75 year old woman strangles rabid raccoon to death at botanical garden

Cas Overton knew she would not be able to get away from the violent raccoon that attacked her on the leg Saturday afternoon as she walked in Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden watching for birds.


So she did what she had to do.

“I tried to shake it off and realized how violent it was,” said Overton, 75, of Henrico County. “As I moved backward away from it, I grabbed its neck and I knew that I couldn’t get away from it. If I ran, it would be faster than I would and would just tear me to pieces.

“So I threw it to the ground and I strangled it — with both hands. I am a terrific animal lover. It’s the last thing in the world I would have ever wanted to do, but you know self-preservation kicks in, and I guess a primitive part of my brain just went into operation and that was it,” she said Tuesday, recalling the incident.

Overton, who taught tai chi for 40 years and who is a Feldenkrais practitioner — a method for working with people who have physical concerns — said she believes it was that physical and mental training that enabled her to respond as she did.

“I think that the presence of mind and the focusing on the moment was just with me to manage to do this,” said Overton, who volunteers at the garden.



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