A Missouri foster mother whose case drew national attention over claims she swapped a child for a monkey pleaded guilty Monday to endangering a child’s welfare.
Brenda Deutsch, 70, of Lincoln County, entered the plea in circuit court to one count of first degree endangerment. Prosecutors dropped two counts of abuse or neglect in exchange. She faces up to seven years in prison, or a year in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
The conviction rests on how the teenage girl was treated, not on the animal claim that drove the headlines. Investigators say Deutsch sent her to Texas, where she was left alone for long stretches and made to care for exotic animals at a friend’s home.
The trade story itself was never charged. Prosecuting Attorney Mike Wood said Deutsch grew frustrated with the girl and asked the Texas friend to keep her, and that a witness reported a monkey was later driven back to Missouri. Wood said investigators could not confirm it as a true exchange.
The dropped counts came from a probable cause statement in which the girl described roughly three years of abuse, from September 2022 to January 2025. She told investigators she was hit with a paddle and struck in the face. Wood said at the time of charging that the home held “a culture of abuse and neglect.” Those claims were never tested at trial.
The case opened in November 2024 with an anonymous tip to Missouri’s social services. Investigators interviewed the girl a month later. In February 2025, her school flagged repeated absences, and a resource officer learned she had been moved to Texas. Officers there reached her, and child protective services removed her in April 2025.
Wood has said Deutsch fostered more than 200 children over about two decades, and that the state child abuse hotline logged hundreds of calls about her home. Prosecutors have not charged the Texas resident, who remains under investigation, and the Eastland County Sheriff’s Office in Texas declined to comment. A separate fraud case against Deutsch is still pending and was not affected by Monday’s plea.
