Woman claims to have been raised in jungle by Capuchin monkeys after kidnap at age 5

[Donjeta]

I don't believe that she was living in the jungle with the monkeys. It was the aliens who made her think so.

 

[4Jacy]

I would love to know her husband's response.

:floorlaugh: :floorlaugh: :floorlaugh: :floorlaugh: :floorlaugh: :floorlaugh:

 

[wfgodot]

All a publisher would need to see is my front room, in order to green-light my book about being raised by feral hogs.

 

[Perodicticus potto]

Capuchin monkeys are kinda tiny... 12-20 inches or so. They must have felt like raising the Yeti.

Yep, this is like someone claiming to have been raised by squirrels in the North American forest. She should've done some research before making up her story. :facepalm:

 

[margarita25]

Hmmmmmmm....

 

[Donjeta]

Mrs Chapman, a grandmother who was born in Colombia in the Fifties, says she spent five years of her childhood living with a ‘family’ of the tree-dwelling monkeys in the north-east of the country.

In a memoir published later this month, she says she was four years old when kidnappers abducted her from the garden of her family home and left her for dead in a rainforest.

Two days after she was abandoned, Mrs Chapman (who moved to the UK as an adult) says a group of monkeys discovered her lying alone, ‘curled up on the ground in despair’.

They soon began looking after her, she says. Some fought off hostile predators, issuing ‘screams . . . so intense and horrific that I hid under a bush’. Others taught her how to survive by scavenging bananas, figs, nuts and other wild food.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-says-raised-monkeys-story-just-bananas.html

If she remembers enough to tell that she was four years old when kidnapped doesn't she know her original name?

Do bananas grow wild in the Colombian rainforests? I know they're being cultivated pretty much anywhere that the climate is suitable but I looked it up and it's said that wild bananas are native to South / South East Asia.

 

[tlcya]

yeah, um this lady's story, bless her heart, lol, it is obvious there are some pretty gaping holes.

 

[tezi]

All a publisher would need to see is my front room, in order to green-light my book about being raised by feral hogs.

BWHAAAA! All a publisher would have to do is look in my daughter's closet to be convinced we have a herd of packrats living here. And we have to move this month....LOL

 

[Herding Cats]

Having only a very small exposure to the topic of feral children, I have always been fascinated by Oxana Malaya, and Genie. Both females, Oxana was neglected by her parents and lived in a kennel with dogs for a number of years (I believe 4) in the Ukraine. Genie, however, was isolated in her bedroom by her father, and not allowed out for some many years (I believe 13, but am not sure).

Neither of them were able to be "mainstreamed" into a "normal" life, despite hard and consistent efforts by professionals. While John, the feral boy in Uganda has, it's also been found that he only spent about 1 year in the wild, and while he did have some brain damage, it has not prevented him from assimilating fairly well into his community.

To have language, to have "normal" social skills and the ability to interrelate with humans (as the subject of the OP supposedly has...married with children), and to move through society without much trouble, tells me this subject was not raised by capuchins as she states.

Besides, capuchins are too small. It's like Gulliver and the Lilliputians all over again...

Best-
Herding Cats

 

[tlcya]

if you are talking of the dog girl from the Ukraine HC, she is happy and living on a commune style ranch. She still has troubles and prefers working with the animals to the company of people, but she is doing as well as she can given the hurdles she faced.

As with most feral children, the biggest hurdles are language, being able to stand and walk on two rather than crouch and scuttle like monkeys or on all fours like dogs. The language skills lost can often never be regained and the ability to trust or bond with other humans is a lifelong battle for those who actually have lived this kind of thing.

I agree, this dear lady is far too "normal" to have been through what she claims. The language skills alone that would have been lost at that crucial age prohibit her story from being likely.

This subject does fascinate me

 

[Donjeta]

Supposing for a moment that her story is true,

If she really had been kidnapped when she was four years old she would have spent her developmentally most important years in a normal linguistic environment exposed to normal linguistic stimuli and her brain apparatus for understanding language would have been pretty well developed by then. Five years in the jungle would have set her back a lot but I think she would have been in a better position to learn language skills than some of the other neglected/ feral children who were never in a normal linguistic environment. She would essentially have been re-learning language skills, not developing them from scratch in a matured brain that had not been exposed to language in the critical age.

She would also have learned to stand and walk upright by then and hopefully spend her most important early years in a nurturing, loving environment. No doubt learning to trust would still be a struggle but not as much as the children who were neglected and abused from the start.

 

[tlcya]

that kind of isolation for a child of that age and for that length of time followed by the next big chunk of years being held in a brothel and beaten and abused til the age of 14 is why I find this particular lady's story unbelievable.

The brothel would not be a place to learn to trust or emulate human behavior once again. It would drive her further from wanting to have anything to do with humans I would think.

 

[Justiceforever]

All righty then! >>> In my best Jim Carey voice.

 

[CHERIE.T]

Is this her?

http://www.gotpetsonline.com/pictur...ders-babies/pictures/capuchin-monkey-0001.jpg

:floorlaugh::floorlaugh::floorlaugh: snort

 

[Donjeta]

that kind of isolation for a child of that age and for that length of time followed by the next big chunk of years being held in a brothel and beaten and abused til the age of 14 is why I find this particular lady's story unbelievable.

The brothel would not be a place to learn to trust or emulate human behavior once again. It would drive her further from wanting to have anything to do with humans I would think.

The violence and abuse she experienced might have been exaggerated for dramatic effect and there seems to be a lot of inconsistency/ uncertainty about the length of time she actually spent in the jungle and in the brothel.

But I have a huge problem with the ease that she seems to have slid into normal employment and family life with absolutely no benefit from any therapy or education as well. Maybe she tells more in her book but there is nothing about her ever getting any in the articles that I've seen.

There, aged nine, she began calling herself Luz Marina. After narrowly escaping being sold into prostitution, she spent her teenage years with a group of homeless street children in an organised petty crime ring.

Later, she found work as a housekeeper. Her initial employer abused her. But she was then taken in by the working-class family of a local woman called Maruja Eusse, who found her work with some cousins in Bogota. The family, who worked in textiles, later attempted to emigrate to the UK. In 1978, they spent six months in Bradford, where she met and fell in love with John Chapman, the organist at an evangelical church where she worshipped.

They married shortly afterwards, when Marina was in her late 20s, had two daughters, and for the ensuing three decades have lived inconspicuously in tidy, three-bedroom semi in Allerton, a suburb of Bradford.

After moving to Yorkshire and starting a family, Mrs Chapman worked part-time at the National Media Museum, and at a local nursery, remained active in her evangelical church, and started a small catering company.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-says-raised-monkeys-story-just-bananas.html

So, we have a young woman who spent five years in the jungle with tiny monkeys and then her teenage years as part of a street children's petty crime ring. She gets employed as a housekeeper? Where on earth does she get any housekeeping skills? She hasn't even lived in a house, apart from the time in the brothel. Ana-Karmen made her mop and polish, was that sufficient? There is no mention that she ever had any chance to go to school or learn to read and she would presumably be somewhat cognitively delayed or retarded by her deprived background and ignorant of social norms. How on earth did she manage to live inconspicuously, get employed and even run a business in a strange country? She even became active in the church which is nice for her but I think it is a bit unusual for a feral child to have the kind of spiritual mindset that is able to understand and embrace structured religion. The monkeys would have taught her no abstract thinking skills, no reading, no calculation, nothing about the way human society is run, nothing about God, salvation, sin, and other invisible tenets of religion etc. Where did she even get the concept of worshipping? (Yeah, she might have lived in a religious family before being kidnapped but from the way she describes her jungle experience it doesn't seem like she thought of God back then)

In her article in the DN (in her own words, apparently) she also claims to have understood no language after her rescue or capture from the jungle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-rescued-jungle-home-sold-brothel-parrot.html

But my reverie was interrupted by the man. Though I had no human language, it was clear what he thought. He was making it clear I wouldn’t be welcome.

The hunters departed and Ana-Karmen spoke, opening her mouth and letting a stream of noise out.

Ana-Karmen set me to work. I had very little idea what ‘work’ was. So I was given instruction. And the most important lesson was how to mop floors. The wooden spoon in Ana-Karmen’s belt – initially so terrifying – soon seemed the mildest of punishments. And I was punished constantly.

So this woman who talks in streams of noises that the girl doesn't understand gave her "instruction"? Oh, ok. I guess she could have shown her what to do but instruction is a strange word choice imo for a nonverbal imitational activity. She gives no indication that anyone at all made any efforts to teach her to speak and understand language again but soon enough she is fluent enough to run errands in shops and quote things people said in her hearing apparently verbatim 50 years later.

The single-storey house I was now imprisoned in was inhabited by young women and several children. There were regular male visitors.

One day, as I ran errands to the nearby shops, I was given a frightening vision of the future

It's not exactly imprisonment if she was free to run errands. How come she didn't run away earlier if she was beaten and afraid of being cooked?

Regarding her jungle life descriptions, I am very curious to know whether it has ever been documented that capuchin monkey females simply lay down and die from grief if their youngsters are taken, and it doesn't really make sense to me why, after describing in detail the fear and horror caused by human hunters she'd seen before, she'd feel compelled to show herself submissively to one simply because the hunter appeared female. Why would it make any difference to a scared monkey-child? I'd as soon be eaten by a male alligator as a female one.

 

[Donjeta]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...f-the-housewife-who-grew-up-with-monkeys.html

Even after she was found by hunters and brought into Cúcuta, her ordeal continued. She initially lived rough in a park with other homeless children. She was then taken in by an abusive family who treated her like a slave.

The Telegraph version of the story does not mention the brothel part at all and says that the time she spent in the jungle might have been only a year or two. The article includes some quotes from people who used to know her when she was young and confirms that she did not receive any formal education.

According to an adoptive cousin,

“Her memory is that she was kidnapped when she was three or four and put in the boot of a car. The gang who took her drove and drove, but for whatever reason, they left her by the road and she walked into the jungle.

“She was living near monkeys and she learned from them. In order to survive, she would imitate them and eat what they ate. She learned to find berries, bananas, other fruits, even roots.

“She ended up near an Indian village, but they didn’t treat her well and threw stones at her if she came close during the day. So she waited until dark, then scavenged rice and leftovers from the village and took it back to the jungle to eat. She lived in a hollow in a tree trunk. She was all black and dirty and had long filthy hair and long nails.”

Marina has no real idea how long she spent in the jungle, but it was apparently at least a year or two. Then one day, she saw a group hunting for wild birds and parrots.

“She ran towards them. One of them was a woman and she clung to her leg,” says Mr Velásquez. “The woman looked down at her and seemed to be thinking, what is this thing with a dirty black face. Marina probably looked like a monkey.

“Then she realised it was a girl and said, 'Put her in the back of the truck’ with the crates of birds. They were driving back to Cúcuta but when she got near the city, Marina was scared by all the lights and jumped out of the truck and ran away.”

Not sure how the adoptive cousin would know what the woman said if Marina had no human language at the time.

Even without speech, she managed to become a gang leader:

Nonetheless, the young girl did manage to survive, only for another dangerous phase to then begin in her life as a child on the streets. In her memoir, she will tell how she ran a children’s crime gang during those days.

Her adoptive mother says:

Her mother Maria, a frail 86-year-old who spends most of her days surrounded by relatives in a wicker rocking chair, and her father Amadeo, 83, and in failing health, treasure the memories of the little girl they took in as one of their own. “Luz Marina was a lovely, well-behaved girl who always helped me with the chores,” says Mrs Forero Eusse. “She was happy and honest and always wanted to be of use. She was a pleasure to have in the house,” says her adoptive mother.

A slightly unusual description of a seriously traumatized and abused feral child? Even just a regular adopted street child who used to run a street crime gang? No problems at all? (Maybe mom just does not want to say she was a terror.)

 

[Donjeta]

In 2008 she gave an interview about her life as a street child but it's again different:

Marina Luz Chapman has no memory of her life as a young child with her parents.

For when she was four, Marina was kidnapped and taken away from the world she knew.

"I have no memory of my parents," says Marina. "I must have been kidnapped because I remember someone putting their hand over my face. Kidnapping children is common in Colombia, for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes children are sold to other families, sometimes they are forced to work. There is no baby registration there, children go missing all the time."

Marina managed to escape her captors and, as a child, lived on the streets. Eventually she was rescued by a family who went on to send her to Bradford, to work as a cook for their children who were studying here.

Marina lived on the streets until the age of eight when she was rescued by a woman who sent her to live with her sister, married to a wealthy textile worker. Marina became a cook and nanny for the couple's children, and when they were sent to Bradford to study textiles she came too, to cook and clean for them.

If you don't know who your parents are or what your name is and nothing about your first years, how the heck do you know that you're eight years old? Or 32, or 59, for that matter? 32 is very precise.

Yesterday Marina — who believes herself to be in her 50s but cannot be certain of her birthdate — declined to elaborate further when she answered the door at her three-bedroomed semi in the middle-class suburb of Allerton. She politely explained that a publishing deal prevented her from speaking about her past.

This is from 2012. If she was in her fifties then she would have been born later than 1952.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s-marina-chapman/story-e6frg6n6-1226500683826

Marina returned to South America last year for the first time since leaving her home country aged 32. She made the emotional journey to research a book her daughter Vanessa has been writing about her life, to be published next year.

Marina, 59, worked as a cook at the National Media Museum and in a nursing home before deciding to go into childcare.

The numbers don't quite add up even about the years when she was already a member of the normal civilization.

Piecing together what they know, Mrs Chapman and the Eusse family believe she was born in about 1950, which would make her 62.

Mrs Chapman, a grandmother who was born in Colombia in the Fifties, says she spent five years of her childhood living with a ‘family’ of the tree-dwelling monkeys in the north-east of the country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...f-the-housewife-who-grew-up-with-monkeys.html

In 1978, they spent six months in Bradford, where she met and fell in love with John Chapman, the organist at an evangelical church where she worshipped.
They married shortly afterwards, when Marina was in her late 20s, had two daughters, and for the ensuing three decades have lived inconspicuously in tidy, three-bedroom semi in Allerton, a suburb of Bradford.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-says-raised-monkeys-story-just-bananas.html

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/2243033.print/
The 2008 article gives her age as 59 at the time which does not really work if she was born in 1950s. She would have been born in late 1948 or early 1949 if she was 59 in May 2008.
From the same article:

Marina arrived in the city [Bradford] 27 years ago with no education and speaking not a word of English.

Marina returned to South America last year for the first time since leaving her home country aged 32.

27 years ago counting from 2008 is 1981 which is three years later than year 1978 when she was already married in England in her late twenties, according to the other sources.

No, wait, the wedding was in 1979.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...f-the-housewife-who-grew-up-with-monkeys.html

Their wedding in 1979 was an intimate ceremony at the church, though some members of her adoptive family attended. The Chapmans began married life in the sleepy town of Wilsden, where they had their first daughter Joanna in 1980 and their second, Vanessa, three years later.

This timeline is very muddy. I understand the difficulty in telling her age but one would think that her move to England and date of her marriage would be easy to pin down accurately. Anorak and the Australian have her married already in 1977.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s-marina-chapman/story-e6frg6n6-1226500683826

When they went on a six-month trip to Bradford in the mid-Seventies, they took her along. It was here, in 1977, that Marina Luz - the name she gave herself - married John, whom she had met at a church meeting. They had two daughters, brought up, so this remarkable tale goes, in part as if they were monkeys.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/337249/stra...-marina-luz-the-child-raised-by-monkeys.html/

She was beaten. But she never sold her body for sex. She escaped. For some years she lived on the streets. At some pint in her early teenage years, Marina was taken in to work as a maid. She called herself Marina Luz. She worked for the neighbouring family, who had a textile business. When they headed to Bradford for work, she went with them.

There, Marina met John Chapman at a church meeting. In 1977, they were married. It was only after the knot had been tied that Marina told John her life story. You can read it in The Girl With No Name, the book of the soon-to-be-made film.

In it, she recalls the moment of her kidnap:

“My story starts with my earliest memory. I was four; squeezing pods until the peas popped in our allotment that bordered the village. A black hand suddenly clamped a damp white cloth over my nose and mouth; as I tried to scream the hand pushed harder and the sky turned black.”

And there's more. If you order NOW, you also get slavery in a crime family and she is apparently the most unlucky bisexual in Bradford as she has had three fiancées who suffered untimely violent deaths (is there such a thing as a timely violent death?)

(her agent's website)
http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/authors/marina-chapman

In between she has led a Colombian street gang made up of homeless and orphaned children, worked in a brothel and as a slave for an abusive crime family in one of the deadliest towns in Colombia, lost three fiancées in untimely, violent deaths, faced depression and a suicide attempt and has become the head chef of a British national institution.

Or maybe the literary agent is just a bad speller. A fiancée is a female. A fiancé is a male.

If any of the articles mentioned the precise year the textile family adopted her I missed it.

 

[TrackerSam]

Er.....pardon me??

Bradford housewife claims she spent five years being raised by monkeys in the Colombian jungle after she was kidnapped (Sunday Mail)

much more, with pictures, at link above

IMO Capuchins are too small to care for a 5 yr old and I think the guy wants his parrot back, I know I would. :facepalm:

 

[Donjeta]

Laughing out loud at the comments.

One guy was abandoned in a flour mill as a baby but that was OK as he was self-raising.

 

[justanother]

I am LMAO at all your comments! I love the picture of her in the tree, she doesn't look too comfortable!