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]