St James and LaDonna Davis gained national attention in 2005 when the chimpanzee-loving couple were savagely attacked by two of the primates while visiting their beloved pet Moe on a ranch in California.
Photos of St James after the attack – missing a foot, buttocks, nose, lips and other body parts – shocked America. But new revelations show that this was not the end of the couple’s misery and trauma.
After St James’ death in July 2018, LaDonna was left alone. Now new NBC News report suggest that the frail and confused 74-year-old was taken advantage of and fleeced by a Vietnamese immigrant businessman and a violent motorcycle gang.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars disappeared from bank accounts, LaDonna’s cars and possessions were stolen, and gang members took control of her home in West Covina, in the Los Angeles suburbs.
When Gilbert Amis, an officer with the West Covina Police Department, visited the home a week after St James’ death from a stroke, he found the widow covered in dirt and in foul-smelling condition.
St James brought orphaned chimpanzee Moe home from Tanzania, and the couple treated him more like a son than a wild animal.
LaDonna, left, and St James Davis, lost body parts in a chimpanzee attack frenzy in 2005. Here they speak to reporters in 2008, after their chimpanzee ‘boy’ Moe disappeared and were never seen again.
“We have to get her out of here,” Amis recalled thinking in an interview with NBC.
LaDonna allegedly endured an extreme version of what happens to millions of seniors in the U.S. each year: financial exploitation by heartless criminals.
It is the final chapter of one of the strangest and most tragic stories in modern California history.
St James was a professional boat racer turned NASCAR driver. LaDonna was his crew chief.
They first entered the national spotlight in 1967, when St James brought orphaned chimpanzee Moe home from Tanzania, and the couple treated him more like a son than a wild animal.
Moe ate with the Davises at the kitchen table, slept in their bed, and was the “best man” at their wedding.
They lived with Moe for nearly three decades until he was forcibly removed from their home and placed in a wildlife sanctuary after he bit a house guest’s finger.
On a trip to see Moe at his ranch on his 39th birthday in 2005, two other chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure and attacked the visiting couple while they were serving birthday cake.
The chimpanzees charged at the couple. A bite on LaDonna’s left thumb.
St James came out worse: his right eye was gouged out and his nose, eight fingers and parts of his skull, lips, cheek, buttocks, genitals and feet were bitten.
The attack lasted several minutes and ended when the two beasts were shot dead.
St James spent five months in hospital and underwent many surgeries. He was severely disfigured, never walked again, and was blinded in one eye.
Moe was transferred to a facility in the San Bernardino Mountains. In 2008 he escaped from his enclosure and disappeared. The Davises’ 40-year-old ‘animal son’ was never seen again.
The Davises treated Moe like their son. He ate with them at the kitchen table and slept in their bed.
During the attack, the two chimpanzees gouged out his right eye and bit off his nose, eight of his fingers and parts of his skull, lips, cheek, buttocks, genitals and feet. Here he is seen returning home after months in the hospital.
St. James Davis, left, and his wife La Donna Davis call Moe as they visit their adopted chimpanzee after he was removed from their West Covina home.
They received $4 million in a 2009 settlement related to the attack, court documents show.
This helped cover the costs of St. James’s medical care, but the elderly couple became more isolated and vulnerable, haunted by the memory of Moe.
Men brought in to help manage his 1.5-acre property reportedly seized his possessions.
“She always wanted to help people,” said her old friend Michael McCasland.
“But everyone seemed to rip her off.”
The couple befriended a needy immigrant from Myanmar, Min Zaw Maw, and bonded over their shared love of cars.
Maw moved equipment from his engineering company to the Davises’ property, court documents show. He called LaDonna his ‘mom’ and she called him her ‘son’.
St. James was hospitalized for a stroke in December 2017. The same month, a $50,000 check from the Davises made out to May was cashed, records show, one of many suspicious financial moves.
About $260,000 was disbursed through checks or withdrawals over three months. LaDonna signed off on another $340,000 for Maw, his wife and their business, between August 2017 and December 2018, records show.
Maw has said in his filings that some of that money covered labor costs for selling cars.
In a brief email to The Mail, Maw said the allegations against him in the NBC article were “false and simply not true,” but did not provide further details about his relationship with the Davises.
Meanwhile, police received reports of unknown people visiting the Davis home and squatters on their second property nearby, although apparently with LaDonna’s permission.
McCasland, her friend and local real estate agent, described LaDonna as looking disheveled when he came to check on them.
LaDonna amended the couple’s trust to make Maw her successor, trustee and beneficiary. That sparked a legal fight between former administrator McCasland and Maw, and mutual accusations of wrongdoing.
In July 2018, St James, aged 75, died of a heart attack. As the legal case dragged on, the situation in the Davis homes became more chaotic. Fights broke out between squatters, 911 calls multiplied, and code violations piled up.
Orphaned chimpanzee Moe acted as ‘best man’ at St James and LaDonna Davis’ wedding
LaDonna and St James Davis in July 2008 at their home in West Covina, California, talking about their love of cars and missing chimpanzee ‘boy’ Moe.
The couple later befriended a needy immigrant from Myanmar, Min Zaw Maw, who was running a new car company.
On a visit to her home in April 2019, they found LaDonna with spider wasps buzzing and rabbit feces covering the floor, authorities said. He couldn’t tell her age or year and valuables were missing.
“He appears to be a victim of financial abuse,” wrote Diana Homeier, Los Angeles’ chief medical officer.
‘It is clear that you do not have the capacity to make decisions about your living situation, your finances or your personal care. Besides, she can’t see that she’s being taken advantage of.’
LaDonna’s home was later taken over by members of the Mongols motorcycle gang, who forced Maw out, a police report shows.
A series of legal fights followed involving Maw, the new residents, who said they were LaDonna’s caregivers and court-appointed guardians, over who was responsible for her finances and medical decisions.
Maw maintained that he had spent his own money to maintain the LaDonna properties.
In the end, a court-appointed trustee, Brett Hitchman, sold the two properties and put the last of his cash in trusts to cover care for LaDonna, now 80, at a facility for people with cognitive problems.
A November 2022 settlement awarded Maw $175,000 and LaDonna’s vehicles. The result raised concerns about impunity for those who exploit the elderly.
Experts say abuse cases often end in settlements because of the costs of litigation. Prosecutors are reluctant to file charges because cases involving elderly, confused victims are difficult to win.
“It’s really frustrating,” Dr. Stacey Wood, a physician with Adult Protective Services in Los Angeles, told NBC.
“If someone kicked down a door, grabbed a bunch of stuff and left, the police would have no problem pressing charges against him.”
Not prosecuting scammers “leaves criminals free to seek new victims,” he added.