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Homeschooling Mom Arrested For Letting Tigers, Cougar, And Other Wild Animals Roam Free Inside Her Home

By Alicia Bayer
Published on: 03:25 PST, Nov 15, 2016

A Texas homeschooling mother was arrested this week following the discovery that she had tigers and other wild animals living inside her home with her children, according to Click2Houston.

Authorities were originally sent to the Houston-area home to investigate a report that the homeschooling mother, Trisha Meyer, had taken $3,000 from a California man for an exotic Savannah kitten that she never delivered. The buyer filed a report of theft after repeated efforts to get the kitten failed. He also stated that Meyer stopped answering her phone.

KPRC-TV reports that an officer with the Houston Police Department’s Major Offenders Animal Cruelty Squad and a Texas Game Warden visited Meyer’s home about a month later to investigate the charges. Once they were at the home, they were shocked to discover wild animals roaming freely inside.

Police reported finding three tiger cubs, a cougar, a skunk, and a fox, among other wild animals. The tiger cubs and skunk were roaming through the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and front door entrance, they said, and Meyer’s 14-year-old daughter was petting them.

Meyer allegedly told the officials that “the tigers at their current ages were dangerous and could kill,” WISTV reports.

Court documents show that Meyer also had an adult male tiger in the home, according to KPTV.

Meyer apparently had a permit to have the tigers, but she did not have permits for other wild animals such as skunks and foxes.

Upon being questioned, the homeschooling mom also told them she had monkeys that could be vicious and had attacked someone in the past. She said that all of the animals walked around the home freely; the tigers were only locked up if she left the house.

Meyer allegedly fled to Las Vegas soon after. Her landlord, Binh Truong, said he was surprised to learn that his tenant had filled the house with wild animals and evicted her after the police let him know what was going on.

“She only stayed there for three weeks before I found out,” he said. “I don’t know how someone can put that much damage in three weeks.”

The 34-year-old mother’s arrest comes with reports that she is purportedly connected with scams and crimes in several states, including Texas, California, and Colorado, in addition to the felony arrest warrant in Texas, according to Scallywag and Vagabond.

One former landlord claimed in an online complaint board that she caused over $200,000 worth of damages to his property and set it on fire as she was leaving. He claimed that Meyer had over 100 dogs living in that house.

“She trashed my house in excess of $200, 000 in damages and another $133, 000 in theft. She had 104 dogs living inside my house, that is not a misprint…104. There was dog poop everywhere. I evicted her and when she left she robbed my house and two storage units, then she set the house on fire as she was leaving. I was fortunate to drive up just in time to save my house from total destruction.”

Trisha Meyer was found in a suburb of Las Vegas on November 7 with the wild animals, a BARC spokesperson reported. Authorities there found three tigers eating raw chicken in the back yard, with only a four-foot-tall fence surrounding them, and a 17-year-old was supervising the feeding. They also report that the family was keeping eight monkeys inside.

She was arrested in Pahrump, Nevada, and charged with theft and child endangerment.

The Texas Game Warden confiscated the fox and skunk and released them into the wild, according to Inside Edition. Texas Game Warden spokesman Steve Lightfoot said that he assumed that the animals were in fairly good condition since they were able to be released.

The tigers and the rest of the animals were also eventually confiscated by BARC Animal Shelter and Adoptions.

Meyer is being held on a $2,000 bail in the Nye County Jail. She is expected to be extradited to Texas in a few weeks.

[Featured Image by Adrian Horacio Gomez/Shutterstock]

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