Escaped Monkey in Mississippi Killed By Frightened Mother

One of the escaped monkeys in Mississippi was shot and killed Sunday morning by a mom who told the Associated Press she feared for the safety of her children.

The AP reports Jessica Bond Ferguson -- a mother-of-five living in Heidelberg, Mississippi -- was alerted to a monkey running in the yard outside their home by her 16-year-old son this morning ... and, when she looked, she says the monkey was just 60 feet from her home.

Ferguson told the outlet she fired her gun ... “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children. I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that's when he fell.”

As you know ... a truck overturned in late October that was carrying Rhesus monkeys from Tulane National Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana -- leading to 21 monkeys escpaing the vehicle.

13 were coralled by authorities, five were shot on sight after a supervisor mistakenly claimed the monkeys were infected with COVID, herpes, and hepatitis C -- authorities later clarified they weren't -- but three escaped into the wild.