Some of the most horrifying tales of animals gobbling up their owners involve those who did not heed warnings and foolishly left their pets unsupervised. From cats in trees to dogs roaming away from their yards, these unfortunate souls are quickly devoured by predators or have to face the gruesome task of putting their loved ones down. In some cases, the owners never even know what happened to them until they stumble upon skeletal remains on a subsequent search-and-rescue mission.
Let’s explore the 13 horrifying stories of animals eating their owners. Some of these stories will make you cringe, while others will make you question whether or not you should ever keep a pet again.
1 Cynthia Lee Gamble & Her Tiger
Authorities say a tiger escaped from its cage and fatally mauled its owner in northern Minnesota, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The attack happened at a home in Isanti County, which is about 90 minutes northeast of the Twin Cities.nnThe victim, 51-year-old Cynthia Lee Gamble, had been breeding and caring for tigers for more than two decades. According to authorities, she apparently left a door open while the tiger was outside its enclosure and it escaped.
The tiger had been kept in a backyard pen since it was a baby and had apparently escaped its enclosure and wandered into the house through an open door.
Gamble’s 14-year-old daughter was sleeping next to her when the tiger attacked. She was able to get free and run to a neighbor’s house for help; the victim’s husband arrived within minutes and shot the tiger three times with a rifle, killing it. He then attempted to resuscitate the victim, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ownership of tigers in the U.S. is tightly regulated and it isn’t clear if Gamble had any permits for the animal. In addition, state law does not allow people to keep domesticated animals like tigers inside their homes, even if they are contained by fences.
The tiger was recaptured by zoo officials and is being held in isolation.
2 Mark Voegel’s Spider & Other Exotic Pets
Mark Vogel was kind of a recluse as he did not let people visit his apartment, and the
People who lived close to him considered his place a zoo since it was filled with over 200 spiders, several snakes, thousands of termites, and a gecko. It’s unknown when exactly he passed away, but after some days the neighbors had started noticing a stench coming out of the apartment. Once the police decided to check on him, they
saw that his corpse on a sofa and gigantic webs were covering his body, which was covered with many spiders.
They were coming out of the holes in his body and many pieces of his flesh were eaten by lizards too. It is estimated that he was dead for approximately 14 days before he was found, and that his black widow is believed to have killed him before the others joined the feast.
In 2001, He was found dead in his home in Germany. His cause of death was officially listed as “Multiple Injuries Due to Spider Bite.” However, the autopsy report revealed something even more horrifying.
The report showed that Voegel had been bitten by a spider, but that wasn’t what killed him. What killed him was the fact that the spider had eaten him alive.
Apparently, Voegel had been keeping a venomous spider as a pet. At some point, the spider got loose and bit Voegel. The bite caused Voegel to go into anaphylactic shock and he passed out. The spider then proceeded to eat Voegel alive, starting with his face.
When Voegel’s body was found, there was little left of his face and head. The autopsy report described it as “a mass of chewed flesh.”
This story is one of the most horrifying examples of an animal eating its owner. It’s a reminder of how dangerous it can be to keep wild animals as pets.
3 Marius’ Pet Hippo Humphrey
A farmer in South Africa ignored the warnings of many experts who told him that keeping a hippo as a pet is incredibly dangerous. Not only did he keep a 1.2 tonne hippo as a pet, he also considered it his son and called it Humphrey. He has been quoted saying “Humphrey’s like a son to me, he’s just like a human” and he let him roam freely in the river on his 400-acre farm, alongside other humans. Unfortunately, at the age of 40, Marius was eventually bitten to death by the pet hippo and his body was found in the river, missing parts of flesh which were eaten by the pet that he considered a son.
4 Sandra L. Piovesan & Her Wolf-dogs
Sandra had raised a pack of nine wolf dogs by herself and was extremely devoted to them saying that they gave her unqualified love it turns out that the love turned sour when she failed to show up for a meeting with her daughter
Her estranged husband went to look for her only to find that her body was inside the cage of her wolf dogs partially eaten she had bled to death after being clawed and bitten and later being dragged by the enclosure by her half-wolf half-dog hybrid pets.
5 Riki Weinhold & His Pet Bull
Ricky apparently loved his cattle and was spending more time with them as a calf was about to be born he had a bar in space for his domesticated bulls in philadelphia where the accident happened
It was a day before his 53rd birthday that he was attacked by his one-ton bull and died succumbing to the injuries.
The people who live there told Weinhold it was a good idea to get rid of the bull. The same animal that attacked him last summer, she approximates broke his ribs when they ran into each other.
6 Kelly Ann Walls & Her Carnivores
The Walz family had a permit for keeping, displaying, and selling exotic animals – and
they used this to keep a cougar, jaguar, African lion, bear, leopard, tiger, and two servals
on their property. The animals were taken good care of and Kelly truly loved having all those animals as her pets. Unfortunately, she went inside the cage of her pet bear to clean it one day and fed the bear some dog snacks. Once she looked away, he attacked her on the back and mauled her to death.
Their neighbor Castone was the one to find her in the situation and shot the bear in self-defense as it tried to attack him right after getting off Kelly Ann Walz’s body. Unfortunately, it was too late and she had already lost her life.
7 Pam Weaver & Her Pet Camel
Pam Weaver was gifted a pet camel by her husband on her 60th birthday due to her love for exotic animals. They originally wanted to give her a lama
or an alpaca but they were too expensive, And as a result, they went for a camel instead. The camel had been displaying erratic behavior with some of the other animals at first and
Apparently Camel tried to have sex with her he lay on top of her straddling her until she ran out of oxygen and died due to the unbearable pressure. A camel expert later pointed out that the camel’s behavior was sexual, not hostile.
8 Couple & Their Pet Burmese Python
It’s almost never a good idea to keep a python if you’re not an expert with a good
history of health, and this family learned that the hard way. Charles Darnell and Jaren Hare left their two-year-old daughter unsupervised and their python has already been known to occasionally escape repeatedly.
Eventually, they found the 8-foot-6-inch snake wrapping its body around the toddler and biting onto her head in an attempt to eat her. The child did not survive this encounter,
and it was later found out that the python had not been fed properly for nearly a month.
Due to their negligence as a parent, they were convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced 12 years in prison.
9 Brenda Guerrero & Her Pitbull Scarface
Scarface is a pretty deadly name for an animal, but Pitbulls are very common pets that no one advises against when it comes to safety. Unfortunately, there are some cases where amateur treatment can cause them to react violently, and that’s what happened to poor Brenda Guerrero in 2017. As she was trying to put on a sweater on the
dog – it became aggressive and began mauling his owner, injuring her as it tried to eat
her flesh. Her husband and another adult came to her rescue but the dog refused to let her go. They then proceeded to stab the pitbull numerous times and escaped the house. Eventually, the police came and tased the dog enough for additional help to tranquilize it and then, it was euthanized because it posed a threat to humans and was severely injured too. Fortunately for Brenda, she survived with minor injuries at the end of this situation.
10 A Woman With Two Pugs Harry and Sally
Harry and Sally are two pugs that were raised by their 51-year-old owner in an apartment. One day, their owner shoot himself in the face and committed suicide – leaving the dogs helpless and without any food. Unfortunately, they had to resort to eating their owner’s body to survive until the police found them and put them up for adoption after care – which was successful and they found a new home. They ate the brain, bits of the face, and some parts of the torso of their owner – which is extremely horrifying and something that no dog or human should have to go through.
11 Ronald Huff’s & His Pet Lizards
Ronald Huff was the proud owner of not one, not two, but SEVEN 6-foot-long Nile Monitor lizards in 2002. After he did not show up for work, the police checked on his apartment and found his dead body being eaten by his lizards – with his
face, hands, and stomach organs being devoured. While it wasn’t ever concluded whether he was murdered by the lizards before being eaten or not – it still caused stricter rules to be applied for the international trade of exotic pets and over 2000 reptiles were impounded by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. So, while the lizards may have not caused the death – having your body eaten by them is still a thought that disturbs many.
12 Janet Veal & Her Cats & Dogs
56-year-old British lady Janet Veal was the proud owner of many cats and dogs in her apartment. Unfortunately, due to a reclusive lifestyle, People did not check on her and she did not have any kind of support for herself in case of sickness or injury. The worst happened as she passed away due to a medical history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and it wasn’t until 3 months later when the police finally gave her apartment a visit. When they found her, her body was partially missing as she was being eaten by the cats and dogs in her apartment. There was no evidence found of the animals eating her while she was alive, so they essentially only did it to survive once she died – but It’s still a very tragic thing to happen.
13 Babies & Family Ferrets
How unpredictable this animal can be – but unfortunately too many people ignore that fact and adopt them. There are several incidents where ferrets have attacked children and babies, and two of the most notable incidents took place in 2011 and 2015, respectively.
In the first incident, two parents were sound asleep in their room when they heard their baby cry. They assumed that it’s a normal case of the baby being hungry or needing their diaper changed – but when they got to the room.
They were horrified to find out that their pet ferret had eaten SEVEN fingers of their
baby, leaving only two thumbs and one little Finger behind. The ferret was then killed while the baby was taken to the hospital and slowly recovered – but doctors could not do anything for the chewed off fingers and that is something that the child has to live with for the rest of their life.
In the second incident, the mother of the 1-month-old baby left her alone for a moment and came back once she started to hear screams – only to find one to three ferrets eating the baby’s flesh. Once the ferrets were removed, it was found that the baby’s nose, lip, and cheek were eaten by the ferrets and the baby needed many
surgeries to recover from the attack. The parents of the baby were later charged
with child endangerment by the court.