In Humane Hands

As the rescued animals are tended to, a deputy asks for 205 charges against the woman.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

Animals rescued from Gustavus home

Gallery

GUSTAVUS — Officials have fielded complaints about Kathy Witzman’s Humane Sanctuary Inc. for at least five years — from rats crossing the road in front of her house to odors resulting from animals’ being burned.

In the end, an insider infiltrated Witzman’s operation, volunteering there for six weeks while photographing the conditions and turning over her evidence to Deputy Harold Firster of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department.

That led to the revelation Friday that Witzman, 58, was housing 162 dogs, 15 cats, 14 chickens and five ducks in and around her home on state Route 87, about four miles east of state Route 11.

Firster and officials with the Animal Welfare League of Trumbull County say the animals were not being cared for in a humane way.

“We had a snowfall a week ago, but there were no tracks” around any of the cages outside, Firster said, adding that the volunteer who worked with him has said the animals received some food but not enough.

Witzman’s 97-year-old mother also was found living inside the house with 17 live and two dead dogs. She was taken to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.

Firster, the sheriff department’s environmental officer, filed criminal charges Tuesday against Witzman in Eastern District Court in Brookfield, where she will make an initial appearance at 9 a.m. Thursday.

She has been charged with one count of open dumping, a felony, and at least one count of cruelty to animals.

Firster said the dumping charge is for filling a 55-gallon drum with animal bones and carcasses and piling them up and covering them with straw in another location.

Firster said he has asked Sean O’Brien, an assistant county prosecutor, to file 205 counts of cruelty to animals for the total number of live and dead animals found in the house, backyard and a barn.

Witzman was kept in the county jail overnight Friday and released without having to post bond Saturday afternoon.

Bob Phillips, a Gustavus trustee, said he’s been hearing complaints about Witzman for five to six years, including the rat issue.

But when Phillips toured the home and grounds Friday after police officers removed Witzman and close to 200 animals, he had a chance to look over the grounds.

“I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t know how bad. The thing that got me was the house,” Phillips said. “It was just a smell you couldn’t believe.”

Throughout the house, including Witzman’s mother’s room, there was a layer of feces on the floor “like carpeting” that had been pressed down by the animals into a hard surface, Phillips said.

“I’ve had dairy cows for 30 years, and I’ve never had a smell like that,” Phillips said.

Over the years, Witzman’s place has apparently become a popular spot to drop off dogs people don’t want, Phillips said, adding that he’s heard that the animals frequently come from Pennsylvania and Cleveland.

A large percentage of the dogs are pit-bull mixes, mostly bigger, short-haired dogs.

Debbie Agostinelli, shelter director for the Animal Welfare League, said dogs inside the house apparently had eaten some of the flesh off two dead dogs in a bedroom.

This is not the first time Firster has filed charges against Witzman, who moved into the home around seven years ago, a neighbor said.

In November 2007, Firster received a complaint from the township fire department, which was called when Witzman was caught burning two dogs and a duck, a sheriff’s report says. Witzman told authorities she “didn’t know what else to do” with the dead animals.

A felony illegal-dumping charge was filed against her, and the case was bound over to a county grand jury, but the grand jury declined to indict her.

Reports on file at the sheriff’s office show deputies also were called to her home for animal complaints in December 2005 and April 2007.

Meanwhile, the Animal Welfare League is caring for all of Witzman’s animals at undisclosed locations, including 160 dogs in one former manufacturing facility.

Since Friday, volunteer veterinarians have been examining each of the dogs, treating their wounds, giving them vaccinations and testing them for heart worm and intestinal parasites, said Barbara Busko, Animal Welfare League president. The dogs are also receiving food, water and exercise.

Brenda Motsco, a veterinarian from Geauga County treating dogs Tuesday, said nearly all of two-dozen animals she saw were undernourished.

Busko hopes foster owners take temporary custody of some of the other dogs until a court determines whether the animals can be released to new homes.

Amy Beichler, executive director of PAWS Ohio, the Public Animal Welfare Society of Cleveland, was helping out at the warehouse Tuesday and said the dogs are in a “a good place now” compared to where they were on Friday.

runyan@vindy.com

HOW TO help

Donations sought

Additional help is needed in the private location where the dogs are being housed, along with additional money to feed them, pay for the 60 animal cages, vaccinations and $12 heart-worm tests that have been purchased.

To help: Call (330) 394-3515 or (330) 399-2086.

Source: Barbara Busko, president,

Animal Welfare League of Trumbull County