#1 Teddy the Black Bear killed his owner.
The Walz family of Allentown, PA, had raised their 350-pound black bear Teddy since it was a cub. But even so, the bear attacked and killed Kelly Ann Walz as she was cleaning his cage. She made the mistake of cleaning the cage while Teddy was still in it, which apparently set him off. Neighbor children saw the attack, and their father shot and killed Teddy. Authorities soon discovered that Kelly's husband's license to keep and sell exotic animals had expired.
#2 The Pet Deer That Gored Its Owner
Texas resident Gerald Rushton ill-advisedly kept a 500-pound red stag deer in a pen in his backyard. Despite the fact that deer are both illegal and dangerous to keep, Rushton was attempting to domesticate the animal and keep it as a pet. The attempt failed, as the deer gored and trampled Rushton to death. Game wardens arrived on the scene and put the deer down, and Rushton was dead before making it to a hospital.
#3 The Pet Lion that Mauled a Child
30-year-old Amber Michelle Couch had already received a number of citations from the animal control department of Odessa, Texas, related to her 150-pound pet mountain lion. The animal wasn't current on his vaccines, and the cage the lion lived in was too small for its size. Not only that, but the gaps in between the bars were too widea safety hazard to anyone who got close.Sure enough, in October 2011, Couch's nephew got too close to the cage and the lion jabbed a paw through the gaps, lacerating the child's face and slashing his left side. The child survived the attack, but the lion was put down.
#4 The Camel That Trampled Its Owner to Death
Australian Pam Weaver was given a camel for her 60th birthday, which isn't so strange, given that she owned a large property full of cattle and sheep roaming about, as well. Of course, cows and sheep aren't camels. Shortly after starting its life as a pet, the camel repeatedly attempted to smother the family's pet goat.Then one evening, disaster struck, as the camel tried to mate with Weaver. After she fought the camel off, the animal knocked her over, stomped on her head, and lay on top of her, smothering her to death.
#5 Strangely, Keeping a Pit Viper as a Pet Is a Bad Idea
Cincinnati woman Alexandria Hall, who kept a menagerie of reptiles in her home, died when one of her illegal and highly poisonous urutu pit vipers bit her in 2004. After the bite, Hall was conscious enough to drive herself to the hospital, but died about a week later. Local police and herpetologists from the Cincinnati Zoo entered her home, and found a number of exotic animals in cages, along with nearly a dozen poisonous snakes, and other animals trapped under piles of clothes and garbage.
#6 The Pet Wolf Dogs That Tore Their Owner Apart
Pennsylvania woman Sandra Piovesan kept nine half-wolf, half-dog hybrids as pets, insisting they gave her "unconditional love." The animals are rare, and can only be created either by mating one wolfdog to another wolfdog, resulting in inbreeding, or mating wolves to dogs, which results in animals that are hard to train.
It wasn't clear which kind Piovesan owned, but she lived alone with dozens of animals, including the wolfdogs. She was found dead in the animals' enclosure with multiple puncture wounds, and the wolfdogs were put down.
#7 The Hoarder Bitten by His Pet Black Widow
A resident of Dortmund, Germany, Mark Voegel lived a solitary life in a small apartment, keeping the company only of the numerous insects and snakes he collected as pets. It was one of these, a black widow spider, that caused his demise. Apparently the heater on the tank that he used to keep his spiders had burst, allowing them to crawl free. A black widow bit Voegel and killed him, and in the 7-14 days it took for him to be found, his menagerie feasted on him. Hundreds of spiders, lizards, and snakesalong with countless termiteshad eaten him, with webs draping his body, and bits of him scattered all around the apartment.
#8 Man Trampled to Death by His Pet Bull
A day before his 53rd birthday, Pennsylvania man Ricky D. Weinhold was killed by the one-ton bull he kept as a pet. Investigators found that he'd suffered a number of devastating injuries from the hooves and head of the bull, and was likely trampled to death. The bull had already injured Weinhold a year earlier, and his family pleaded with him to get rid of it. He did not.
