Upper Darby woman convicted of animal cruelty for torturing animals in ‘brutal and graphic’ videos
Anigar Monsee's attorney told jurors she was only preparing the animals to cook them in her cultural tradition. They were not swayed by that explanation.
An Upper Darby woman was convicted of four counts of aggravated cruelty to animals for torturing several small animals to death in videos she live streamed on YouTube.
Anigar Monsee, 29, wept as a Delaware County jury read the guilty verdict after just one hour of deliberation during her trial last week.
The single mother told investigators after her arrest in January 2024 that she butchered the animals to cook them in the way she had been taught in her native Liberia, according to evidence presented at trial.
» READ MORE: An Upper Darby woman tortured and mutilated animals for likes in YouTube videos, police say
But Assistant District Attorney Hannah Wylesol said that explanation defied common sense. The videos depicted Monsee live-plucking a pigeon and a chicken, causing them severe pain, she said, as well as using a dull knife to slowly cut off the heads of the birds and, in another video, a rabbit.
In one video played for the jurors, Monsee joked and laughed as she disemboweled three small frogs while they were still alive.
Wylesol called the footage “brutal and graphic.”
“She knows exactly what she’s doing, prolonging the period up to the animals’ deaths, asking for more likes, asking for more views” from those watching the videos, the prosecutor told jurors in her closing arguments.
Monsee’s attorney, Ian Pulz, had urged jurors to acquit her, saying prosecutors had ignored Monsee’s cultural roots and made a moral issue out of what he called a normal process of preparing food.
“Underneath all the layers of emotion that these videos may erupt,” Pulz said, “we can’t lose sight of what these videos are showing: a mom, with a good character in her community, cooking a meal and sharing it.”
Pulz likened Monsee’s treatment of the animals to hunters shooting deer or chefs at seafood restaurants boiling shellfish alive for their customers.
“The reason why Upper Darby police aren’t kicking down the door of Red Lobster or Joe’s Crab Shack is because we know their intent is to cook food, not cause pain,” Pulz said.
But jurors were not swayed.
Monsee is to be sentenced July 17 by Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan.