Sandra Herold Syndrome

Travis the chimp was born at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Missouri in 1993 and "adopted" by Sandra and Jerome Herold when he was three days old. He was used in several commercials and made a few television appearances but he was mostly a pet and companion, riding in the Herold's tow truck with a buckled seat-belt on towing calls or when they went shopping. Travis ate at the table with them, drank wine from a wine glass, opened doors using keys, dressed himself, did small chores like watering plants and feeding hay to the Herolds' horses, brushed his teeth with a Water Pik, could log on to the computer to look at pictures and used the remote for the television, especially for baseball. He was very fond of ice cream and learned the schedule of local ice cream trucks. On several occasions the Herolds allowed Travis to drive a car. With the death of her husband from cancer and the family's only child in a car wreck, Mrs. Herold became more close to Travis than ever, sleeping with him and bathing him. "He slept with me every night. Until you've eaten with a chimp and bathed with a chimp, you don't know a chimp."

In 2003 a man threw an object at the Herold's car. It went through an open window and struck Travis. Travis unbuckled his seat-belt, opened the car door and pursued the man but did not catch him. He then tied up traffic for several hours as the police sequentially lured him back into the car only to have him escape from another door and chase the police around the car, to be eventually lured back into the car again.

In February of 2009 Charla Nash arrived at Sandra Herold's house and was attacked by Travis who crushed her hands and ripped off large portions of her scalp, face and jaw. The hospital provided counseling to its staff members who initially treated her because of the horrible nature of Nash's injuries. Travis was subsequently shot dead on the arrival of the police, after trying to attack a police officer.

Mrs. Nash was left with brain injuries, blindness and massive tissue loss. She eventually underwent a face transplant.

After the attack a woman came forward to say that she, in 1996, had been bitten in the hand and Travis had tried to pull her into a car.

In 2010 Mrs. Herold died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm; the press said "of a broken heart."

One of man's afflictions is to see humanity in inhuman things. Another is to be flattered by imitation. A third is our confidence in controlling the uncontrollable.