Case Snapshot

Case ID: 10458

Classification: Neglect / Abandonment

Animal: dog (non pit-bull), sheep, chicken, rabbit (pet), bird (other farmed)

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Case #10458 Rating: 0.0

Animals found starving, resorting to cannibalism
Washington Township, MI (US)

Incident Date: Monday, Jan 1, 2007
County: Sanilac

Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Case Images: 6 files available

Defendants/Suspects:
» Fred V. Jacklett, Jr.
» Laurie McConnell

Case Updates: 5 update(s) available

Sanilac County Sheriff deputies seized about 40 starving animals and buried more than 30 dead ones found Jan 1 on a farm on East Marlette Road.

Deputies said the animals were so starving they were eating their own babies to stay alive.

Sheriff Lt. Jim Wagester said police found dead and malnourished animals, including a horse, steer, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, dogs, ducks, chickens and geese. He called conditions at the farm at 3450 E. Marlette Road "the worst I've ever seen."

"Some were in pens, some were in a pasture with no shelter and no food," Wagester said. "A lot of them were just starving to death - very undernourished."

The 21-year-old resident of the farm was arrested Monday and is expected to face multiple felony animal-cruelty charges at an arraignment today or Wednesday.

Police would not identify him pending arraignment.

Wagester said the man owns most of the animals, but police also are seeking warrants to arrest a 40-year-old female resident of the farm.

Wagester said the man told police he recently bought more food after he ran out about two weeks ago but had been too busy to feed the animals.

"He said he just got feed here the last few days but hasn't been around to feed them because he's been out partying," Wagester said.

Police initially visited the farm Sunday after an anonymous caller tipped them off. Police seized the animals Monday when executing a search warrant.

Once there, Wagester said, police found animals locked in barns and in a muddy pasture with no food.

Deputies immediately fed the surviving animals with food they found at the farm. Wagester said the hungry animals swarmed the food "like vultures."

"They were knocking each other over getting to it," he said.

Some of the dead animals appeared to have huddled underneath a truck topper for shelter.

Wagester said it was the only shelter in the pasture, which had mud in some spots was more than knee deep.

Volunteers placed the living animals at area farms, though Wagester expected some likely will die.

Brennon Miller of Sandusky drove several animals to a farm in Speaker Township. Miller said he saw starving animals in barns, in the house and all over the farm.

"There were dogs and cats and iguanas and birds and sheep ... every animal humanly imaginable was running around there," he said.

The animals looked so desperate and diseased Miller's first reaction was not to touch anything for risk he would pass on an illness to his own animals.

Goats and sheep had chunks of hair and wool missing, Miller said, and several of the pigs roaming outdoors appeared to have eye infections.

"I grew up on a farm," Miller said. "Dead things do not normally bother me that badly, but it just made me sick to my stomach to see everything."

Lin Ernest of Speaker Township took ten of the animals. One of the goats can barely stand, Ernest said, and she can see bones through the sheep's thick wool.

"You can see (the goats') whole entire backbone all the way to their tail," she said.

She thinks the sheep rubbed the wool off their backs and their skin raw trying to scavenge food from the other side of their pasture fence.

Although the animals are in bad shape, Ernest said believes they have the will to live.

"Their eyes still look like they're going to make it," Ernest said. "They still have life in them."

Ernest hopes to find homes for the animals once they're healthy.

Lt. Wagester hopes the situation will encourage people to report animal cruelty.

"There's absolutely no reason, none whatsoever, that an animal has to suffer like this," he said.

Case Updates

References

• - Jan 18, 2007

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