Pawn Shop Break-In Takes a Wild Turn When the Intruder Is a Monkey

When the owners of the Trade Center pawn shop in Morristown, Tennessee went to the store to feed their cats while it was closed, they discovered there had been a break-in—and a very unusual intruder was still inside: a monkey.

Loretta Bryant, the shop’s owner, received a call from her husband and immediately recognized the animal in a photo as her neighbor’s monkey, who had gone missing a few days earlier.

The capuchin had gotten up to plenty of mischief inside the shop. After reviewing their security footage, the owners saw that the monkey had turned on all four sinks, defecated throughout the store, ripped open products, and caused widespread damage. After ransacking the shop, he made his way into the office, where he threw computer keyboards around. Then he got hungry.

“There was bags of potato chips busted open,” Loretta said. “There were crackers. I watched him open a pack of (peanut butter and cheese) crackers and eat some.”

Loretta contacted police, and animal control was called in. The capuchin proved difficult to wrangle, but authorities eventually captured him and learned his name was Chester. Officials later discovered that Chester had allegedly been stolen from a petting zoo in Alabama. He has since been returned to his current owner, who reportedly did not know the monkey had been stolen when he bought him.

As for the monkey’s motives for trashing the shop, many are calling it a case of classic “monkey business.”

“What are they thinking about? … I don’t know,” Loretta told KRA3. “In my wildest dream, could not have dreamed that.”