. In 2009, Herold called her friend Charla Nash for help getting the 200-pound chimp back into his cage.
But Travis saw Nash holding one of his toys, and brutally attacked her by mauling her face and hands. Herold tried to stop Travis by stabbing him and hitting with a shovel, which only angered him more. She called 911 and police arrived, which led to Travis opening the door of one of the police cars. An officer shot Travis, and the chimp staggered away and died.
Nash's family was in the process of suing Herold when Herold died of an ruptured aorta.
A few years later, Nash became the first patient to ever receive a double hand and face transplant.
The Pet Lion that Mauled a Child
30-year-old Amber Michelle Couch had already received a number of citations from the animal control department of Odessa, Texas, related to her 150-pound pet mountain lion. The animal wasn't current on his vaccines, and the cage the lion lived in was too small for its size. Not only that, but the gaps in between the bars were too wide—a safety hazard to anyone who got close.
Sure enough, in October 2011, Couch's nephew got too close to the cage and the lion jabbed a paw through the gaps, lacerating the child's face and slashing his left side. The child survived the attack, but the lion was put down.
Humphrey the Hippo Eats His Owner
In 2011, former South African Army major Marius Els was killed after being savagely bitten by his pet hippopotamus, Humphrey. Els had adopted the 1.2-ton creature when it was just five months old, after the animal was rescued from a flood, and had attempted to domesticate it. "Humphrey's like a son to me, he's just like a human," he told a reporter earlier in the year, "there's a relationship between me and Humphrey and that's what some people don't understand."
Humphrey had already done his share of damage, breaking out of his pen many times, chasing golfers, and killing calves. African authorities caution people not to keep hippos as pets, as they're impossible to train, can run 30 miles per hour, and kill more people than almost every other wild animal combined.
The Camel That Trampled Its Owner to Death
Australian Pam Weaver was given a camel for her 60th birthday, which isn't so strange, given that she owned a large property full of cattle and sheep roaming about, as well. Of course, cows and sheep aren't camels. Shortly after starting its life as a pet, the camel repeatedly attempted to smother the family’s pet goat.
Then one evening, disaster struck, as the camel tried to mate with Weaver. After she fought the camel off, the animal knocked her over, stomped on her head, and lay on top of her, smothering her to death.
The Pet Deer That Gored Its Owner
Texas resident Gerald Rushton ill-advisedly kept a 500-pound red stag deer in a pen in his backyard. Despite the fact that deer are both illegal and dangerous to keep, Rushton was attempting to domesticate the animal and keep it as a pet. The attempt failed, as the deer gored and trampled Rushton to death. Game wardens arrived on the scene and put the deer down, and Rushton was dead before making it to a hospital.
Gypsy the Burmese Python
In 2009, Jaren Hare and Charles Darnell owned a pet python named Gypsy that had already escaped close to a dozen times, as its cage was only covered by a quilt. But the Florida residents insisted on hanging on to it. That changed when the snake escaped again, and wrapped itself around Hare's two-year-old daughter, killing her.
Animal experts believed that the snake hadn't been fed in a month and was severely underweight when it tried to eat the girl. Hare and Darnell were arrested, and while their attorney tried to argue that the snake had always been docile, a jury convicted them of third-degree murder. They were each sent to prison for 12 years.
Teddy the Black Bear
The Walz family of Allentown, PA, had raised their 350-pound black bear Teddy since it was a cub. But even so, the bear attacked and killed Kelly Ann Walz as she was cleaning his cage. She made the mistake of cleaning the cage while Teddy was still in it, which apparently set him off. Neighbor children saw the attack, and their father shot and killed Teddy. Authorities soon discovered that Kelly's husband's license to keep and sell exotic animals had expired
The Hoarder Bitten by His Pet Black Widow
A resident of Dortmund, Germany, Mark Voegel lived a solitary life in a small apartment, keeping the company only of the numerous insects and snakes he collected as pets. It was one of these, a black widow spider, that caused his demise. Apparently the heater on the tank that he used to keep his spiders had burst, allowing them to crawl free. A black widow bit Voegel and killed him, and in the 7-14 days it took for him to be found, his menagerie feasted on him. Hundreds of spiders, lizards, and snakes—along with countless termites—had eaten him, with webs draping his body, and bits of him scattered all around the apartment.