A Missouri woman has been charged with child abuse and endangerment, and law officials are investigating if she traded her adopted daughter for a monkey. 

The teen girl at the center of the case told school authorities that she was being abused but was not believed. It was not until she was repeatedly absent from school that an investigation was launched. Authorities learned of a rumor that she had been traded to a family in Texas in return for a monkey. 

According to The Associated Press, the 70-year-old woman has been jailed on a $250,000 bond, and her identity has not been released to protect the identity of the child. The abuse reportedly occurred in Winfield, Missouri, just 45 miles away from St. Louis. 

The prosecutor in the case says that the woman had been a foster or adoptive mother to more than 200 children over the past ten years and that other children have come forward to report abuse. 

Prosecutor Mike Wood said, “On its face, it just seems like there was a systemic failure somewhere, and we’re looking into it to see if that is the case, how it can be addressed, and to the extent that there’s any criminal behavior associated with it, we will look into that as well.”