ROMAYOR -- More than two dozen animals -- including two puppies "eaten alive with maggots" and who later died or had to be euthanized -- have been seized from property near this Liberty County town.
Jerry Mack Reynolds, 36, a store stocker, posted $1,000 bond on a misdemeanor animal cruelty charge Wednesday afternoon. He had been arrested Tuesday at his residence in Cleveland, sheriff's Capt. George Ellington said.
About 20 dogs, 8 cats, a squirrel and rabbit -- most sickly and showing signs of malnourishment -- were seized during a raid of Reynolds' property, a fenced acre with a wooden house on Cindy Lane in Horseshoe Lake Estates, authorities said.
Neighbor Denise Harper, 61, a retired piano teacher, said she stayed up all night using tweezers trying to remove more than a thousand maggots from one puppy that later died.
"First these animals are infested with fleas and then flies lay eggs in the blood from the bites and they grow into maggots," Harper said. "They were being eaten alive by the maggots. I'd think I'd gotten them all and then there would be more hatching."
No dishes with food or water had been left for the animals, and neighbors said Reynolds had not been seen at his property for at least a week, Ellington said.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Houston has impounded the animals.
"We've been looking at this case for more than a year," said SPCA spokesperson Stacey Wilbanks. "The owner has had ongoing problems with his animals but stayed just inside the letter of the law. We would point out problems and he would temporarily fix them. But this time we understood the owner had disappeared."
The confiscated animals, Wilbanks said, needed immediate medical attention for such things as open wounds, maggots, mange and worms.
"One puppy with maggots died en route to our shelter and another had to be euthanized," she said.
Keeping a squirrel in captivity also violated state game laws, Wilbanks added.
"These animals were thin," she said. "We were starting to see their ribs. They couldn't have survived much longer without water in this heat."
Reynolds had told neighbors he was operating a "no-kill" shelter and collecting donations, but he never had the necessary facilities or equipment, Harper said.
Some of the animals were found roaming the fenced yard, others were kept in small cages and others locked in a dilapidated house with boarded windows without air conditioning, authorities said.
"The conditions there were filthy with feces and garbage strewn about," Wilbanks said. "It was a classic example of hoarding, where a person wants to surround himself with unconditional love like only animals can provide, likes to see it as divine intervention, but can't care for them."
Harper could get a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. A hearing on the impounded animals will be held Wednesday. |
