Greetings all, I have a little more information from someone very
close to the situation, this is from the lady, Angela who was trying
desperately to get that little ferret out of the home and away from the
baby who was injured. She is/has been in contact with the GV Police,
the family's landlord and one/some of the newspaper's reporters. I know
she's had conversations with the GV newspaper reporter Christopher
Fischer who is the same person that told me the necropsy report had
come in and the "beloved" Chief of Police told him that blood and
"fingers" were found in the ferret's stomach, which I think we all
can agree on the fact "ferrets don't swallow anything the size of a
baby's finger whole".

I will paste into this post a revised copy of an email I received from
Angela, with her permission after she did a little editing to remove
any speculative remarks she may have made.:


Michael, Thank you for emailing me. After I was contacted by Chris
Fischer I attempted to work out who you were, without much luck.

There are a few details that I'm hesitant to comment on, as I do not
want to jeopardize any chance for prosecution of the parents, but I'll
do my best to give you the highlights.

What I can tell you is, I was contacted on January 6, 2011 by the
landlord's husband (John), informing me that the tenants of his wife's
home had gotten a ferret just a few day prior. The ferret supposedly
was stealing the baby's bottles and had bitten the 4 month old baby
twice. So, he wanted to know if I could rescue him. I immediately said
yes. Within hours, the parents had changed their minds. However, all of
the communication up to that point had been via text. I missed the part
where they had decided not to surrender. The reason for their refusal
was because the three year old started to cry when they mentioned
giving up the ferret. Anyway I continued to try to make arrangements to
pick the boy up. I even went to the bowling alley where the landlords
bowl that Thursday evening. John did not mention that the people had
changed their mind. John's wife (Marylinn) was insistent that the
ferret be turned over to me. I took off early on Friday to get the boy
(by this time, I had named him Wilbur since he had no name). I could
not get John to meet with me to get him. John and I spoke on the pone
early Saturday for about 30 minutes. This is when John told me that the
parents now wanted to take the ferret to the vet to see if a vet could
do something. The first suggestion was to possibly have the ferret
"de-fanged" so that he would cause less injury to the baby when he bit.
By Saturday night I was so distraught with the situation, I called the
landlord, Marylinn, to plead with her to help me get that ferret out.
We talked about going over to the house on Sunday to tell the parents
they had no choice but to surrender him. However, this may have gotten
us arrested, so we did not go. John, sent me text messages pleading for
three more days and carrying on about the constitutional right of these
people to keep their pet. I was promised repeatedly that the ferret
would be kept separate from all children under the age of eight, until
he was surrendered to me.

On Monday morning I was awakened to my phone buzzing with text messages
from John. When I found out what had happened I called the Landlord
(Marylinn) and the police. Between Thursday and Sunday before the
incident John and I shared around 150 text messages as well as verbal
conversation (I have given the text messages to the GV police, which is
the reason I'm releasing not them.) I also sent Marylinn several links
to informational sites on ferrets, proper care and handling (which she
printed and gave to John.) I have never had direct contact with the
parents.

I was under the impression that these people had both of their
rottweilers recently taken from them by animal control. It was a few
days "after" the incident that I learned that a Rottweiler was present
in the home when this happened.

I asked the detective before the necropsy was done, if he was sure this
could have been a ferret because the nature of the injury (which had
not completely been released) did not seem characteristic of a ferret.
I described to him how ferrets in the wild would instinctively hunt and
the size and nature of a ferret bite (even the very worst ferret bite.)
1 + 2 did not and does not equal 3 here.

The landlord's husband has taken some horrific moral stand on behalf of
the parents. The landlord's wife and I are no longer in contact. Prior
to this we have been friends for a couple of years.

It is to my knowledge that "some if not minimal" content was found in
the necropsy report. I do not believe the entire fingers have been
found (please don't quote me on this because I don't know this as fact)

As someone who is knowledge of ferrets, you know the nature of the
child's injury is not indicative of a ferret (FULL STOP.) I told the
police and the news reporter that a ferret could not do this in a
matter of seconds or minutes. Also, the baby was in a swing. The ferret
would have to climb up to get to the baby's hands. It's much more
common for ferrets to "nip" at toes. They are small animals and would
bite what's closest to the floor. As far as I know, the baby had no
punctures on any other part of the body, which would likely be present
if the ferret caused the injury.

I do not believe the necropsy reports have been made public. Missouri
has a lot of restrictions on access to records. I have not yet found
the case on the court's site. I will see what I can find out this week
and let you know as soon as I find out anything new. I will gladly
share all that is public.

Thank you again for contacting me and I hope this helps give a bit of
clarification to you and your group... Please don't hesitate to contact
me if you think I might be of help.

Angela



This lady should be commended for all that she's doing to put out
"fires" as best she can and without jeopardizing the criminal case
against these careless (best label I want to give them) parents.

Thank you Jennifer B for your link to the story by the idiot Andre
Riley, the freelance writer who publicly sided with those parents
comparing this G.V. MO. incident with letting your child play in the
snow without hat/gloves in an unbuttoned coat, picking up snow with
their bare hands!!!
<http://www.examiner.net/opinions/opinions_columnists/x1409894515/Riley-A-parental-mistake-a-life-of-regret>

This is actually an Independence, MO. newspaper, not the Grain Valley
Pointe paper but that's a very slight error on Jenifer's part and
giving us the link is what's important and I thank you for it. I
especially thank you because as soon as I get done with this post, I'm
going to write Andre Riley, Freelance Writer for the Independence
Examiner, a letter he won't soon forget! Not to worry, I won't lose my
temper and make ferret people look bad, I'll be assertive of course and
will refrain from using foul language. This idiot not only publicly
sided with those people who's criminal act caused all this, then
blaming that poor little ferret with this "attack". In his first
paragraph he's played judge and jury and convicted that ferret with
this statement:
"You probably wanted to carpet bomb with expletives the Grain Valley
couple whose 4-month-old boy lost virtually all his fingers in an
attack by a ferret."

I'm sorry, that was the first statement in his article! I'll bet his
closest contact with a ferret has been seeing one on television! I'm
so sick and tired of all these ignorant people blaming these kind of
things on our ferrets! These are God's little Clowns, not the
mutilating carpet sharks they're being portrayed to be in the media.
Well that's all I have now, I'll try to get more to share with
everybody. You know, I think if they did find an intact finger in that
ferret's stomach, it had to have been crammed down his throat after he
was already dead.

Hang in there everyone, between all of us we're going to get to the
bottom of this.

Micheal Forrest, Ferret Rescue and Adoption of South Texas
www.ferretrescueandadoption.com

[Posted in FML 6954]