Two of the monkeys that escaped from an overturned truck on a southeastern Mississippi highway last week have been shot dead and one remains on the loose, per officials and media reports.

The rhesus monkeys escaped on Tuesday, Oct. 28 after a truck picked them up from the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, then overturned in Mississippi on Interstate 59, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department shared last week.

Jessica Bond Ferguson, 35, told USA TODAY she shot one of the monkeys on Sunday morning, Nov. 2 in Heidelberg, Mississippi. She was half asleep that morning when her son let her know the family's dogs were barking, seemingly at nothing – no passersby and no garbage trucks that normally send them into barking spells.

Her son then looked out the window and said he saw something running in the yard, chasing her smaller dog, Bond Ferguson told USA TODAY on Nov. 4. He told her it was a monkey.

After calling the police to send someone, she worried about the monkey getting away and harming someone.

"I don't want him to get ahold of my child or anybody else's child and harm them, attack them, kill them, infect them," said Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging from ages 3 to 16. "It's no telling what they really might do to you."

A second monkey was fatally shot on Monday, Nov. 3 when someone spotted it crossing the highway about a mile away from the original crash scene, multiple media outlets including the Associated Press and NOLA.com reported.

Once Bond Ferguson's son told her about the monkey in the yard on Nov. 2, she went outside and called the police, backing her vehicle out of her driveway and out to the road to make it easier for authorities to find her home once they arrived. Officials told her not to get close to the animal as she waited.

She saw the monkey jump from a bin to the railing next to her neighbor's home.

"He was opening his mouth and stuff," Bond Ferguson said, describing the monkey's movements. "Like you could see his teeth and stuff."