Foster mum in US charged with child abuse after she allegedly traded teen for exotic monkey

For close to 20 years, Brenda Ruth Deutsch opened her home in rural Missouri to more than 200 children who had been orphaned, abused, neglected or abandoned.

She seemed, on the surface, the ideal foster mother.

But last week, the 70-year-old from Lincoln County was arrested in a bizarre case involving allegations of child abuse, neglect and an unusual twist: a child barely in her teens traded for an exotic monkey.

Missouri prosecutors said on April 6 that Deutsch has been charged with child abuse and other felonies after a missing minor under her care was found hundreds of kilometres away in Texas.

The child’s age was unclear, but court records indicated she was a teenager younger than 17.

“At least two witnesses have come forward with information regarding the transportation of the monkey back to Missouri after the child was delivered,” Lincoln County prosecutor Mike Wood told NBC News in a phone call on April 9.

“But we will have to further investigate whether that was actually a trade for the child or if it was something that does not rise to the level of any type of trafficking,” he said.

A handful of monkeys were found in Deutsch’s home, prosecutors said.

There had been other signs.

Hundreds of calls were made to the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division over the years before Deutsch was finally arrested.

Deutsch was alleged to have struck the child in the face in 2022 that resulted in bleeding.

She was said to have used objects, including a paddle and shoes, and an open hand to harm the child, and at one time gave away the teen’s clothes as a form of punishment.

‘Send a monkey’

Court records said that between Jan 1 and April 1, 2025, Deutsch sent the child to Texas to live with someone she knew there.

Deutsch and this unnamed person were reported to have shared an interest in collecting exotic animals.

“It was described to me early on that the defendant here, Brenda Deutsch, became frustrated with this individual child and asked her friend in Texas if she would just take the child and keep her,” said Mr Wood.

“And at that point, I think, is when she says: ‘You know, why don’t you send a monkey, and you can just keep the child?’,” the prosecutor added.

The home in Texas was filthy, and the child was often left alone there to look after the owner’s pets.

Child protective services removed the child from the Texas home in April.

Mr Wood said that since prosecutors announced the charges, others who claim Deutsch fostered them have come out accusing her of similar abuse.

“This has the potential to be an egregious human trafficking case,” Mr Wood told NBC News. “Or, at bare minimum, it certainly is a very disheartening and disturbing abuse and neglect case.”