SCARY MONKEY BUSINESS: Escaped Monkey Swings from Rafters in Spirit Halloween Store

A diapered primate turned a Texas Halloween store into its personal jungle gym.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird dark news. Halloween
shopping usually involves fake cobwebs and plastic skeletons. On October
twenty seventh, twenty twenty five, shoppers at a Spirit Halloween
in Plano, Texas got something decidedly more authentic than the
animatronic decorations. Arlene Pinkston was shopping for Halloween costumes with

(00:33):
her daughters at the Spirit Halloween store off US Highway
seventy five. Her daughter looked up at the ceiling and
asked a question that probably doesn't come up often in
retail environments, is that a real monkey? Pinkston examined the
situation and applied some solid detective work. She looked up
and noticed the animal was wearing a diaper. Mistery solved,

(00:54):
definitely a real monkey. The small brown primate had somehow
escaped its owner inside store. Now it was treating the
Halloween retail space like its personal jungle gym. It swung
from ceiling rafters, It climbed poles, It crawled across wires.
It basically spent thirty plus minutes demonstrating that when you're
a monkey and you're suddenly free in a building full

(01:15):
of fake severed limbs and motion activated zombies. You're gonna
make the most of it. Pinston made an excellent decision
in that moment. She immediately pulled out her phone to
record everything. She told NBCDFW that she was certain nobody
would believe her otherwise. This separates people who have documentation
from people who tell stories at parties that everybody assumes

(01:36):
are exaggerated. Sometimes the universe hands you a moment that
requires proof, and Pingston understood the assignment. So how does
a monkey end up loose in a Spirit Halloween store
in the first place? The owner had brought the animal
into the store, which raises its own set of questions
about shopping choices, but we'll set those aside for now.
The escape wasn't some calculated bid for freedom. Store employees

(02:00):
Jimmy Harris explained that the monkey got spooked by one
of the animatronic Halloween decorations. According to the monkey's owner,
somebody had pushed a button to activate one of the decorations,
apparently curious about how the monkey would react. The monkey
reacted by completely spazzing out and running away, which probably
was not the entertainment value anybody was hoping for when

(02:20):
they pushed that button, But boy, was it a great
side effect. Harris described the whole scene as entertaining, which
is one way to put it. He said, people just
stood there watching the monkey for the full thirty minutes,
kids trying to catch it, because children have that unique
combination of fearlessness and poor judgment that makes them natural
wildlife wranglers. The adults mostly just stood around saying monkey repeatedly,

(02:44):
which accomplished exactly nothing, but at least confirmed everybody was
on the same page about what they were looking at.
Kingston had her own way of describing the situation. She
called it Animal Kingdom Live, which is technically accurate, though
Disney's Animal Kingdom probably has slightly better safety protocols and
fewer skeleton props scattered around. The monkey kept everybody entertained

(03:05):
with its acrobatics. It swung back and forth between the rafters,
still wearing its diaper, which somehow made the whole situation
even more hilarious. There's something about a diapered primate navigating
Halloween decorations that really captures the absurdity of modern life.
Plano police got dispatched to the store Shortly after nine
thirty pm, officers arrived to find exactly what had been reported,

(03:27):
which must have been a relief because monkey loose in
Halloween store probably sounds like a prank call until you
actually see it there. It was a small brown monkey
wearing a diaper, swinging from the ceiling rafters. The police
included a fantastic detail in their official statement. They noted
that the manager of the location was advised that they

(03:48):
were not a monkey whisperer, but would try to help.
That's the kind of honest communication that should probably appear
in more official police reports, setting realistic expectations right from
the start. Play No Police Department released body cambridge footage
later showing officers walking through the store trying to locate
the monkey's owner. In the video, one officer made what

(04:08):
might qualify as the understatement of the year, saying, I
can't say I've ever been to a call with a
monkey before. The footage shows them navigating through aisles of
Halloween merchandise while a monkey swings overhead, which has to
be one of the strangest goals they have ever responded to.
According to police observations, the monkey appeared to be enjoying itself.
It wasn't acting aggressive or distressed. It posed no immediate

(04:32):
danger to itself or anybody else. It was just a
monkey doing monkey things in a supremely weird location for
monkey things. The resolution to this situation came down to
something surprisingly simple. The owner managed to coax the monkey
down using a cookie. That's it. No elaborate traps, no
animal control specialists with tranquilizer darts, no complex negotiations, just

(04:56):
a cookie. Apparently, primate behavioral psychology really does come down
to offering snacks and seeing what happens. Kind of like
me when I've missed a meal. By the time the
cookie negotiations successfully concluded, Pinkston had already made her exit.
The monkey had jumped down to the floor and run
past her leg. That turned out to be her personal
threshold for acceptable monkey proximity. She told reporters. At that point,

(05:19):
I was like, Okay, I've had enough. It's a reasonable boundary.
Halloween shopping should not require calculating safe distances from escaped
to primates. The owner carried the monkey out of the
store while explaining to officers that the animal had gotten spooked.
The body camera footage shows her holding the monkey and
describing how someone had activated a decoration to see the
monkey's reaction, which led to the whole situation spiraling. The

(05:43):
officers asked if she had a leash for the monkey
and told her to make sure the animal was secure
in the future. Seems like reasonable advice under the circumstances.
The monkey was tagged with identification and returned to its
owner without any further incident. No citations were issued, no
charges were filed, nobody got hurt. The monkey emerged physically unscathed,

(06:03):
though its dignity might need some recovery time. This whole
incident raises an obvious question, can you just walk around
Texas with a pet monkey? The answer turns out to
be more complicated than you'd think. Texas law doesn't require
an exotic pet license to own a monkey, making ownership
relatively easy in this state compared to weather locations. The

(06:24):
state doesn't have a blanket ban on primate ownership like
some other states do, so on a state level, having
a pet monkey is generally legal, depending on the species,
but that's where things get tricky. Local regulations can vary significantly,
with many cities and counties imposing additional restrictions or outright
bans on primate ownership. Some major Texas cities specifically prohibit

(06:49):
owning monkeys within city limits. County regulations can differ, too,
with over one hundred counties banning dangerous and wild animals,
which sometimes includes primates, even when the state does doesn't
restrict that particular species. Monkeys are categorized as dangerous wild
animals under the Texas Health and Safety Code, and ownership

(07:09):
requires registration with local animal control agencies. Owners need to
obtain a certificate of registration from an animal registration agency
like a municipal or county animal control office. There are
also requirements for liability, insurance, specific enclosure standards, and various
other regulations designed to keep both humans and animals safe.

(07:30):
Some primate species face stricter regulations than others. Smaller monkeys
like marmosets, tamarins, and capuchins can generally be owned without
special permitting, while larger species like gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans
require additional registration and have more stringent caging requirements. The
basic takeaway is that if you're thinking about getting a

(07:51):
pet monkey in Texas, you need to check both state
requirements and your local city or county ordinances. What's legal
at the state level might be completely prohibited where you
actually live or where you're traveling to, like going shopping
at a Spirit Halloween store the next town over. The
Plano incident didn't result in any illegal trouble for the
monkey's owner. The animal was properly tagged with identification, the

(08:15):
owner cooperated with police, nobody got injured, the decorations survived intact.
From a legal standpoint. There was just a case of
a spooked animal getting loose in public, handled relatively quickly
once the right snack entered the equation. Lisa Barr, Spirit
Halloween's vice president of Marketing issued a statement about the incident.
She acknowledged that the store's team responded quickly and contacted

(08:37):
local authorities, who arrived promptly on the scene. She noted
the rather unexpected resolution method. In a rather unexpected turn,
the monkey was safely coaxed with a cookie. Barr confirmed
that the monkey was tagged with identification and returned to
its owner without incident. She thanked the staff and local
responders for handling the situation swiftly and safely. Then she added,

(08:58):
what might be the most corporate way possible to acknowledge
absolute chaos, saying, while this is certainly not a typical
day at Spirit Halloween, we're glad it ended on a
positive note. The story itself came through the ordeal remarkably well.
No damage to the shelves, no destroyed decorations, and the
collection of plastic vampire teeth remained untouched. The fake cobwebs

(09:19):
stayed exactly where they were supposed to be. The animatronic
decorations continued doing their jobs, though presumably the one that
started this whole mess got some side eye from the staff.
For the shoppers who witnessed it, the incident provided something
no amount of store decorations could possibly replicate, a genuinely
unexpected experience. Thingston told reporters, It'll definitely be one that

(09:40):
I'll not forget anytime soon. She recorded about five videos
of the whole thing, ensuring that she'd have permanent proof
of the time she went Halloween shopping and encountered a
diapered monkey swinging from the rafters. The monkey itself presumably
returned home to a more controlled environment, possibly with enhanced
security measures to prevent future escape attempts. The owner got

(10:01):
a clear reminder that bringing a monkey into a store
full of startling decorations carries certain risks, and the plan
of police department added monkey in Halloween store to their
list of unusual calls, right up there with whatever other
bizarre situations they've encountered. Harris, the store employee, probably has
the best perspective on the whole thing. He watched the

(10:22):
entire thirty minute adventure unfold while surrounded by customers who
couldn't quite believe what they were seeing. He saw kids
trying to catch a monkey like it was a completely
normal Tuesday evening activity. He witnessed adults standing around, pointing
and saying monkey, as if repetition would somehow resolve the situation,
And through it all, he described it as entertaining, which

(10:43):
suggests either a remarkable sense of humor or a very
high threshold for workplace chaos, possibly both. The incident went
viral after videos of the monkey circulated online, which of
course makes sense. A diapered monkey swinging through his spirit
Halloween store that captures exactly the kind of absurdity that
requires no explanation beyond hey, look at this, it's got

(11:04):
everything for you. Unexpected, wildlife, public confusion, a happy ending,
and visuals that speak for themselves. For Spirit Halloween, it
became an unusual chapter in the company's history. They sell
fake scares for a living, creating elaborate setups designed to
make people jump. On October twenty seventh, twenty twenty five,
one of their Planar locations provided a completely different kind

(11:25):
of surprise. No purchase necessary, no batteries required, and absolutely
no returns accepted. If you'd like to read this story
for yourself, see some of the video footage, or share
the article with a friend, you can find it on
the Weird Darkness website. I've placed a link to it
in the episode description, and you can find more stories
of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more, including numerous

(11:46):
stories that never make it to the podcast, at Weirddarkness
dot com slash news