36 animals seized from farm - Fairfax, VT

Wednesday, May 4, 1994

County: Chittenden

Disposition: Alleged

Alleged:
» Betty Roig
» Arthur North

Betty Roig and Arthur North, Fairfax, have been charged with cruelty to animals. Thirty-six of animals were removed from their farm located on Church Road. They raise beef cattle at the farm.

They are both ordered to appear in Vermont District Court in St Albans in July. The couple is denying any wrongdoing.

Roig said, "It's nothing but a pack of lies." She blames the problems on a previous tenant. Roig said the animals were not mistreated and they were "illegally" removed from her property.

The police executed a search warrant on Wednesday and removed 26 dogs, six cats and four burros from the farm.

Roig said one of cats had leukemia. It was a cat she had been caring for after finding it abandoned in a snow bank after being tortured.

State Trooper Robert Rugg said in an affidavit that when he made an inspection of the property there were no visible sources of water or feed for the animals that were in the small barn on the farm.

The affidavit also said the fur of approximately 25 dogs that came out of the house "was discolored and matted with what looked like fecal matter an also reeked of urine."

One of the donkeys had an open wound on its stomach. The hooves of three of them were very badly overgrown and needed to be trimmed.

David McWilliams, humane officer for the Franklin County Humane Society said he has known Roig for years. "I've never found them (her animals) to be unfit, malnourished, dehydrated in an way." He said she has a kennel license from Fairfax.

McWilliams has responded on April 30 to a complaint there was dead livestock in the barn. He did not find any dead animals or "conditions that warranted removal of the animals at that time."

References

• Burlington Free Press - May 8, 1994

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