In the third episode of HBO docuseries Chimp Crazy , director Eric Goode has a crisis of conscience. He knows that his primary subject, Tonia Haddix, kidnapped a chimp named Tonka and lied about it, secretly hiding the animal in her basement for a year while pretending the ape died, a claim she reiterates through jagged sobs during a court hearing. Now Goode has learned that Haddix is so stressed about the situation, she plans to euthanize Tonka.
He wonders if he needs to intervene. “Do we turn her in?” Goode, who previously directed the pandemic phenomenon Tiger King , asks Peter Laufer, a reporter and documentarian who has also covered exotic animal cases. “Or do we continue following the story?” “As journalists, we don’t want to do something that’s morally, ethically wrong,” Laufer responds.
“You have to hope that the end result is more positive than negative. Is there a greater good?” Goode ultimately reports Haddix to PETA, sharing a voicemail in which she describes her plan to euthanize Tonka. (She later says she never intended to kill the animal.
) As revealed in the Chimp Crazy finale, Tonka is rescued by authorities and relocated to the PETA-operated Florida sanctuary where he lives today among his fellow chimps. Haddix faces the possibility of criminal charges as well as the expectation that she will repay PETA $225,000 in legal fees. The outcome suggests Chimp Crazy did achieve a greater good: It put Tonka in a more suitable living environment, h.