Instead of being raised by humans, a woman was raised by capuchin monkeys in a Colombian jungle due to the kidnapping when she was 4.
Her remarkable journey from the jungle to suburbia will leave people captivated and questioning the boundaries of human resilience and adaptation in any case.
A woman was kidnapped and abandoned in a Colombian jungle at the age of 4
Marina Chapman, now 73, claimed that she was kidnapped from her home village in a rural area and couldn't remember about her parents or her previous life as the incident happened at a young age.
"I saw a hand cover my mouth - a black hand in a white hanky," she said.
"Then I realized two people were taking me away."
"When I saw them going, I just didn't want them to leave," she continued.
"I was worried about it. I saw their legs, one was a black one and one was a white man moving away in shorts.
"And I just wanted to beg them to come back for me, not to leave me there," Marina added.
However, she was actually abandoned in the jungle until a capuchin monkey appeared to save her.
"The one that came first, he's staring at me," she recalled.
"And he keeps testing with the finger, a really quite strong little monkey, he kept poking me. And I just didn't want to move. I just didn't want to do anything.
"Until some more came, and I felt a bit better. It was just a nice feeling about seeing something at that moment, I just forgot to cry, and I still was frightened about it."
The woman was raised by capuchin monkeys and gradually adopted their living habitat
After around two days she says she saw a troop of capuchins and began copying them to survive. She would watch which nuts and berries they ate, catch bananas they dropped, and drink from their watering holes. Eventually – as she began to walk on all fours and stopped talking – the monkeys began to accept her.
As the weeks passed, the monkeys started to accept her as their fellow, and Marina gradually learned about the monkeys' living habitat, including eating like them, swinging from trees, and sleeping in a hollowed-out tree trunk.
She would keep an eye on the nuts and berries they consumed, retrieve any dropped bananas, and sip from their drinking fountains. She eventually stopped talking and started to go on all fours.
Additionally, she also learned about certain noises of the monkeys.
"The screechy one, you have to really be careful, you have to hide away.
"Many sounds mean something. The 'danger' one is the louder one, and then the whistle one is the 'food' one.
"And each sound means different things, but it took me a while to get used to it, I just learned from watching what they were doing every time I heard the sound."
Marina's new turning point after 5 years of living with monkeys
After 5 years of living together with monkeys, Marina was found by hunters who later took her to a brothel in Cucuta to help her find a job as a maid until she moved to the UK.
Marina then moved to the UK along with the family she was working for.
In 1978, Marina met and fell in love with her current husband John Chapman, the organist at an evangelical church where she worshipped.
The couple have two daughters, Vanessa, now 40, and Joanna, 43. They are living in a three-bedroom semi in Allerton, a suburb of Bradford.
Marina stated that it was really difficult for her to integrate into society as she had to re-learn everything to resemble a human, including dressing properly, picking up food, etc.
However, with her previous wild tendencies, she used to swing from trees to pick up her daughter Vanessa from school.
Vanessa recalls. "I knew other mums didn’t do that. But that was just mum. My playful mum."
"She loved the outdoors, creating obstacle courses in the back garden, making monkey noises, climbing trees. Our pets were animals that my mum caught for us – we had a couple of wild rabbits that eventually escaped and a seagull," she concluded.
Marina Chapman's story has sparked debate over its authenticity.
However, her daughter Vanessa firmly believes in her mother's account and various tests have been conducted to validate Marina's claims.
These tests revealed the presence of unusual jungle diseases in Marina's blood, providing evidence to support her extraordinary past.
"They found Mum has strange jungle diseases lying dormant in her blood that she couldn’t possibly have if her story wasn’t true."
Marina's daughter decided to live in the forest like her mother did
While Marina's eldest daughter, Joanna, pursued a conventional path and became a civil servant with a family in Leeds, the family's story takes an unexpected turn with Vanessa following in her mother's footsteps.
Vanessa has chosen to leave the UK behind and establish her home in the very same Colombian jungle where Marina had once lived, embracing a life reminiscent of a female Tarzan.
Initially, Marina had concerns about her daughter's decision, feeling uneasy about the safety of Colombia.
However, over time, she has grown confident in Vanessa's abilities and her ability to navigate the challenges of living in the jungle. Marina is now proud of her daughter's adventurous spirit and supports her pursuit of a life connected to their extraordinary family history.
