Victims still haunted by 2004 gorilla attack at Dallas Zoo

Keisha Heard's and Cheryl Reichert's visits to the Dallas Zoo on March 18, 2004, were supposed to resemble a Disney movie. Instead, they degenerated into something like a Stephen King horror story.

MONA REEDER/DMN

Jabari, a 300-pound gorilla, escaped from his enclosure and went on an angry rampage through the zoo. Police shot and killed him on the zoo grounds, but not before he seriously injured Reichert, Heard and her 3-year-old son, Rivers. Jabari put Rivers' head in his mouth and slung him around. Later, when Heard tried to protect her son, the gorilla sank his fangs into her thigh and dangled her upside down. Jabari bit Reichert several times and slammed her against a wall, causing recurring back problems.

"I thought he wanted to kill us," Heard said. "He was so angry and upset."

FILE/Staff photo

The Dallas City Council, which oversees the zoo in Oak Cliff, is scheduled to approve a $500,000 settlement with Heard and Reichert during a special meeting today at City Hall.

The money is meant to compensate the women and their children for their physical injuries and emotional trauma.

The two women did not know each other before Jabari randomly selected them for attack.

Heard was visiting the zoo with her niece, Rivers and his older brother. Reichert brought along her three children.

Heard and Reichert said their zoo trip really never ended - the sights, sounds, smells and images still linger in their minds and have left them with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This week, the two moms sat in a Dallas courtroom and watched state District Judge Craig Smith put the finishing touches on their settlement with the city of Dallas. State law caps civil damage awards against a city government at $500,000.

Smith had to oversee a process to allocate the money between Heard, Reichert and the six children they took to the zoo. Now, the City Council knows how much it must pay each of them.

When the hearing was over, the judge had approved this allocation: Heard, $120,000; Reichert, $120,000; Rivers, $200,000 and $12,000 for each of the five other children.

City's challenge

The city fought hard in court to avoid paying them that much money. Heard and Reichert alleged that zoo officials moved too slowly to protect them after Jabari escaped.

But the city's attorneys argued that zoo employees did not even know Jabari had escaped when he attacked the two families.

So, they reasoned, how could the zoo's response have been inadequate?

As a governmental entity, the city also claimed "sovereign immunity" from liability.

The theory, ultimately rejected by the courts in this case, is that taxpayers cannot afford to pay out large sums of money to people claiming that a government damaged them.

In effect, the court decided that the city of Dallas owned a dangerous animal and was responsible for controlling it.

A recurring nightmare

Reichert, a 44-year-old homemaker from Mesquite, fought sleep for three days after Jabari's attack.

She kept seeing him with her eyes open, and she didn't want to find out what she might see with her eyes closed.

Finally, she drifted off to sleep and, for the first time, entered into her recurring nightmare, which she says persists to this day:

"My bedroom door comes open and he comes in on all fours and he stands over me on his hind legs, breathing on me and becoming angrier and angrier and breathing harder and harder."

Reichert and her three children were all found to have post-traumatic stress syndrome and went through eight or nine months of counseling. She is left with back problems and the debt associated with medical treatment.

But the lingering emotional trauma is the worst, she said.

During the 10 minutes of Jabari's rampage, he cornered Reichert behind a tree and pressed himself against her. She closed her eyes and waited to die.

Worst of all, her terrified children were waiting for Jabari to kill her. She still feels the coarse hair and smells his fetid breath.

Panic attacks come without warning.

"We have trouble with places like Six Flags where people are screaming on the rides," she said.

Rivers Heard was a happy 3-year-old boy before Jabari attacked him. "He tried to eat my head," he later told family members.

When Jabari spit the boy from his mouth, he turned on Keisha Heard. In Rivers' words, the gorilla "ate my mom's leg like it was a play toy."

Keisha Heard no longer feels comfortable wearing shorts. Her leg will always bear deep scars from the gorilla fangs.

"Doctors say there's nothing they can do," said Heard, who is 36 and lives in Dallas.

Court records in the Jabari case include therapist notes taken during counseling sessions with Heard and Rivers.

"Patient [Rivers] expresses fear of domestic animals - cats and dogs," one report said.

More than two years after the attack, a therapist noted, "Rivers is not comfortable sleeping alone or being alone in any part of the home."

Heard reported headaches, racing thoughts, nightmares and auditory hallucinations, including the sound of the gorilla's feet as it ran toward her.

"She [Heard] reports to therapist that family and friends make jokes about the attacks and call Rivers 'gorilla boy,' " said one therapist.

Fair resolution?

Reichert realizes that some people might see $500,000 as a lot of money for two adults and six children to split. But it really isn't that much, she said.

Both she and Heard have seen their children struggle with life during the last five years. Can a mother find solace in money when faced with a traumatized child?

How much money is enough? How much is too much?

Subtract attorney fees from the $500,000 settlement. Subtract hospital bills, doctor bills, bills from counselors and co-pays for anxiety medications.

Reichert estimated she and her family may be left with about $50,000.

"I know I'm going to be dealing with this the rest of my life," she said.