Missouri Foster Mother Escapes Jail Time After Swapping Teen for Monkey

7:10 PM ETDeveloping

World Desk

In Short: A Missouri foster mother accused of swapping a teenage girl for a monkey has been found guilty of child endangerment but avoided jail time.

Each episode of the new podcast will include a Scripture reading, age-appropriate reflections from Johnson, time for prayer, and answers to a variety of Bible questions from children. The podcast aims to engage parents and teens in spiritual growth and community service.

In February 2025, a school-security officer began investigating after hearing a rumor that the girl had been swapped for a monkey. The case dates back to November 2024 when the Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division received an anonymous tip about the teenager suffering mental and physical abuse at Deutsch's hands.

According to the San Antonio Express News, the "check" was a reference to a government stipend given to Missouri foster parents. Lincoln County prosecutor Mike Wood revealed that a number of allegations of abuse had been made against Deutsch, including the number of children fostered through her home and the allegations of abuse and emotional neglect that seemed to have been ongoing for a decade.

The foster mother was found guilty of child endangerment but avoided jail time. "I’m kinda lost for words because this is not the end we wished for," Johnson told Fox 2 KTVI.

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Johnson, a priest from the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told EWTN News that the inspiration for the podcast came from those involved the first time around who realized that many of the original listeners of the podcast were now having kids and becoming parents.
“We live in the inner city here in Baton Rouge. We serve a very impoverished low-income neighborhood. And so we have a lot of stuff we do for the teens in my neighborhood, but I was like, what if I could put this podcast, ‘Bible in a Year,’ in the hands of their parents to do it with them at home and this could be the reason why the parents would start coming to the sacraments,” Johnson explained.
The daughter also explained her mother’s habit of collecting exotic animals. “That’s what she did; she had at least seven monkeys,” Johnson said.
Deutsch, who had fostered more than 200 children over the years, also had her foster care license revoked.
In this study, the researchers developed a system based on a three-dimensional (3D) time-of-flight camera to measure distance using reflected infrared light to acquire 3D scans of frozen skipjack tuna on a conveyor belt.

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