Workers renovating century-old department store find mummified monkey

MINNEAPOLIS — Workers renovating the old Dayton’s department store in downtown Minneapolis have discovered a mystery: the mummified remains of a monkey. Crews found the carcass last week in an air duct on the seventh floor of the century-old building. 

Cailin Rogers is a spokeswoman for the Dayton’s Project, which is an office, retail and restaurant complex going into the building. She says developers don’t know where the monkey came from or how it ended up in the air duct. 

A historic site called Old Minneapolis posted a photo of the monkey on its Facebook page and solicited answers. 

Alan Freed is one of the site’s co-administrators. He says one likely answer came from someone who posted on the page saying a longtime Dayton’s employee told him a monkey escaped from an eighth-floor pet store into the air conditioning ductwork in the 1960s. 

CBS Minnesota spoke with a family who believes they too solved the mystery. 

Robbinsdale Mayor Regan Murphy knew his father as a stoic man. But it wasn’t until his father passed away that family friends told him about Larry Murphy’s more mischievous past.

Years ago, Larry told his wife, Monica, a story from junior high school when he and his friend Tom stole a monkey from the pet store at Dayton’s. 

“Monkeys are not house broken,” Monica said. “The monkey was discovered by Tom’s mom, and she said, ‘Absolutely not. Can’t have it, can’t keep it.'”

So Larry brought it back to the store and released it, never knowing what happened to it.

Larry died in 2001 after a battle with cancer. His friend, Tom, who conspired to steal the monkey, passed away in 2017.  

When the Murphy family saw the picture of the mysterious mummified monkey on Facebook nearly six decades later, they couldn’t believe it. They say the bizarre discovery feels like Larry is still pulling his tricks.