Woman charged with cruelty to animals says jewelry is gone

Animals rescued from Gustavus home

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STAFF REPORT

GUSTAVUS — The woman charged with cruelty to animals and open dumping for her handling of dogs and other animals at her rural home has reported $3,450 worth of jewelry missing from her home.

Kathy Witzman, 58, operator of Humane Sanctuary Inc. on state Route 87, filed a report Feb. 21 with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department, saying that jewelry from a jewelry box at her home was taken sometime between the time deputies arrested her early Feb. 12 and when she was released from the county jail the next day.

Witzman said she waited to report the missing items because she needed time to look for them, noting that a variety of people were in her house and that her things had been “tossed around.”

She found the jewelry box in which the gold rings and necklace were being kept, but the drawers to it were open and had been “gone through,” she said.

Witzman returns to Trumbull County Eastern District Court at 10 a.m. Thursday.

At a hearing Feb. 18, Witzman asked Judge Ronald Rice for a couple of days to pay $2,250 to retain the rights to three of the 162 dogs taken from her property for one month.

She did not meet the deadline, however, so all 162 dogs have been turned over to the Animal Welfare League of Trumbull County, which is trying to find homes for them, authorities said.