ER - "Dogs seemed fine"

"Dogs seemed fine," Animal Control Officer Edwards says
by Heather Muller , 8/18/2006

With plenty of blame to go around in the Mad River dog abuse case, plenty of people have lined up to deflect it.

The most recent is Trinity County Animal Control Officer Christine Edwards who reiterated Friday that she “never had any idea” dogs housed at the former residence of Roberta Bugenig were being abused — this despite a letter sent to Edwards in November 2005 from Eureka legal firm Morrison, Morrison & Cooper.

The letter, signed by Daniel Cooper, “respectfully demanded” Edwards do something to address “serious problems with the health and well-being” of the animals.

While she acknowledged receipt of the letter, Edwards said a deputy from the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to the residence, and no evidence of abandonment or neglect was found.

“I had deputies go and check, and they were fine,” she said in a telephone interview.

Subsequent to that inspection, Trinity County’s legal office sent a return letter to Cooper, stating that Trinity County had no obligation to remove animals left at the residence.

“Officer Edwards investigated the status of the animals, and they are fed daily and otherwise cared for by Stacy Malcolm. You haven’t supplied proof that there are ‘serious problems with the health and well-being of the animals.’ Nor is there indication that a crime has been committed, and prosecution warranted.”

The letter continued, “Under the law, animals are considered to be personal property. This involves a civil dispute between a landowner and tenant. Your remedy is under the provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 1174 for storage and redemption, or sale of the animals.”

“Whenever law enforcement is overwhelmed and they don’t have the resources, suddenly it’s a ‘civil matter,’” said Allison Jackson, who provided the Cooper letter to The Eureka Reporter.

No stranger to the law herself, Jackson is an attorney at The Harland Law Firm in Eureka, and a former prosecutor with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

“They want to make it a civil matter, but it’s not,” she said.

But Edwards said that at the time of the November inspection, the situation did not meet the legal definition of abandonment.

“I want to stress to you again, if these animals were abused and were dying, I would have been there,” Edwards said.

But at some point, the animals inarguably were abused and dying, and by Edwards’ own admission, she last checked on the welfare of the dogs in November or December of 2005.

People told her the dogs were fine, she said. “That’s good enough for me. I don’t have time. I’m just one person.”

Edwards is, in fact, the one and only person charged with animal control in all of Trinity County.

When Trinity County Sheriff Lorrac Craig was asked if he believed he had adequate resources to manage the animals in the county, his response was unequivocal.

“Absolutely not. Christine gets more calls than our patrol units get,” he said.

“I think last year was 1,800 calls, in addition to everything else,” Edwards said.

“At this point, the deputies have to fill in when Christine’s not there,” Craig said. “And that’s a little difficult, because like today, I only have one patrol deputy on. That makes it a little difficult when you’ve got 3,200 square miles of county.”

Sheriff’s deputies, typically dispatched from Weaverville, also have extensive drive times to contend with. Checking up on the Bugenig dogs would easily have consumed half a workday.

“Like today, if something goes on in Mad River, I’m going to be looking at a two-hour response time, even if they roll code-3,” Craig said.

But neither Jackson nor Shannon Miranda — who rescued the 13 surviving dogs — believes a lack of staffing was to blame.

“Christine Edwards had enough time to tell me to butt out,” Miranda said. “She actually told me she would have me arrested if I went on the property to look at the dogs.”

Miranda tried to intervene in the situation as early as June 20, he said, when he was informed by Cooper that the Bugenig dogs were in bad shape.

But Edwards, Miranda said, told him to mind his own business.

While neither Edwards nor Craig admitted any wrongdoing in the matter, Edwards said the tragedy probably would change the way she does her job.

“It makes me open my eyes now, too,” she said. “A lot of people have a lot of dogs in this town, and I need to just start going by more often.”

And Craig hopes the incident will result in increased funding from the county for animal control. “I’m attacking it in my budget already this year. It’s something that will come to the forefront in this year’s budget discussions,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see how the board will react to this kind of situation.”

Where have all the dead dogs gone?

Investigators trying to determine the magnitude of the macabre dog abuse case near Mad River may now have an additional obstacle to overcome: a lack of evidence.

Mad River residents informed The Eureka Reporter that the remains of dozens of dead dogs had been removed from the former property of Roberta Bugenig shortly after the 13 surviving dogs were rescued.

“If there were other dead dogs there, I have no idea where they went,” said Timothy Noal Gray, defense attorney for John and Stacy Malcolm, the Mad River couple expected to be charged in Trinity County with multiple felony counts of animal abuse.

But later in the Wednesday interview, Gray reversed course and said that the carcasses and bones had been “cleaned up.”

“I don’t know who took them,” he said. “I didn’t ask the question because when I got there, it had already been done.”

Gray said he first saw the property on Aug. 12, two days after the dogs were discovered by Steve Frick, a law enforcement agent with the U.S. Forest Service, and one day after the survivors were rescued by Frick and Shannon Miranda, owner of Miranda’s Animal Rescue in Fortuna.

Trinity County Sheriff Lorrac Craig confirmed Friday that the dead dogs had been removed, but said he didn’t believe this would present a problem for the prosecution should charges be filed against the Malcolms.

“I don’t know that we need to determine how many dogs there were,” Craig said. “All we need to do is determine that there were dogs.”

Of that there is proof in abundance.

Trinity County Animal Control Officer Christine Edwards said she plans to obtain a copy of video footage shot during the Aug. 11 recovery of the 13 survivors so that a charge can be filed for each dog — dead or alive.

“I want to be able to say, see, there’s a skull, there’s a skull and there’s another skull,” Edwards said.

She also said she plans to present evidence linking dogs found at two dump sites near Mad River to the Bugenig dogs so that additional charges can be filed.

But given the cleanup of the remains at the kennels and the possibility of additional dump sites, it may never be known how many dogs once lived, or died, on the property.

Estimates have ranged from the mid-50s to more than 100.

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