One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway 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 bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.

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

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

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