Sandra Herold was the owner of Travis, a chimpanzee who had appeared in several TV shows and commercials as an animal actor. She had raised Travis since he was three days old and treated him like a son. However, in 2009, Travis attacked and mauled Herold’s friend, Charla Nash, leaving her with horrific injuries. The incident sparked a legal battle and a public debate over the ownership of exotic animals. Two years later, Herold died unexpectedly from a ruptured artery. What caused her death and how did it relate to the chimp attack?
The Chimp Attack
On February 16, 2009, Herold called Nash, her longtime friend, to help her get Travis back into his cage. Travis had been acting erratically and had escaped from the house with the keys to Herold’s car. Nash arrived at Herold’s home in Stamford, Connecticut, and was immediately attacked by the 200-pound chimp. Travis ripped off Nash’s nose, ears, lips, eyelids, and hands, and inflicted severe wounds to her face and head. He also bit off part of her jaw and fractured her eye sockets.
Herold tried to stop the attack by hitting Travis with a shovel and stabbing him with a knife, but he did not relent. She then called 911 and pleaded for help. A police officer arrived at the scene and shot Travis several times, killing him. Nash was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. She survived the attack but was left permanently disfigured and blind.
The Legal Battle
Nash sued Herold for $50 million, claiming that she was negligent and reckless in keeping Travis as a pet. She also accused Herold of failing to warn her about Travis’s violent tendencies and of giving him medication that made him more aggressive. Herold denied any wrongdoing and said that Travis had never shown any signs of aggression before. She also said that she had given him Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, on the day of the attack to calm him down.
The lawsuit was complicated by the fact that Connecticut did not have a clear law on the liability of exotic animal owners. In 2004, after Travis had escaped from Herold’s car and roamed around Stamford for hours, the state passed a law that banned the ownership of primates weighing more than 50 pounds. However, Travis was exempted from the law because he had been owned by Herold before it was enacted.
In 2010, Connecticut state prosecutors decided not to charge Herold criminally for the attack, saying that there was no evidence that she had intentionally or recklessly provoked Travis or that she knew he would harm Nash. However, they also said that Herold bore some responsibility for the incident and that she should have been more aware of the risks of keeping a chimpanzee as a pet.
The civil lawsuit was still pending when Herold died in 2010. Nash later reached a settlement with Herold’s estate for an undisclosed amount.
The Cause of Death
Herold died on May 24, 2010, at her home in North Stamford. She was 72 years old. According to her lawyer, Robert Golger, she died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm, a condition where a bulge in the wall of the main artery of the heart bursts and causes massive bleeding.
Golger said that Herold had suffered a series of heartbreaking losses over the last several years, beginning with the death of her only child in 2000, then her husband in 2004, then Travis in 2009, as well as the tragic maiming of Nash. He also said that the stress of defending a multi-million dollar lawsuit and facing public scrutiny had weighed heavily on Herold.
“In the end, her heart, which had been broken so many times before, could take no more,” Golger said in a statement.
He added that Herold was a true individual who marched to the beat of her own drum and was proud of it.
“She lived alone with Travis,” he said. “They ate and slept together but she worried that if something happened to her what would happen to Travis.”
He also said that Herold loved Nash and felt terrible about what happened to her.
“She never stopped worrying about Charla,” he said.
The Aftermath
The chimp attack and Herold’s death sparked a national debate over the ownership of exotic animals and their welfare. Many animal rights activists argued that chimpanzees and other wild animals should not be kept as pets or used for entertainment purposes. They also pointed out the dangers and difficulties of caring for such animals, especially as they grow older and stronger.
Some states tightened their laws on exotic animal ownership after the incident. In 2011, Connecticut passed a law that banned people from owning primates weighing more than 35 pounds without a permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The law also required owners to register their primates with the state and to have liability insurance of at least $1 million.
Nash, meanwhile, underwent several surgeries to reconstruct her face and hands. In 2011, she received a full face transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, becoming one of the few people in the world to have such a procedure. She also received a double hand transplant, but it failed due to complications and had to be removed.
Nash said that she forgave Herold for what happened and that she missed Travis. She also said that she hoped her story would raise awareness about the plight of chimpanzees and other exotic animals.
“I hope this never happens to anyone else ever again,” she said. “It’s not nice.”
