Hoarding - 104 cats seized
Wittmann, AZ (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Jul 8, 2010
County: Maricopa
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Lucienne Touboul
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
An 80-year-old Wittmann woman likely will be charged with felony animal abuse after Maricopa County sheriff's deputies found dozens of diseased and dying cats in her home.
Deputies responded to Lucienne Touboul's home near Grand Avenue and Center Street Thursday morning and found 104 cats in various stages of health.
According to sheriff's spokesman Jeff Sprong, Touboul threatened to kill deputies if they touched her animals.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the cats were blind or suffering ruptured corneas, had severe respiratory ailments and feline leukemia, and were literally dying in the arms of deputies. He said 10 cats were found frozen in the home refrigerator.
Arpaio said Touboul will likely face numerous felony animal abuse charges but is too old and frail to see the inside of a jail cell. He said he has asked his deputies to work with local agencies to provide her the help she needs, both physically and mentally.
The cats had to be euthanized. Arpaio said that while he does not support euthanasia of animals, the cats' diseases were so pronounced and may have been able to spread to humans that euthanasia was the only alternative.
Arpaio said this is the second time authorities were called to Touboul's home. Three years ago, Arpaio's animal cruelty deputies found 70 cats in her home.
At that time, many were euthanized and others were placed in rescue homes. Deputies worked with a local judge to prevent Touboul from owning any more animals, but she defied the order.
Case UpdatesIt looked like abuse to authorities, but to a Wittmann woman, it was a labor of love.
Maricopa County sheriff's deputies earlier this month found 104 cats in 80-year-old Lucienne Touboul's small home and nine kittens dead, frozen inside various refrigerators. Those that survived, diseased and some without eyes, were euthanized.
Now Touboul, who saw herself as the cats' saving grace, is lonely, heartbroken and scared. Gone are the companions who surrounded her as she prepared them dinners of spaghetti and salmon, and who listened to stories of her past. Gone is the 22-year-old tabby cat named Gudit, who would lick her tears when those memories made her cry.
Touboul could face felony animal-abuse charges. She fears jail time, though Sheriff Joe Arpaio said she is "too old and frail to see the inside of a jail cell."
But it's not the Valley woman's first incident involving animal hoarding. Three years ago a judge ordered she give up all but a handful of cats.
At first, Touboul seemed to comply. But on July 8, authorities found what they described as some of the worst conditions they had seen. A house was filled with cats and reeked of ammonia, cat feces and urine.
The repeated problem isn't surprising to psychologists, who say underlying causes such as anxiety or trauma must be dealt with to get beyond the hoarding.
Touboul didn't always have so many cats. The small woman, her face now lined with years, was born in North Africa. She married and had five sons in Morocco, she said.
In a voice that still drips with a French accent, Touboul said she returned home from work some 35 years ago to find her entire family beheaded. There's no way to readily confirm her claim, although Morocco was going through a nationalist movement in the 1970s with violence directed at French residents.
Touboul said she moved to France and then to Arizona about five years later.
For a time, Touboul said, she worked as a nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. County records show she lived in at least four Phoenix homes before purchasing one in Wittmann in 1999.
The retiree moved into a small, stone home in the unincorporated area 35 miles northwest of Phoenix. Rather than decorate or purchase lots of furniture, Touboul started filling her home with cats.
A neighbor said he planned to put 12 cats to sleep. Touboul took them in. Someone else had 25 cats. She took them, too.
Those cats had kittens. Each received a name.
By the time the deputies came, there were 50, maybe 60 cats, Touboul told The Republic.
Friend Lori Shindley interrupted.
"Lucy, there were more than a hundred."
Shindley met Touboul when the older woman started taking cab rides to the Surprise Walmart where Shindley worked. Shindley, who is now trying to assist Touboul, would often help as the elderly woman filled shopping carts with cans and bags of cat food, meat and fish.
"Their whole identity is rescuer and caretaker," said Corey Gonzales, a Bakersfield, Calif.-based clinical psychologist who specializes in hoarding patients with anxiety disorders.
The behavior is a coping mechanism, said Gary Patronek, who founded a research consortium in Boston to study animal hoarders.
He said animal hoarders often lack the insight to see what others do. They don't see the filth, dead animals and unlivable conditions obvious to everyone else.
Weeks after deputies removed the cats, Touboul said she did nothing wrong. Tears in her eyes, she angrily said authorities who euthanized the cats did wrong. That's not how you treat "family," she said. "They're not trash."
When kittens died, rather than dispose of them, she would freeze them until a proper burial could be given.
A sheriff's spokesman said his office notified Code Enforcement, Environmental Services and Adult Protective Services, but she won't accept help.
She doesn't want it.
"I live with my animals, that is all," she said. "Leave me alone." | Source: AZ Central - July 29, 2010
Update posted on Jul 29, 2010 - 1:37AM |
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