South Carolina Man Shredded By Emotional Support Lion

Victim's sister says, "My brother would be feeling real betrayed if he was, you know, alive."

photo credit: Kieran Palmer

ORTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD South Carolina resident Jamie "Bulldog" Parsons was killed yesterday evening during what his sister called "just a routine feeding" of a three-hundred pound female lion known as "Queenie."

The lioness, who had recently been registered as her owner's Emotional Support Animal, apparently turned on Jamie just after he dropped four pounds of raw steak into her bowl.

"I don't know what in the heck got into her," said Jamie's sister, Luanne. "Jamie never short-changed Queenie in the steak department," she added. "Just a freak accident, is all."

Jamie's doctor had recently suggested psychotherapy for his patient, citing Jamie's recent tendency "to get the jitters out of nowhere," recounted Luanne.

"But Jamie thought therapy was for pansies, so he registered Queenie as his Emotional Support Animal, seeing how they got along real well and Jamie got more relaxed when he was grooming her and everything," said Luanne.

"And now look," she added. "My brother would be feeling real betrayed if he was, you know, alive."

Jamie's sister said she and the rest of her family "are trying to make lemonade out of one big, honkin' lemon," by drawing some small comfort in knowing "Jamie's last fond memory of Queenie is when, the night before she shredded him, Queenie licked Jamie's face when he yanked an extra fat tick out of her ear."

Luanne said she was struggling to make sense of her brother's sudden death, but has already "learned a thing or two" from the experience.

"The first think you gotta remember," noted Luanne, "is no matter how many ticks you pull off a lion, with them it's always gonna be, 'What've you done for me lately.'"