Link here.
Kinda bizarre. From what I read Mary the elephant was seen killing a man, who turned out to be unqualified to handle elephants. Apparently it was determined, after Mary’s execution, that this man accidentally poked her in the area of her head where she had an infected tooth, which I guess caused her such agonising pain she couldn’t help but get angry at this man.
Mary was a five-ton Asian elephant who performed in the Sparks World Famous Shows circus. Her death is sometimes interpreted as a cautionary tale of circus animal abuse during the early 20th century.
(I got this quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) but this forum doesn’t like the link so I had to link to http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tnunicoi/mary.htm in the above link)