Church members say that their tip led police to the Dallas Zoo's missing monkeys

The Dallas Zoo put out two new photos of the Tamarin monkeys, which show that they are safe and back home.

That's different from the video WFAA got when they were found in an empty church in Lancaster on Tuesday.

Tonya Thomas, the daughter of the pastor, talked to us on the phone.

"It's cold and dark, and whoever put the monkeys in there had to use flashlights or something, but they could have died in there," said Thomas.

When church members saw a picture that DPD had put out, they told the police. Detectives didn't call him a suspect, but they did say they wanted to talk to him because he was caught on video at the zoo the night the monkeys went missing.

"Neighbors say they saw him walking around the neighborhood with different animals, so we thought it might be him. He lives in the area and went to our church, so we knew it was him," Thomas said.

They called the police. Sources say that the church was 37 degrees when the monkeys were found inside.

The zoo said that they had lost weight but looked fine.

Thomas says that they had planned to fix up the church, but in November, someone started breaking in and damaging it.

Thomas said, "He had torn things up, moved things around, divided up rooms, and put animals in different parts of the house."

Police still want to talk to the man about the monkeys and other things that happened, like a clouded leopard that seemed to have been cut out of its cage, a vulture that was stabbed, and fish and other zoo equipment that went missing.

"We are shocked and saddened by a criminal attack on the zoo in the last three weeks," said Gregg Hudson, the president of the Dallas Zoo.

In a statement, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums said, "The Dallas Zoo and its animals are victims of acts, which are likely meant to take animals for personal reasons or even worse, to be trafficked."

Councilwoman Carolyn King Arnold said that the security flaws worry people who live nearby.

"If someone went out of their way to make a story about letting an animal out that could hurt their pets, you know they are worried," King said.

King and the Zoo say they have doubled security, fixed fences, added more Dallas police patrols, and put up more cameras to stop anything else from happening.

The zoo told WFAA that it will pay $25,000 for information that leads to the arrest and indictment of whoever is responsible for any of the incidents.