Pet monkey named 'Pretty Boy Floyd' remains at large in North Knoxville

A pet monkey remained at large in North Knoxville on Tuesday after evading animal control officers the day before.

The Capuchin monkey first appeared about 10 a.m. Monday on the deck of Ron Merritt's home in the 2600 block of Washington Pike. Merritt said the monkey's owner, Bill King of Crossville, called him after reports hit the news.

The monkey's name? "Pretty Boy Floyd," Merritt recalled, after first thinking he was named "Pistol Pete."

"I thought (my girlfriend) was going crazy," Merritt said of the initial sighting. "She said, 'There's a monkey out here on the deck.' I said, 'There's no way.' Sure enough he was out here."

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Merritt said he called animal control while his girlfriend gave the monkey some bananas and other treats to munch on.

Animal control officers responded and futilely chased the monkey with nets until he eventually fled in the trees, Merritt said.

The animal was spotted again just after 4 p.m., when a resident near Washington Pike and Teeple Street reported a monkey in a tree in their yard, and again, about 8:45 p.m. by Jamie Fuller, a Knox County resident who has owned four Capuchin monkeys for about five years.

"It was on the bottom part of a tree and I was within touching distance of him. The closer I got, the more he got scared," said Fuller, who brought one of her own monkeys to help search for the missing pet until 3 a.m.

Animal control set dog traps — wire cages "where if they go in and step on a pad then it closes the door behind them," Officer Keith Hogue explained — but authorities aren't optimistic about their chances of apprehending the creature.

"We are no longer looking for it," Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Tuesday, adding that the monkey is a legal pet. DeBusk admitted Monday that catching a monkey is "beyond our experience."

DeBusk didn't identify the owner as King but said, "The apparent owner was out of town and is on his way back." Merritt said King told him he was in Knoxville to view Monday's solar eclipse.

It's not clear whether the monkey's behavior was affected by the rare astronomical event.

More: Eclipse drives animals wild at Nashville Zoo — or maybe it was all the people screaming

King couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

Reporter Travis Dorman can be reached at 865-342-6315 or at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travdorman.