Man arrested in Dallas Zoo monkey theft

The arrest of a man accused of taking two monkeys from the Dallas Zoo has shed some light on a mysterious string of events there, as police said they’ve also linked him to the escape of a small leopard and a gash in the fence of another monkey habitat.

What’s still unclear, police say, is what led him to do it.

Davion Irvin, 24, who was arrested Thursday, has been charged with six counts of animal cruelty and two counts of burglary, police said.

Irvin’s arrest followed a sighting of him at another home for exotic animals,

The Dallas World Aquarium, where an employee recognized him from news coverage of the missing monkeys.

“We do believe that (Irvin) was looking to commit another crime,” Dallas police spokeswoman Kristin Lowman said at a Friday news conference.

After the two emperor tamarin monkeys — named Bella and Finn — went missing from their enclosure Monday, police had released a photo and video of a man they said they wanted to talk to. Police later said that man was Irvin.

After getting a tip from the public, Bella and Finn were found Tuesday in the closet of a vacant house in

Lancaster, about 15 miles south of the zoo. Their disappearance though, was just the latest in a string of odd events at the zoo.

On Jan. 13, arriving workers found that a clouded leopard named Nova was missing from her cage, and police said a cutting tool had been intentionally used to make an opening in her enclosure. The zoo closed as a search for her got underway, and she was found later that day near her habitat.

“The last month has been an emotional roller coaster for the team here at Dallas Zoo,” Harrison Edell, the zoo’s executive vice president for animal care and conservation, said at the news conference.