Monkey Island’s owner sues the woman who kidnapped three simians from his sanctuary

• Chris Mullins
• Dana Savorelli still wants his missing monkey back.

Catherine Montes killed the lights on her Ford Explorer as she approached the Monkey Island Rescue and Zoological Sanctuary the night of October 6, 2007. On Harris Road, near Greenwood, the sanctuary was shrouded in darkness.

Montes, who had volunteered at Monkey Island for a few years, pulled her SUV up to the sanctuary building that housed dozens of monkeys. She let herself in with her own set of keys. Inside, a security camera taped Montes as she fed two pigtail macaques: Nicholas and Abbey. She gave them grapes spiked with the animal anti-anxiety drug acepromazine and later injected them with ketamine, a knockout agent. Out of the camera’s view, she picked up a third monkey, Melissa. She put Nicholas and Abbey into animal crates, which she loaded into her Explorer, and left the property with her SUV’s lights still off. Eleven months later, Abbey and Nicholas were returned home. Melissa never was.

In a civil trial at the Jackson County Courthouse Annex in Independence last week, Montes’ actions weren’t in question. She didn’t deny taking the monkeys, which weigh 30 – 35 pounds each. At the scene of the abduction, she had even left a letter for Dana Savorelli, the nonprofit’s owner, to explain why she took them. What was debated during the three-day trial was whether Montes and her two co-defendants should have to pay damages to Savorelli for taking the monkeys.