10. TIGER Cynthia Lee Gamble, an experienced tiger handler who lived in Danforth Township, Minnesota, unexpectedly lost her life to one of her big cats in 2006. The 52-year-old womanâs remains were discovered in an enclosure on her property, where a 500-pound Bengal tiger had mauled her to death.
9. PYTHON A 31-year-old Hampshire, England man named Dan Brandon learned the hard way that it is actually possible to love someone to death when, in August 2018, his eight-foot (2.4 meters) long African rock python, ironically named Tiny, attacked him. Brandonâs mother found him unconscious on his bedroom floor with the snake nearby, and it was unfortunately too late to save him.
8. Wolf Dogs Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania resident Sandra L. Piovesan was extremely devoted to the nine wolf dogs she spent 10 years of her life raising since they were cubs. That all changed in July 2006, when the 50-year-old womanâs body was discovered at her home in Salem Township, inside an enclosure where she kept the canine hybrids.
7. PIGS In 2012, a 69-year-old farmer named Terry Vance Garner went outside to feed the pigs at his rural Coos County, Oregon property and never returned. His family later found his dentures and body parts in the pigsâ enclosure.
6. Humphrey The Hippo After ignoring repeated warnings that his pet hippopotamus, Humphrey, was a dangerous wild animal who could never truly be tamed, Marius Els, a South African farmer and army major, was found dead, submerged and mutilated in a river. His pet hippo had bitten him to death.
5. CATS Back in July 2010, humane officials were given the gruesome task of removing a dozen cats from an Albion, Pennsylvania home, where a 74-year-old former teacher named Herbert Walden and his 94-year-old mother, Jane, were found dead. Enough time had passed -- over a week, authorities believed -- for the cats to become desperate for food and start eating the elderly gentlemanâs foot.
4. SPIDERS, BUGS, AND LIZARDS This next story is somewhat of an internet/urban legend, claiming that residents of an apartment building in Dortmund, Germany noticed an unbearable stench coming from a neighborâs unit and summoned police to the scene. What the authorities supposedly encountered was nightmarish: the dead body of the apartmentâs occupant, Mark Voegel, had been gnawed on by hundreds of spiders, several snakes, thousands of termites, and a gecko.
3. Teddy The Black Bear Ross Township, Pennsylvania resident Kelly Ann Walz loved the animals she kept in her hilltop menagerie, which included a tiger, mountain lion, and a 350-pound (159 kg) black bear named Teddy. Get it? Lions tigers and bears??
2. MONITOR LIZARDS When Ronald Huff of Newark, Delaware didnât show up for work one day in 2002, police conducted a welfare check. What they found inside Huffâs home was nothing short of horrifying: the manâs corpse, propped upright against a door, being devoured by his seven Nile Monitor Lizards. The six-foot (1.8 meters) long creatures were covered in their ownerâs blood, and had consumed his face, hands, and some of his internal organs.
1. Travis The Chimp Sometimes, you just have to wonder what people are thinking. Why do you want a chimp as a pet? They are incredibly smart and loving but they are also strong and wild and donât really belong in a home. Unfortunately for a woman named Charla Nash, her best friendâs chimp Travis, turned on her and attacked her.
