This is a bizarre story. It seems made up to give bloggers something to say:

Apparently a chimp made crazed by Lyme disease just ripped the face off of a woman in Conneticut . That is an unusual sequence of things in a single sentence, surely a winner. "Lyme disease" "ripped the face off" no making things up.

"Travis’s owner, Sandra Herold, 70, had raised him almost as one of her own children, but found herself lunging at him with a butcher knife on Monday to protect Ms. Nash, said Capt. Conklin, who gave the following account."

The owner's attack with a butcher knife is also kind of insane.

Why do fools keep chimps and why are they allowed to keep chimps (except Michael Jackson). Now, someone with a sense of humor must be able to make this into a joke about Michael Jackson and his chimp, and his face coming off,... you see where I'm going with this? The stuff of comedy, the bright side of this woman losing her face.

from the AP story we get these further details:

"In recordings of calls to 911 dispatchers released Tuesday, Travis' grunts can be heard as a frantic Herold cries that her pet is "eating" Nash and must be killed. The attack lasted about 12 minutes.

"The chimp killed my friend!" says a sobbing Herold, who was hiding in her vehicle. "Send the police with a gun. With a gun!"

The dispatcher later asks, "Who's killing your friend?"

"My chimpanzee!" she cries. "He ripped her apart! Shoot him, shoot him!"

After police arrive, one officer radios back: "There's a man down. He doesn't look good," he says, referring to Nash. "We've got to get this guy out of here. He's got no face.""

If you have a chimp, shouldn't you own a gun? That seems like common sense. This exchange clearly shows the owner to be both an idiot and a lunatic.

"Don Mecca, a family friend from Colchester, N.Y., said Herold, whose daughter died several years ago in a car accident, fed the chimp steak, lobster, ice cream and Italian food."

It seems only fair that the state of Conneticut sees to it that her face be ripped off in retribution.

"Police said that Travis was agitated earlier Monday and that Herold had given him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea. Police said the drug had not been prescribed for the 14-year-old chimp.

In humans, Xanax can cause memory loss, lack of coordination, reduced sex drive and other side effects. It can also lead to aggression in people who were unstable to begin with, said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chief of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Medical Center."

"Xanax could have made him worse," if human studies are any indication, Coccaro said.

Stephen Rene Tello, executive director of Primarily Primates, a sanctuary for chimps in Texas, said it is difficult to say what effect Xanax would have on a chimp, but he noted that chimps and humans have similar physiology.

Investigators said they were also told that Travis had Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness with flu-like symptoms that can lead to arthritis and meningitis in humans."

The idea that Lyme disease is the culprit is pretty frigging rich. Methinks the NYTimes ran with that idea to cover up the clear reality that Xanax will make you rip somebody's face off.

This whole sordid business all brings to mind that story from years ago (that for whatever reason I remember clearly) when a pet chimp ripped off a man's foot and his scrotom at the chimp's own birthday party.

" A man was critically injured and two animals shot dead at a chimps' tea party in California.

St James Davis, 62, had his nose ripped off, and his testicles and foot severed, after he took a chimp out of its cage at an animal refuge so it could eat a piece of birthday cake.

Mr Davis and his wife, LaDonna, 64, had visited the Animal Haven Ranch in Caliente on Thursday to celebrate the birthday of Moe, a chimp they had kept as a pet before he was removed for biting a woman's finger.

As the couple stood outside Moe's enclosure, Buddy and Ollie, two male chimps from an adjoining cage, jumped on Mr Davis. After Buddy was shot, Ollie dragged Mr Davis down the road. Doctors said most of Mr Davis's face had been chewed off. His wife was bitten on the hand.

Workers at the refuge shot and killed the two chimps and recaptured two others who broke out of their cages."

It is told with a bit more wit here.

The testicles and the foot. Those are the details that you will remember. Until they come for you, too.