So-called former “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for the arrest of the person who shot and injured one of her parrots near her Fort Churchill property off North Highway 160.
Her Pahrump home is adjacent to a subdivision and doubles as her longtime exotic bird sanctuary.
Fleiss, 56, told the Pahrump Valley Times she believes the shooting occurred on Christmas Eve.
“Everyone knows they’re my birds and they really enjoy them,” Fleiss said. “When [the bird] came home in the late afternoon, she fell and that’s when I noticed there was something wrong with her leg.”
The veteraniarian was closed for the holidays, Fleiss said, so she couldn’t immediately get it to a doctor.
Veterinarian visit
The following Monday, Fleiss took the 5-year-old macaw — named Chuey after famed post-war American artist Robert Chuey — to local veterinarian Dr. Jack Thomas for an exam.
That’s when she learned the extent of the parrot’s injuries.
“He took an X-ray and he showed me someone shot it with a pellet gun, and her leg is fractured and crushed,” Fleiss said. “What kind of a sick f*ck would shoot her while she was flying with her brother? It’s going to be a horrible surgery for her.”
Fleiss said she’s had Chuey since the day she was born and speculated the shooter may have been visiting for the holidays.
“I want to castrate him, I want them to get the death penalty for shooting my little Chuey, who was just flying around doing nothing — and they shoot her,” she said. “I want them to have the death penalty because everyone in the subdivision knows her and they love her.”
Fleiss contacted Nye County Animal Control and retained the pellet removed from the bird’s leg as evidence.
So long, Pahrump
Fleiss, who has been a Pahrump resident for roughly 15 years, said she’s made a tough decision to move from southern Nevada for the safety of her birds.
“I bought a place in the Ozarks and I’m moving them by the end of February,” she said. “Last month has been so tragic for my birds because someone’s pet bobcat got into the house and there was a massacre. You know, there’s so many people here with no respect for anything.”
Fleiss said she’s purchased a 50-acre forest near the Little House on the Prairie Historical Museum in Missouri, where she plans to relocate her exotic bird rescue sanctuary.
“My birds will be out of here by the end of February. I think the best moments of my life have been here with my birds, watching them fly and explore and seeing them have freedom from years of sitting in cages,” she said. “It’s really been an incredible experience and I’ve had some of the best times of my life here — but unfortunately, the worst.”
So Fleiss is flying the coop.
“I hate to go, but it’s not fair to the birds to put them through this,” she said.
Anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who shot and wounded Chuey, may contact Fleiss at 775-764-0775.
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes.