This is just one reason why animal advocates are not fond of breeders.
A California woman faces animal cruelty charges after police say she abandoned 134 cats in a U-Haul van without food or water in the sweltering summer heat.
The cats, ranging in age from a week to eight years old, have been removed from the van and the 106 survivors, described as “extremely emaciated,” are receiving veterinary treatment at the Merced County Animal Shelter, according to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office.
Jeannie Maxon/Facebook
A deputy found the van at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday in Santa Nella, a small town about 40 miles south of Modesto. The cats were stuffed in the U-Haul, which was left in a Taco Bell parking lot, and about 20 of them had taken up spots on the dashboard, center console and driver’s seat.
Jeannie Maxon, a 69-year-old woman from Long Beach, Calif., was charged with 93 counts of animal cruelty.
Maxon is the owner of a cat breeding business called Magicattery, which she’s touted on her personal Facebook page and an Instagram page specifically dedicated to the breeding operation. A separate site on its own domain remained up as of Tuesday evening and says the breeding operation specializes in Persian and Himalayan kittens.
A screenshot of Maxon’s Instagram page for her breeding business.
Many of the cats and kittens are dressed up, wrapped in pearls and ribbons, and posted with accessories in the photographs Maxon shared on social media. Maxon was active on Facebook and Instagram until late 2024, according to her visible public activity on both sites.
It’s not clear why she abandoned the cats. California does not have a state licensing system for breeders, but individual towns and cities may require breeders to obtain a license.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Maxon had retained an attorney.
Merced County Animal Shelter said in a Facebook post that the cats will be put up for adoption once they’re all stabilized and receive proper veterinary care.
The cats were found in extremely poor condition and were described as “severely emaciated” by police. They were abandoned without food or water. Credit: Merced County Sheriff’s Office
The suspect had been spotted by several people who live in the neighborhood, who said they saw him luring cats with food and injecting at least one feline with a needle.
For the past two years, people in Santa Ana, California, have sworn there was a serial cat killer in their midst.
The allegations picked up steam this week after a local TV station aired a segment from angry and confused neighbors whose pets disappeared, as well as others who saw the suspect injecting at least one cat and scooping up others. The neighbors shared information on a hyper local platform, zeroing in on one particular neighbor.
On Wednesday, the Santa Ana Police Department arrested 45-year-old Alejandro Oliveros Acosta and charged him with felony animal cruelty in connection with the case. Investigators were able to put together enough information to obtain a warrant, and a search of Acosta’s home turned up the corpses of “dozens” of cats, according to Officer Natalie Garcia, public information officer at the Santa Ana Police Department.
Heartbreakingly, Garcia said there were too many bodies in Acosta’s home for police to put an exact number on how many cats he’s allegedly killed. Police are still putting together the details, and more charges are likely.
A press release from Santa Ana police says the department is working with animal control and a neighboring police department. In addition to the evidence they collected in Acosta’s home, several neighbors positively identified Acosta as the man they saw luring neighborhood cats with food, scooping up a breed cat, and injecting another. One cat was left hanging from a tree, while others simply disappeared, preventing their people from finding closure.
“Isaw this same man grab [a] neighbor’s cat, inject it with a needle and some sort of substance,” one local told KTTV, a Fox affiliate in Los Angeles. “And [the neighbor] saw him and she yelled, ‘Hey!’ at him to get his attention. He got up and ran, jumped in his truck and left. And from what we know that cat died, and the owner went and put in a police report.”
Santa Ana is about 10 miles southeast of Anaheim, not far from Long Beach. Acosta was charged and sent to county jail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he’d retained an attorney.
The bishop of Little Rock called the allegations “disturbing” and said Thessing would not serve his two home parishes while the criminal case plays out.
An Arkansas priest was suspended by his diocese this week, one day after police found dead cats during a search of his home.
Charles Thessing, a 63-year-old “senior priest” and pastor at St. Michael Church in West Memphis and Sacred Heart Church in nearby Crawfordsville, was charged with two felonies on Tuesday. Police, working from information provided by a tipster, found a pair of dead cats, a water tank where Thessing allegedly drowned the felines, and animal traps, according to the West Memphis Police Department.
The Rev. Charles Thessing. Credit: Diocese of Little Rock
The tipster initially contacted a shelter on Feb. 7 with the information, according to police.
“We were very fortunate that someone, a concerned citizen brought our attention to the situation and we addressed it immediately,” Kerry Facello, Director of West Memphis Animal Services, told local CBS affiliate WREG. “The West Memphis Police Department worked so fast in obtaining a search warrant and allowing us to investigate further and see exactly what was going on.”
In a letter to parishioners at St. Michael and Sacred Heart, Diocese of Little Rock Bishop Anthony Taylor confirmed the arrest, adding “the allegations are disturbing, and as your bishop I take them very seriously.”
“Having heard from numerous voices within the parish, the school, and the broader community; having consulted with others; and having given this matter much prayer and consideration, I have determined that Fr. Thessing cannot continue serving as an effective pastor for your parishes,” Taylor wrote.
Thessing also has supporters, Taylor noted, while asking for parishioners to pray for the priest.
Thessing’s mugshot. Credit: West Memphis Police Department
Thessing, who has not spoken publicly since his arrest, smiled in his mugshot, which was released by West Memphis police. Per the bishop, Thessing will not minister to his parishes or perform any of his regular duties while the case reaches a disposition. The bishop did not say what could happen if Thessing pleads to the charges or is found guilty.
Thessing has been a priest for 37 years, according to the diocese.
Police say their investigation is ongoing, and they’re asking anyone with more information about Thessing to contact them. Under Arkansas state law, aggravated cruelty to animals is defined as “knowingly torturing a dog, cat, or equine,” and is a felony.
If Thessing drowned the cats, as police allege, that would put him at odds with the church. Pope Francis has been particularly outspoken on animal welfare. He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and chose Francis as his name for his papacy, after the Catholic patron saint of animals.
His 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, was the church’s strongest and most unambiguous condemnation of human treatment of animals, including cruelty, factory farming, exploitation and pushing animals toward extinction with our behavior and our public policies.
In the encyclical, Pope Francis condemned “tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures” and stated clearly that animal life has intrinsic value, rejecting the argument often used by literalists who claim that God, through Bible verses like Genesis 1:26, created animals and the Earth for our use, as if they’re merely tools or resources for the advancement of the human race.
“[N]owadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures,” the pope wrote.
He also echoed psychological concerns about the mistreatment of animals as a strong indicator that a person will harm humans.
“We have only one heart,” Francis wrote, “and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people.”
Allexis Ferrell pleaded guilty to felony animal abuse, but she still hasn’t explained her actions.
A judge struggled to find words for his anger while handing down a sentence to an Ohio woman who ate a cat in front of her home this summer.
On the night of Aug. 16, 27-year-old Allexis Ferrell grabbed a stray cat and began eating it while it was still alive. Footage from freaked-out neighbors shows Ferrell on all fours in a driveway as she devoured the poor animal.
When horrified police officers arrived and asked Ferrell why she ate a cat, the woman — whose mouth was covered in blood — had no answer.
She still hasn’t explained her actions.
“This is repulsive to me. I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not,” said Stark County Judge Frank Forchione. “I can’t express the disappointment, shock, disgust that this crime has brought to me.”
The judge says he considers Ferrell a threat to the community.
Shocked neighbors called the police when Ferrell attacked the cat.
On Monday, Forchione sentenced Ferrell to a year in prison, which she’ll serve in addition to 18 months’ prison time for two earlier cases involving theft and child endangerment. The one-year sentence is the maximum for felony animal cruelty in Ohio.
The incident made national headlines not only because it was vile, but also because the details weren’t made public until September — after then-candidate Donald Trump claimed immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets.
Unscrupulous social media influencers and clickbait “news” sites added to the confusion by initially tagging Ferrell as one of the pet-eating immigrants, despite Canton’s location some 170 miles northeast of Springfield. Ferrell is an American citizen and was born here.
Oddly, although follow-up stories reported Ferrell’s attorneys petitioned the judge for drug and alcohol abuse treatment for their client, there was no mention of Ferrell being under the influence of drugs or alcohol the night she killed the cat.
Here on PITB we’ve flagged stories that illustrate the disturbing normalization of violence toward cats and other animals, but this incident defies categorization. Hopefully Ferrell is given the help she needs and is prevented from ever owning or interacting with animals in the future.
Video shows teacher Emily Marie Benner telling her students to hold the screaming cat down as she stapled shut an incision on its abdomen. The students then cheered for Benner, who is not a veterinarian and not licensed to teach veterinary surgery.
Regardless of whether she’s convicted, Emily Marie Benner’s career as an educator needs to end.
Benner is an agriculture teacher at Westwood High School in Palestine, Texas, about 110 miles southeast of Dallas. The 25-year-old was arrested and charged with animal cruelty over the weekend after giving students in her animal science class an unimaginably cruel “lesson” in crude unlicensed veterinary “surgery” on a living cat, local media reported.
On Aug. 23, Benner had her students hold the cat down while she stapled an incision on its abdomen shut. The procedure was performed without anesthesia and footage shows the cat was terrified and screaming. Benner is not a veterinarian, nor is she qualified to teach anything related to veterinary medicine.
After Benner administered the staple, her students began cheering, the video shows.
Local media showed a still image but said the video was too disturbing to air. Credit: CBS KYTX
It’s not clear where Benner obtained the cat or whether she made the incision to begin with. KYTX, a CBS affiliate in Texas, said it had “obtained a copy” of a video showing the incident, but declined to air it.
“The video is graphic in nature and we are choosing not to share it online or broadcast it on television,” KYTX’s Zak Wellerman wrote.
The cat is now under the care of a licensed veterinarian and is recovering, according to local media reports.
Benner. Credit: Anderson County Jail
Benner did not appear to be remorseful. In a mugshot taken after her arrest, she beams as she wears a t-shirt that reads “Teach Ag.”
In a letter to parents, Westwood Superintendent Wade Stanford said Benner’s actions amounted to animal cruelty, and said he wanted “to make it absolutely clear that our district takes such matters extremely seriously.”
“This behavior is not in line with the values and standards we uphold within our district,” Stanford wrote, “and we are committed to taking immediate and decisive action to address this issue.”
It’s not clear if Benner has retained an attorney, and a preliminary hearing for her case has not yet been scheduled. She faces a maximum sentence of two years in state prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.
Pain In The Bud 