Horse neglect alleged
Midland, MI (US)Incident Date: Friday, Jun 6, 2008
County: Gladwin
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Marsha Kay Williams
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
Things have gone from bad to worse for a Midlander who was caring for 30 horses.
First, a lawsuit resulted in the horses' eviction from Hope Township property at the end of May. Marsha Kay Williams moved all the animals to land off Knox Road in Gladwin County, and began asking for help with donations and manpower to take care of them.
On June 6, about 10 days after the move, officials from the Gladwin County Animal Control/Shelter, the sheriff's office and Michigan State Police served a search warrant. The warrant was executed after several visits by director and animal control officer Ron Taylor, as well as visits by a Michigan Department of Agriculture veterinarian who set up a plan for Williams to follow to get the horses healthy. At the time the warrant was served, Taylor said Williams hadn't complied with the plan.
Now a felony charge of animal cruelty to 10 animals or more has been brought against Williams, who is scheduled to appear in the Gladwin County District Court for a preliminary hearing Tuesday.
Williams was arraigned on the charge on June 9, and a $5,000 personal recognizance bond was set with the condition that she not possess any animals.
Before she was arrested, Williams had been looking for help with donations of cash to buy feed for the horses and for people to assist her in taking care of the horses. She also boarded out 17 of the animals.
When the search warrant was served, animal control seized the horses and placed them in temporary housing. Some were put down.
Since then, Williams has been gathering items for her court appearances.
"I have to clear my name," she said. She's hired attorney Steve Jacobs to represent her.
Midland County Animal Control also had contacted Williams in the past, the last time being seven to eight weeks before she moved the horses out of the county, said Supervisor Rick Shields. The visit was due to a call reporting a "skinny horse."
"It was a very old horse," he said, adding Williams was required to get a veterinarian.
The gap between the visits from Midland and Gladwin county officials would have been enough time for the horses to get into trouble, Shields said. "They could be next to nothing."
Case UpdatesMarsha Williams hoped things would get better for the 30 horses she cares for after a court ruling booted her and the animals off land in Hope Township.
"It's hard because we were struggling in Midland to try to keep things together ... Things have gotten worse than where we were," she said. "It has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination."
The court case, filed against Williams' mother, Karen Lalk, and the Community Educational Ministry by the estate of Carl Alfred Russell in 2006, centered on the rightful ownership of 142 acres of land in Hope Township. It ended in February when Midland County Probate Judge Dorene S. Allen ruled the land belongs to Russell. Lalk and the DAYSTAR Youth Ranch, operated on the land by Williams, were evicted and the land was auctioned the day after Memorial Day. DAYSTAR was not named in the suit.
DAYSTAR, which stands for Developing a Youth's Strength Through Animal Rehabilitation, is an organization that brings horses in need of care together with people who can learn responsibility and get a self-esteem boost from working with the animals. For now, the youth component has been shut down. DAYSTAR also is an outpost for the Starlight Riders 4-H Club.
The eviction left Williams searching for a home for DAYSTAR's 36 horses. She sent six of the horses back to their owners, and she leased hunting land on Knox Road in Beaverton to move the rest of the horses onto temporarily, days before the land auction.
The Daily News published a look at the court case in a May 25 article.
After the move, the situation became more complicated.
Not only was Williams struggling to provide food and shelter for the animals, a call was placed to the Gladwin County Animal Control/Shelter concerning the state of the horses' health. Director and animal control officer Ron Taylor has visited the horses four times since that call as of Thursday as part of an active animal cruelty investigation.
He said a Michigan Department of Agriculture veterinarian evaluated the horses and made a plan for Williams to follow to get the horses healthy, but she hasn't complied. That plan involved the appropriate amounts of hay and grain for the animals.
She only has enough hay to feed a quarter of the animals, he said, adding her only choice is to downsize.
"She needs to do more," Taylor said. "She needs to get rid of the horses -- she has too many."
Williams said she's expecting officials to show up any time with trailers to remove the animals.
At the Knox Road property, the horses are in pens with pine trees to provide shade from the sun.
There are a couple of little sheds, built with supplies that Williams was able to gather from the Hope Township property. There is no electricity and Williams has been pulling water from a spring-fed pond on the property.
For Williams, all this means a constant change in focus from moving the horses and erecting shelters for them to feeding them, but she's not had enough time to finish one task before another becomes a priority.
Many of the horses were put in the program's care with the expectation that their owners would help, she said. "I don't own any of these horses up here." Also, the help she gets is sporadic and there aren't enough people involved.
In Hope Township, Williams was able to feed the horses hay that was grown on the property. After exhausting her own resources as well as those of her family, she's now relying on donations.
"Our donations have fallen down to nothing," she said Wednesday, crying while calculating: If hay costs $5.75 per bale with a 100-bale minimum for delivery, that's $575, which would last about a week. The grain the horses are accustomed to costs $11 per pound, and a week's supply is about 200 pounds, which equals $2,200.
Her next options are to board out the healthy and young animals, and put down the less healthy.
"At this point, we can't shut any options down," she said. She said she believes it's not fair to kill animals for people's convenience. Boarding the horses out would have her traveling from place to place to care for them.
Williams, small and soft-spoken, knows she's in over her head and that others don't understand.
"I've been accused of being a collector," she said. "People are not donating so Marsha can have a horse," she said of any money that is donated to DAYSTAR.
"There is such a reward in seeing these animals turn around and it's just faltering now," she said. "But I can't turn it around myself."
Williams and the horses got some much needed help late Thursday when enough people stepped up to board out 17 of the animals, leaving her with 13 today if everyone who made commitments follows through. | Source: Our Midland - July 17, 2008
Update posted on Jul 17, 2008 - 12:59PM |
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