Gypsy Lawson stands on her porch and talks in March 2008 about her federal indictment after authorities accused her of smuggling a rhesus macacque into the U.S. following a trip to Asia. (SRphoto/Jesse Tinsley)

A woman who smuggled a monkey from Thailand to Spokane in 2007 died when her pickup truck went off the road four miles south of Northport, authorities said Wednesday.

Gypsy R. Lawson, 31, of Northport, was driving south on state Route 25 possibly around midnight, when her 1986 Nissan pickup went off the road to the right in a left-hand curve, the Washington State Patrol reported.

Lawson and her mother were convicted by a federal jury in December 2008 of smuggling an exotic monkey into the United States.

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The Public Safety Department said in a statement Monday that 38-year-old Roberto Cabrera arrived on a commercial flight Friday from Lima, Peru, when authorities noticed the bulge and conducted a body search.

The department says Cabrera was carrying the 6-inch titi monkeys in pouches attached to the girdle. Two of the monkeys were dead.

Cabrera was arrested on charges of trafficking an endangered species.

Cabrera told authorities he was carrying the monkeys in a suitcase but decided to put them in his girdle “so the X-rays wouldn’t hurt them.”

In December 2008, a 29-year-old Spokane woman and her mother were convicted of federal charges related to smuggling a monkey into the United States.

In other monkey news, a truck crash in Ohio left animal carcasses all over a road and the driver’s pet monkey stranded atop a utility pole, the AP reports.

The truck was hauling carcasses for a meat processing plant late Monday afternoon when it flipped while going into a curve on a local road in northeast Ohio’s Medina County, the state Highway Patrol said. The frightened monkey scampered up the pole after the accident.

Troopers say the truck driver was OK. The monkey had to be coaxed down from its perch.

The meat plant sent another truck to pick up the carcasses. State and county highway crews were sent to help clean up the mess.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A monkey that has eluded capture in the Tampa Bay area for more than a year has again escaped from Florida wildlife officials.

Authorities were called to a neighborhood in St. Petersburg on Wednesday when the rhesus macaque monkey was spotted.

It was twice hit with tranquilizer darts, but still got away by ducking behind a drug store and a church.

Wildlife rehabilitator Vernon Yates says the tranquilizers don’t appear to affect the animal, though officials have increased the dosage each time they’ve used the drug on the monkey.

Yates says the monkey is smart, even stopping to check traffic before crossing a busy street.

Officials didn’t say how the monkey got loose. They say it isn’t considered a threat to humans.