Attorneys/Judges
| Prosecutor(s): | John Bell | | Defense(s): | Matthew Stevenson |
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CONVICTED: Was justice served?
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Case #14341 Rating: 2.1 out of 5
Horse neglect
Stevensville, MT (US)Incident Date: Friday, Aug 1, 2008
County: Ravalli
Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Case Images: 4 files available
Defendants/Suspects:
» Craig Heydon
» Curtis Heydon
Case Updates: 7 update(s) available
Two Ravalli County men are facing Cruelty to Animals charges after deputies found neglected and malnourished horses. Craig Heydon, 71, and Curtis Heydon, 37, are facing misdemeanor charges.
The Sheriff's Department says hikers found a horse lying on the Big Creek Trail last week. The hikers brought the horse down and reported the incident. Upon investigation the owners said they left the horse up there because it was being stubborn.
After further investigation deputies found 3 more horses near Stevensville who were malnourished. The horses were turned over to the animal shelter.
It's now up to the courts to decide if the animals will be returned to the owners.
Case UpdatesTwo men from Woodstock, Ga., have been convicted of horse abuse and given nearly a year in jail for abusing and starving four horses during a wilderness pack trip last summer.
A Ravalli County Montana judge said Craig Heydon and his son Curtis Heydon displayed a gross lack of common sense and humanity. The judge said they ignored the horses' suffering, which included starvation, and maggot-filled sores.
A jury took nine hours to convict the two Friday. The men quickly filed an intent to appeal the decision.
The Heydons used the four horses on a two-month pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness last summer. The case came to light when they left one of the emaciated horses lying collapsed along a trail.
The horses have since recovered and been placed in foster care | Source: Billings Gazette - Feb 1, 2009
Update posted on Feb 1, 2009 - 7:21PM |
A jury in Hamilton has still not reached a verdict in the case of two Georgia men who are accused of mistreating horses last summer.
The three day trial concluded Thursday afternoon around 5:00 and jurors are now discussing the case.
Craig Haydon, 71, and his son, 37-year-old Curtis Haydon have been accused of mistreating four horses on a packing trip through the Bitterroot wilderness.
Craig Haydon took the stand Thursday and said that he bought the horses in trim condition, showing this in his pictures he took on his trip.
But, local veterinarians told attorneys that the horses were deprived of adequate food and water during the trip.
Haydon also told the jury he took full responsibility for the four horses on their pack trip, and that he is an animal lover, taking pictures of the horses to remember their trip in Montana.
Curtis Heydon faces 11 misdemeanor animal abuse charges while his father is charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of animal abuse.
Jury deliberations are set to continue on Friday. | Source: montananewsstation.com - Jan 30, 2009
Update posted on Jan 30, 2009 - 1:11PM |
Two men each charged with four counts of animal cruelty will begin their trial on Jan. 27 in Hamilton, Mont.
Craig Heydon, 71, and his son Curtis Heydon, 37, both from the Atlanta, Ga., area were not present at their pretrial hearing on Oct. 9. They requested a jury trial, which was granted.
The Heydons' animal cruelty charges stem from an incident this summer, in which a horse was found collapsed alongside a trail with open sores and in an emaciated condition. The Heydons had been using the horse as a pack animal during a two month ride through the mountains. Three more horses in poor condition and belonging to the Heydons were later found in Stevensville, Mont. (Read more.)
The equines are presently in the care of the Bitter Root Humane Association in Hamilton. The two horses found in the most serious condition, Able and Diamond, have responded well to a treatment by an equine ophthalmologist to heal corneal ulcers caused by exposure to flies while out on the trail. "It has cost thousands to help these horses," said Bitter Root operations manager Vicki Dawson.
The Heydons' lawyer, Matthew Stevenson, said that the defendants are seeking acquittal in this case and that the men would likely seek to retain ownership of the horses. "It's still to be determined," he said. "It depends on how the trial turns out." | Source: The Horse Magazine - Oct 29, 2008
Update posted on Oct 29, 2008 - 11:40PM |
Theresa Manzella cried the day she read the story about an abused horse left to suffer along a trail in the Bitterroot Mountains this past summer.
On the next day, she decided to do something about it.
Over the last few weeks, the Bitterroot woman has learned there are a lot of others outraged by the case and anxious to do what they can to help out the horse people now call "Able."
Able was one of four horses confiscated from a pair of Georgia men who had just returned from a months-long pack trip into the mountains.
Two women horseback riding on the Big Creek Trail in the Bitterroot National Forest in August found the emaciated horse covered in gaping sores, tied to a tree and abandoned.
Curtis Hayden, 37, and Craig Hayden, 69, of Woodstock, Ga., have since pleaded not guilty to charges of misdemeanor cruelty to animals.
A pretrial hearing is scheduled Thursday in Ravalli County Justice Court. Officials don't expect either the men or their attorney to attend the omnibus hearing, which is predicted to be just minutes long.
Despite that fact, Manzella still expects quite a few people will show up in support of the horses.
"We want him (the county attorney) to know that we won't stand for a plea bargain in this case," Manzella said. "We want him to know that we support his efforts. Most people know it's going to be a short and simple thing, but they don't care.
"They want to be there," she said.
On Saturday, Manzella expects even more people will show up at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds' Arts Building to show their support for the horses and The Bitter Root Humane Association during "Able Days."
"We've named it after Able n the abused horse who was able to survive against all odds," Manzella said.
At first, people thought they might have a countywide garage sale and car wash on the same day as the hearing to help raise money for local humane association, but it morphed into something more.
People began donating items and auctioneers offered their time. It didn't stop there.
The fundraiser now includes a chance for county residents to have their dogs vaccinated for rabies and licensed for $20 at the fairgrounds Saturday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The proceeds from the event will be directed toward hiring a county animal control officer.
"We really need an animal control officer here in Ravalli County so people can report cases of animal abuse," she said. "Right now there's no place for people to go to report neglect or abuse until the case becomes criminal. | Source: Missoulian - Oct 9, 2008
Update posted on Oct 9, 2008 - 12:01PM |
Four horses are recovering in the care of the Bitter Root Humane Association of Hamilton, Mont., after they were found alongside a trail and stabled at a storage facility along the Montana-Idaho border in August. Meanwhile, two men, each charged with four counts of animal cruelty associated with these horses, await their pretrial hearing set for Oct. 9.
Craig Heydon, 71, and his son Curtis Heydon, 37, both from the Atlanta, Ga., area had set out with four horses on a pack ride in the mountains on the border between Montana and Idaho for two months this summer. On Aug. 1, one of their horses was found collapsed alongside a trail by two other riders who had passed Curtis Heydon earlier. He had warned the pair he had left a horse on the trail because the gelding wouldn't continue, but said he planned to return the next day for the animal. The riders found the horse still saddled, in an emaciated condition, and with open saddle sores. They tended to the horse along the trail, and a sheriff's deputy later found three more horses owned by the men in a makeshift pen between two storage units at a mini storage facility in Stevensville, Mont.
Six weeks later, Vicki Dawson, operations manager at the Bitter Root shelter, is still concerned about the long-term health of two of the horses. "Able," the horse found collapsed on the trail, has just returned to her facility after spending a month in a veterinary hospital.
The abscesses in Able's feet were so painful he was unable to stand, according to Dawson. "He was only with us two days and then he was down and wouldn't get back up," she said.
An equine ophthalmologist has also been out to treat corneal ulcers in both Able and another horse, a 22-year-old gelding named Diamond.
The prosecutor in this case, John Bell, could not be reached for comment. The Heydons' lawyer, Matthew Stevenson, said that the defendants will not be present at their pretrial hearing.
"There's a hysteria surrounding this case," said Stevenson, citing an area veterinarian who said media representation of the case has been inaccurate.
If found guilty of the animal cruelty charges, the Heydons could face up to a year in jail for each count. | Source: The Horse Magazine - Sept 24, 2008
Update posted on Sep 25, 2008 - 10:21PM |
Of the many citizens outraged by the recent charges of animal abuse brought to light by the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Department and the Bitter Root Humane Association, Phyllis Ruana puts her money and time where her mouth is.
Ruana is from Corvallis but recently took up dual residency in nearby Butte-Silverbow County as the new Director of Animal Services. She spends her weekdays in Butte and comes home to Corvallis on the weekends to be with her family and be on-call for any horse neglect or abuse calls in Ravalli County.
For the last four years, Ruana is the first one Vicki Dawson of the Bitter Root Humane Association calls if there is word of equine abuse or neglect.
“She knows a lot about equine assessment,” said Dawson. “When we can, we call on her for an initial visit and then she makes the call as to whether we need to involve law enforcement or not.”
Her help is voluntary both for the shelter and as president of the Montana Animal Care Association.
“MACA sponsors workshops every year for shelter employees as well as law enforcement,” Dawson said.
Just last spring the topic for the educational conference was emergency equine assessment.
“Just like we just had,” said Dawson. “She brought in experts - veterinarians, the state brand inspector, law enforcement and animal control officers to a room of 45 people to train them on how to assess abuse and neglect cases in the field.”
The Bitter Root Humane Association paid for two Ravalli County law enforcement officers to attend the workshop.
The training paid off when four horses were confiscated by the sheriff’s department Aug. 4 and brought to the humane association for rehabilitation.
Charges were brought against a father and son from Georgia who had been packing in the Bitterroot-Selway wilderness for the summer.
The horses were emaciated with saddle sores and a myriad of other serious health problems.
“I was the person who took the initial call from the gals who found the horse down and tied up Big Creek,” Ruana said. “I spent three days straight on this case, contacting the lead brand inspector for the state, Back Country Horsemen members to assist in the rescue, forwarding the photos and calling the undersheriff to make the initial report on this case and to facilitate a follow-up on this case, to have the second officer contact me because I was sure there would be more horses and told him where I thought he could find them.” She also met with the veterinarian caring for the horse in most dire condition.
“This has been my life for years in Ravalli County at no pay,” she said. “Due to the non-approval of animal control in Ravalli County, I had to choose to take this position in Butte. I now have two residences. I drive back and forth most every week because Ravalli County is equally as important as Silver-Bow is to me.I receive fair pay, benefits and local support.”
She said Butte-Silverbow County has found the funding to provide her with a salary and benefits as well as assistance in the form of three animal control officers, four shelter workers and one administrative assistant.
“There is no reason Ravalli County can not have even half of this,” Ruana said.
County commissioners established an Animal Control Protection Board approximately seven years ago which has been working to establish the criteria for animal control protocol and officers in the county.
Peg Platt of Sula is president of that board and said they are soliciting grants in hopes of adding to revenue gained by current licensing fees that were established in February 2006.
“We have $43,000 now and hope to gain enough for salaries by January to hire two animal control officers,” she said. “We already have the vehicles ... and are planning various events to gain enough through donations and grants. We’ll have a booth at the fair and hope people come see us ... and we are planning another Tag Day at Quality Supply on Sept. 13 where we’ll offer low-cost chipping and vaccinations as well as have beauty contests and nail clipping ... We’re doing what we can and we’re on track for January.”
In the meantime, it’s volunteers like Ruana who are making a difference.
“She’s been tremendously helpful to the association,” said Dawson. “She continues to gain in her own expertise, she believes in education and continues to bring more expertise into the state of Montana. She’s brought resources far and wide including an assessment instructor all the way from New York who teaches about temperament assessment of canines.”
Dawson said a few years ago, Ruana also arranged for Kate Hurley, director of the shelter medicine program at UC-Davis to be the guest speaker at the MACA workshop.
“She taught us about vaccinations protocol ... and cleanliness standards to maintain disease control in a sheltering atmosphere. Her Web site, www.sheltermedicine.com is the Bible to many of us ... it’s an awesome resource and Phyllis got her to teach a spring workshop,” she said.
“Phyllis has really brought to the middle of nowhere, a lot of help,” Dawson said. “There’s not a school around or a lot of opportunities for continuing education, so Phyllis has brought those resources to us. I can’t tell you how much that is worth.”
Ruana said she is merely ramping up for even more work ahead of her.
“Ravalli County is about to see the worst year they have ever seen on neglect. I made this prediction over two years ago. I am very worried,” she said. | Source: Ravalli Republic - Aug 19, 2008
Update posted on Aug 18, 2008 - 11:15PM |
Four horses were confiscated by the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Department last week in an animal abuse case that is both startling and heart-wrenching.
One horse is currently under the constant care of a local veterinarian and three others are gaining strength in the back corral at the Bitter Root Humane Association.
The sheriff’s department issued a cruelty to animals citation Aug. 4 to both Curtis, 37, and Craig, 69, Hayden of Woodstock, Ga. who reportedly traveled to the Bitterroot this summer and have been packing in the Selway wilderness for more than two months.
On Friday, Aug. 1 Dawn Merrill of Missoula and Q DeHart of Stevensville were embarking on a leisurely ride up Big Creek trail when they passed Hayden who was on his way down the canyon.
“He said he had a horse go down a couple of miles up the trail for no apparent reason, so he had tied him up and planned to return the next day,” Merrill said.
The two said they were uncomfortable with his explanation and said, “We couldn’t help but go look and see what was going on here,” Merrill said. “What we found was more shocking that anything we’ve ever seen in our lives.”
Six miles up the trail, they described finding the horse lying in the direct sunlight with a pack saddle still strapped to his back.
“He was tied to a log down by his feet without any water nearby,” Merrill said. “He didn’t have an ounce of strength and even if that horse did get up, he didn’t have access to water. He was covered in biting insects in 85-degree heat and the only thing in the shade was his head.”
Merrill and DeHart found the note the owner left explaining that he’d be back, but quickly untied the horse’s legs and removed the saddle only to find an emaciated animal without shoes and covered with horrible saddle sores.
“We gave him water and he drank and drank and drank,” Merrill said. “We were running to the creek to give him bottles of water as fast as we could and then I tried to douse him in water and covered him so the insects wouldn’t devour him.”
Merrill said without cell phone service, she and DeHart were panicked with thoughts of what to do.
“We couldn’t stay the night, we couldn’t separate, we were crying and knew we had to do something,” Merrill said. “We tried to get him up. We had my horse back up and pull, but the horse had no strength, none. We could not get him to his feet, so we covered him, told him we’d be back and honestly thought he was going to die. It was that bad.”
After 12 hours of effort, she said their only hope was that the water and cooler evening temperatures would give him strength to get up and go to the creek.
Merrill contacted the sheriff’s department and the Forest Service when she returned home and hoped for quick response. But unable to wait, she rallied friends Saturday morning, contacted the Humane Association and “did everything possible to find a way to get the horse down from the mountain.”
After several attempts by different riders, Merrill and her neighbor Mike Svoboda finally found the horse again Sunday morning.
“We found him standing, with no lead line,” Merrill said. “He wasn’t going anywhere. He was so hungry, so tired, so sore.”
Using the recommendations from her veterinarian, Merrill packed in food, water, molasses and bute, “a sort of aspirin to relieve the pain,” she said.
After letting him eat and rest, they got the horse to travel two miles, “but he quit, his feet hurt so bad.”
After patiently attending to the horse for several more hours, it was a pair of soft shoes that did the trick.
“My horse was wearing boots, a type of easy boot that are just like gel pads in your shoes,” she said. “I put them on him ... and eventually he took some little steps and realized his feet didn’t feel so bad.”
The persistence of Merrill and Svoboda paid off and by nightfall, they were able to load the horse in the trailer.
“Mike named him ‘Able’ because he was able to make it down the mountain,” Merrill said.
The next morning, after further investigation, the sheriff’s department issued the citations and seized three more horses that were corralled in a makeshift pen between two storage unit buildings at Red River Storage near Super 1 in Stevensville.
Undersheriff Kevin McConnell said the malnourished animals clearly fell under the statute for cruelty to animals.
“Nobody likes to see a horse mistreated and these four definitely fall under a violation of that law,” McConnell said.
According to the citation the Haydens have 10 days to contact Ravalli County Justice Court to settle the misdemeanor offense. As of Monday afternoon, seven days after the citation was issued, the case is still open pending their contact with the courts.
For Merrill and DeHart who together checked on the horses Monday afternoon at the shelter, their only hope is that the horses will regain their health and not be returned to the Haydens.
“We just hope they don’t turn them over to the owners,” Merrill said. “That would be awful.”
“It’s unbelievable actually,” said DeHart. “It just makes you angry that people can do that to an animal. How could you put something on the back on an animal when it has sores like that.”
Vicky Dawson, manager of the humane association, said after a week, the animals look “a hundred percent better, if you can believe it. But they’re still having trouble standing on their back legs.”
With daily visits from a veterinarian and adherence to his directions to “keep the groceries in front of them,” the horses are gaining strength.
“All four were classified as ‘emaciated,’” Dawson said. “Their hips, legs, knees and feet were visibly swollen. It was truly hard to see them walking. The vet says the open sores will be difficult to heal with all that cartilage and bone showing ... one has abscesses in his feet and they came with their eyes ulcerated but the fly masks came off in the last couple days. My staff has been coming in as early as 5 a.m. so they could get four treatments a day done on their eyes ... now we’re also worried about their kidneys because that one is taking in more water than he’s putting out. I would say they are in guarded condition even though they’re looking better. We’re still not sure of their long-term health.”
Although they are tending to the animals without regret, “As usual, it’s costing the shelter a lot of money,” Dawson said. “We’re looking for hay and donations because we’ll foot this vet bill which will be expensive ... some have been in his care non-stop since this happened because they were in such danger.”
Jay DeHart already trimmed all the horses’ feet and High Performance Hooves has donated four pairs of soft shoes that are on the horses’ front hooves and will stay at the shelter for future needs.
“They’re $130 a pair, so we really appreciate that,” said Dawson.
Merrill and DeHart agreed that “we’re not just going to up and leave them at the shelter. We’re going to ante up here. We found them and we’re going to help them and we hope the community will help too,” Merrill said.
“Things need to change, but at least these people know that Ravalli County is not going to tolerate this kind of abuse,” she said. “Somebody had to help the horse and it was apparent it wasn’t going to be owner.” | Source: Ravalli Republic - Aug 13, 2008
Update posted on Aug 13, 2008 - 11:15PM |
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