Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - When a Chimp Attacks - The Travis The Chimp story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Travis the Chimp and Charla Nash

Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Here, you're not the predator. You're the prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning, and breathtaking. Many have come here. None have survived. Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. So one day this woman buys a chimp and she decides to raise it as if it were a human.

Now her name's Sandra and she and her husband, this guy, Jerry, they buy this chimp for $50,000. And they raise him and they bottle feed him. They dress him in clothing. He sleeps in a crib in their bedroom. They teach him to use the toilet and eat at the table with them. He even goes out to eat at restaurants with them. Now the chimp, his name's Travis. And Travis clearly has a great.

great life. Everyone around town loves him. He's basically a local celebrity. But as the years go by, Travis gets a little older and he goes through puberty, which starts to have an effect on his behavior. Like one night, Sandra, Jerry, and Travis, they're all out for a ride in the car, and they're stopped at an intersection downtown. And randomly, a stranger walking past, I guess he just stops and throws his empty soda bottle in through the car window. And Travis sees this, and he flips the fuck out. He unbuckles his seatbelt and he gets out of the car and he just starts going crazy.

He runs across the street, he lunges at someone walking by, then he just starts rolling around on his back, and he starts climbing on nearby cars, and no one really knows what to do. And eventually, the police show up. But Travis, he knows almost all the cops in this town, because, like I said, he's kind of a local celebrity.

So when he sees them, he starts chasing them down. And when he gets close enough, he just like smacks him on the butt, because it's all a game to him. And after about two hours of this chaos, he finally gets tired. So he just goes and get back into the family car. And no one presses any charges,

because I guess they think the whole thing was just kind of funny. And everyone knows Travis is basically harmless. But after this happened, Sandra gets a phone call one day, and it's the town's animal control officer. And she's like, look, Travis is an adult now, and his behavior could get worse. He now has the strength of at least five men. And he has an adult sex drive that is not being fulfilled. And this could potentially make him violent. And Sandra, she hears this advice,

and of course, she ignores it. And then one day, the unthinkable happens. Jerry, unfortunately, he passes away. And Sandra is devastated and Travis is noticeably devastated too. And as they're recovering from this tragedy, they reconnect with this woman, Charla Nash. And Sandra's known Charla Nash for years, and soon enough, Charla starts working for Sandra's business. And she does some odd jobs for Sandra too, like she's mowing her lawn and she's babysitting Travis. So even though her husband passed, Sandra's life is finally getting back on track. Until, four years go by. And at this point, Travis is 14. He's five feet tall. He's five feet tall. 240 pounds and morbidly obese because all he eats is junk food.

And Charla Nash is still very involved in Sandra's life. But one day, it all goes wrong. Because Sandra and Travis, they're at their home. And Travis takes Sandra's car keys and he walks out the front door because he wants to go for a car ride. But he's not allowed because of what happened last time. So he gets mad and he starts running around the cars acting a fool. And Sandra tells him, hey, come back to him.

inside but he just won't listen. So she calls Charla Nash to come over and help her. Sometime later Charla pulls up and she gets out of the car and she's holding up this Tickle Me Elmo doll for Travis to see because that's his favorite toy and maybe it'll help calm him down. But calm him down is not what this does. Instead Travis sees Chandra Nash and he sees the doll and he just snaps and he charges full speed at her and And bam, he tackles her to the ground. And he violently starts mawling her face over and over again. And just whipping her apart.

It's brutal. And Sandra sees this, and she freaks out. She's like, oh, shit. And she grabs a shovel. And then pow, she beats Travis over the head with it. But this just doesn't phase him. He's too strong. And he keeps on attacking.

So then she runs and grabs a butcher knife. And she goes and stabs Travis in the back three times. But that still doesn't stop him. And Sandra, she's terrified. and she thinks, oh my God, what if he turns on me now? So then she gets in the car and she locks herself in and she calls 911. And about 12 minutes later, police finally arrive, and they find Travis roaming the property.

And one of the officers looks at him and Travis shows him his blood-soaked teeth. And just before Travis can attack him, blam, the officer shoots him four times. And these wounds eventually put him down. Now, Charla Nash somehow she survives the attack. But unfortunately, Travis really messed her up. He ripped off her face, her eyelids, her nose, her jaw, her lips. He fully removed one of her hands in nearly all of the other hand.

And she's had to have a ton of surgeries. And she's better now, but she's still missing both of her hands, and she's permanently blind. While Sandra, she passes away about a year after the attack from heart complications. And Charla Nash, ultimately, she gets a settlement of four million. dollars from Sandra's estate. And here she is in real life after all her reconstructive surgeries.