A substantial new reward from a local shelter is providing incentive for the return of Willa the cat, who was stolen from her home by an Uber Eats driver in January.
It’s been two months since a delivery driver working for Uber Eats allegedly stole their cat, but a South Carolina family is determined to get their feline family member back.
Four-year-old Willa the cat was a fixture in her neighborhood, known and loved by neighbors and people taking walking tours of the area. The 17-pound Calico, with her magnificent floof and striking coat pattern, could usually be spotted lounging on the front porch of her home, where she liked to watch people going about their business.
Now Pet Helpers, a shelter in Charleston, is helping keep the story in the news and creating greater incentive for people to join the search for Willa by offering a $2,500 reward for her return, in addition to a reward the family is offering.
On Jan. 15, shortly after delivering Greek food to a home on the same street, Katy Barnes of Goose Creek, SC, allegedly scooped Willa up, carried the Calico to her SUV, and drove off.
Willa’s family, the Layfields, did not have an angle on the cat-napping from their home security cameras, but cameras belonging to neighbors and a gym about a mile away show a woman police have identified as Barnes taking Willa, then pulling over and discarding the feline’s collar and AirTag.
Despite her arrest and the footage, Barnes has refused to cooperate with police, claiming she no longer has the Calico. If she did simply release Willa, as she claims, she did it during the coldest season of the year during a deep freeze, when most of the country was seeing single-digit or sub-zero temperatures. That’s a challenge for any cat, especially a feline accustomed to an indoor life.
“I am amazed that people can be so cruel,” Liza Layfield told PITB. “Why? Why would this person take their animal and then put her out to essentially die? Why would Katy take Willa and refuse to give her back or tell us anything about her whereabouts in the face of freezing temperatures and snow? Why would she want to torture a family over a cat that is apparently no longer in her possession? We cannot understand, and it is keeping us awake at night.”
Despite the stress of the situation, the family has continued their relentless efforts to get Willa back.
Charleston police have taken the case seriously, arresting Barnes and charging her with petty larceny. They secured a search warrant for Barnes’ home, which did not turn up any signs of Willa, and they arrested her a second time, charging her with littering for disposing of the collar and AirTag and keeping her in police lockup overnight twice in two weeks.
The message: they’re not letting this go either. Neither are locals, who have rallied to support the Layfields and have started a petition asking authorities to do as much as they can to help find Willa, and calling on Uber to do more to help. Almost 1,700 people have signed the petition, and it continues to accrue signatures.
In the meantime, the Layfields have turned to their community for help. An email account they set up has yielded promising tips, and neighbors have been on the lookout for Willa in Charleston as well as in Goose Creek near Barnes’ home.
“It is very much an active and ongoing investigation,” Liza Layfield told PITB.
“We love our animals as our children, they are a part of our family, and we can’t rest until she is found.”
The reaction says volumes about our society’s sense of proportionality, our collective understanding of animals, and our ability to politely disagree on topics we feel strongly about.
This hasn’t been a great week for feline PR.
Not only did two celebrities come out with bizarrely forceful anti-cat sentiments, but from their statements, they both “hate” cats because they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior.
The fallout hasn’t been good either, for the actress and rapper involved, or for the more extreme animal lovers who have responded with disproportionate rage.
The first comes from rapper Docheii, who insists cats “genuinely aren’t friendly animals.”
“yall be scratched and beat tf up by your own animals I can’t lmaoooo,” the towering intellect from Florida wrote on social media.
Cats, she asserted, “don’t wanna be domesticated.”
Presumably she got that information from the Pew Center for Feline Public Opinion, and the rest of us simply aren’t privy to the latest opinion polls among cats. And here I thought our furry friends were mostly ambivalent about anything that doesn’t involve napping, playing and eating. (I took an informal poll of Bud. He responded with a simple “Fetch me a snack, will you, human?”)
A promo shot of Doechii, real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon
Regardless, even if there was some way to ascertain how cats feel about a process their ancestors initiated — one that takes thousands of years to result in speciation — it’s irrelevant. The decision was made 10,000 years ago when The First Kitteh was drawn to a human settlement by the promise of rodential prey in abundance.
Modern cats have no more say in the matter than we have in our ancestors slaughtering dodos. It happened. We can’t change the past.
The actress vs the ‘pedigree bitch’
The second bit of anti-feline sentiment comes from Jessie Buckley, an Irish actress who is weirdly proud of forcing her husband to ditch his two pet cats when they began dating. She talks as if she’s been waging a personal war against the species, and her reason for disliking felines also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their behavior.
Buckley’s comments were made on a podcast late in 2025, but resurfaced this week and went viral as her Oscar buzz reached its peak. On the podcast, Buckley said one of her husband’s cats was a “pedigree model bitch” who was orchestrating a “coup” against her.
She thinks the cat had it out for her: “I’d come home and there’d just be, like, poo on my pillow.”
This is actually sad, because people who really know cats, who understand why they behave certain ways, will immediately understand that they don’t have accidents out of spite. If the cat was eliminating outside her litter box, there was a legitimate underlying problem causing her a great deal of stress.
She could have been injured, she could have been sick, or she could have been plagued by the cumulative stress brought on by the presence of a hostile woman who ludicrously saw her as competition. Our furry friends are much more perceptive than generally realized, especially when it comes to our emotional states, and Buckley’s hostility would have been immediately apparent.
Buckley with co-star Paul Mezcal, who was equally enthusiastic in his intense dislike of felines, telling an interviewer: “Yeah, f— cats!”
Alas, Buckley didn’t reluctantly ask her then-boyfriend to give up his cats. She demanded it, then did a victory lap when he complied, which makes me suspect she was merely taking the whip out for a test drive before further commitment. If he’s willing to abandon two pets, he’s almost certainly going to be a pushover when she begins to prune his friends from his life, starts dressing him the way she likes, maybe even monitors his phone. *shudder*
“It’s me or the cats,” Buckley said she told her husband. “But I won!”
Congratulations, I guess?
The rage of cat lovers
As ludicrous as it seems, the backlash may cost Buckley an Oscar. Personally I don’t keep up with the approximately 200 awards ceremonies actors hold to fete themselves annually, but apparently Buckley turned in a solid performance in a movie called Hamnet.
She was considered the front-runner for an Academy Award. Now critics are openly wondering about her chances.
As always, these sorts of statements reveal a lot more about the people involved than they do about cats. I just wish people understood the species a little better, so maybe attitudes won’t default to anger or hostility if, say, a scared cat scratches a person who corners her, or a kitty with a stomach bug pukes on the carpet.
When a toddler gets sick, we don’t respond by yelling at the kid, blaming him and chasing him off. We make sure he’s okay, give him some medicine or take him to the doctor, and clean up the mess. Cats are essentially furry little toddlers, with the same innocence as children. When we adopt them, we agree to care for them.
Both Buckley and Docheii have been hammered on social media since their comments went viral, and it’s important to address that too. They expressed opinions. That doesn’t make them “pieces of s—,” “worthless human beings,” “scum” or any of the other nasty things some people have been saying.
We can disagree with them without overreacting, even in the age of dehumanizing online conversation.
Maintain yourselves!
And honestly, it makes all of us look bad. The day Walter Palmer returned to work is forever seared into my mind. Palmer was the American dentist who infamously and illegally lured Cecil the lion out of a protected area and killed him to take his head as a trophy in 2015.
Worse, Palmer — who had a history of getting in trouble for breaking the law while hunting — killed Cecil with a bow and arrow in order to claim some meaningless hunting record for himself and bungled the point-blank kill shot his guides had lined up for him. Cecil, who was an iconic lion with a distinct mane, suffered for hours before he died.
People were understandably angry, and protesters showed up outside Palmer’s office the day he returned to work. Most of them behaved themselves. But as Palmer made his way toward the front door of his dental practice, one of the protesters let loose a blood-curdling scream and shouted “WAAAAALTER PAAAAALMER!“, vowing vengeance for Cecil.
Palmer returning to work while media and protesters crowd him.
That moment of unhinged, unregulated rage overshadowed the good intentions of every person who registered their displeasure calmly and politely — and provided ample ammunition to those who enjoy painting all animal lovers as lunatics.
Buckley and Doechii expressed opinions we don’t like, and that’s their right. The best thing we can do is explain why they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior, and show them that cats really are loving, friendly animals — it just takes a little patience and trust. I say that as the faithful servant of a cat who can be particularly prickly and a complete lovebug, depending on the circumstance.
In the meantime, celebrities who hate cats should probably take a pass on broadcasting their intense dislike and save themselves the resulting headache. Sadly, we no longer have any sense of proportionality when it comes to disagreements, and no one gets a fair shake when things are litigated via social media.
Named after a powerful prime minister, Palmerston was a hungry stray who was found on the streets of London and quickly made his mark when he was appointed mouser to the UK’s Foreign Office.
Some sad news today: Palmerston, the UK Foreign Office’s strong-willed mouser and foil to Larry the Cat, has passed away.
Palmerston was scooped up in 2016 “as a hungry, underweight stray wandering the streets of London, with no owner traced and no microchip,” London’s Battersea Cats and Dogs noted in a post.
The Foreign Office staff were looking for a new mouser to keep rodents at bay in Whitehall when Battersea recommended the cute tuxedo, and recognizing greatness, the staff brought the little guy on immediately and named him after Henry John Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, who served as prime minister in the 1850s during the height of the British Empire.
Palmerston the cat, just two years old at the time, took to his new job with enthusiasm — perhaps too much so. The territorial tuxedo quickly developed a reputation for turf battles with his rival mouser, No. 10 Downing St.’s Larry the Cat.
Their skirmishes, which often occurred within the full view of reporters and photographers covering UK government, soon became the stuff of legend, producing several iconic images of the two felines in battle in their eternal struggle for status as top cat in the UK government.
The fearless feline’s hijinx included invading Larry’s inner sanctum in 2016 when he snuck through an open door at No. 10, and while Larry was known for visiting his “lady friend,” Maisie, Palmerston struck up a relationship with Freya, another mouser with a post on Downing Street.
When society’s gears grinded to a halt with the 2020 lockdowns in response to the COVID pandemic, Palmerston “retired” to the countryside with his loyal human, former Royal Navy officer Andrew Murdoch.
Little Lord P enjoyed the quiet life for several years before thrilling fans a year ago with his announcement that he was returning to public life as “feline relations consultant” to Murdoch in his new post as governor of Bermuda.
Admirers followed Palmerston’s antics in the tropical locale via updates on social media. He was living the high life, free of Larry’s evil machinations.
Palmerston patrolling Downing Street.
Palmerston died on Feb. 12, Murdoch wrote in a post on the famous feline’s X account.
“‘Palmy’ was a special member of the Government House team in Bermuda, and a much loved family member,” the post reads. “He was a wonderful companion, with a gentle nature, and will be sorely missed.”
A reply from Larry’s account indicated the former rivals had called a truce: “Farewell old friend,” Larry’s servants wrote on his behalf.
Palmerston, left, and Larry, right, during one of their epic battles while Palmerston was still top cat at Whitehall.We had a lot of fun with the Palmerston-Larry rivalry here on PITB, admiring both mousers.
While this is sad news, Palmerston will not be forgotten, and we’re confident he’ll take to his new post across the rainbow bridge with the same zeal he applied to his work on behalf of the people of the UK. RIP, little guy.
Hat tip to our friend Platypus Man, who notified us of today’s sad news. If you enjoy photos of far-flung locales, check out his blog, which features posts about his many travels around the world. Thanks, P!
The family has pleaded for the return of four-year-old Willa, but the the woman accused of taking her has not cooperated and the Calico has now been missing for two weeks.
Despite an arrest, a criminal charge hanging over her head and widespread scorn from locals, a delivery driver has “refused to speak about” what she did with a Charleston family’s cat after allegedly stealing the Calico.
A story in Charleston’s Post and Courier details the herculean efforts by a family to get their cat back after 38-year-old Kathleen “Katy” Barnes allegedly stole the feline on Jan. 15, shortly after receiving a $15 tip for delivering Greek food on the same street.
When the Layfield family returned home that day, four-year-old Willa was nowhere to be found. The Layfields checked their security camera footage, which last showed Willa about 45 minutes before the family returned home but did not show her disappearance.
Since the extent of Willa’s outdoor activities involved straying no further than a few feet from the home, and mostly consisted of her sitting on the family’s front porch, the Layfields were worried and went to bed for an “uneasy” and “restless night,” per the Post Courier. When Willa’s AirTag pinged at 4 am near the Lindy Renaissance hotel about a mile away, Daniel Layfield got out of bed and rushed to the location. The device had been tossed in the street along with Willa’s collar.
The family has been relentless in tracking down information about Willa’s disappearance and getting access to surveillance camera footage from neighbors and local businesses, which is how they found footage of Barnes allegedly taking Willa (spotted on a neighbor’s cameras), then additional footage of her SUV stopping in front of the Lindy Renaissance hotel.
In video the Layfields pulled from a nearby gym’s surveillance cameras, Willa is seen on the dash of Barnes’ silver SUV. Barnes grabs her, removes the collar and AirTag, and tosses both out of the car before driving off again.
The Layfield family has also appealed to Barnes through statements to the press.
“Please let us know where she is,” Daniel Layfield said per the Post Courier, “if you have any compassion for animals and people.”
Charleston police deserve credit for taking the case seriously, going above and beyond what most departments would do in similar cases. They were able to secure a warrant to search Barnes’ home in Goose Creek, SC, but did not find Willa.
And this week they arrested Barnes for a second time, charging her with littering for disposing of Willa’s collar and AirTag, according to the Post-Courier.
It was the second time in about a week that police kept Barnes in overnight lockup, likely to send a message that they will not forget about the case. The Layfields have also enlisted the help of people who live in Barnes’ Goose Creek neighborhood, asking them to keep a lockout for the Calico, who has distinct markings.
This case is reminiscent of the theft of Feefee, a cat belonging to the Ishak family of Everett, Washington. Fefee was taken in the summer of 2024 by an Amazon Flex driver, and like the Layfields, the Ishaks had solid footage they were able to provide to the police, which led them to identify and track down the woman who took their cat.
That woman also refused to cooperate with police or tell the family what she did with their cat, despite their pleas and assurances that they weren’t interested in anything other than getting Feefee back.
Like the Layfield family, the Ishak family’s cat was well loved by the entire family, especially the kids, so Ray Ishak took the next several days off work and began driving around in an increasing radius, looking for the vehicle the Amazon contractor had been driving in the footage.
He found Feefee a few days later, scared and cowering in the bushes near the driver’s apartment. The driver had allegedly dumped the cat instead of returning her to the family, despite initially agreeing to bring her to the local police department.
In both cases, the families did everything right in their efforts to recover their four-legged family members.
They posted to social media, posted flyers, rallied support, and asked others to help spread the word. They reached out to local media, sent copies of the footage, then made themselves available for interviews and to plead for the return of their cats.
They also filed reports with the police and complained to the corporations — Amazon in the Washington case and Uber in the South Carolina case.
While Amazon is notoriously slow to respond to incidents like this and has repeatedly infuriated victims by treating the thefts as customer service issues, Uber said it contacted the driver and tried to persuade her to hand over the cat. While Barnes can’t technically be fired, as she’s a gig worker, the company said she will no longer be allowed to contract for Uber Eats.
“What’s been reported by the Layfields is extremely concerning,” Uber’s team wrote. “We removed the driver’s access to the Uber app and are working with law enforcement to support their investigation. We hope Willa is safe and reunited with her family.”
Unfortunately Willa’s been missing for two weeks now, and like most of the US, the normally temperate Charleston has been in a deep freeze, with temperatures plummeting below zero.
Because South Carolina views pets as property, as many states do, the worth of Willa’s life is pegged at a few hundred dollars at most, and she’s treated in the eyes of the law as an object.
That means the most severe charge the police could arrest Barnes for is petty larceny, a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to 30 days in county jail and a fine, if she’s convicted.
It is important to note that despite the footage, the charges are an allegation, and Barnes remains legally innocent pending a possible conviction.
But because the charge is just a misdemeanor, there is no pressure for her to cooperate and help the family get Willa back. (Or return her, if she still has the cat in her possession.)
Historically, pet theft has been associated with two primary motivations: thieves target breed cats and dogs because they believe they can make easy money selling them, whole others use stolen pets as bait or “training” for the violently conditioned dogs used in dogfighting. Some also target pedrigree pets to breed them.
In both these cases, and others that have been in the news recently, the thefts were crimes of opportunity, not pre-planned, and the cats were moggies. In addition, the cats were spayed/neutered. That rules out monetary gain by reselling or breeding. It also stretches credibility to believe gig workers are somehow more likely to be involved in dog fighting.
This is something new, a category of theft that may have began in earnest during the COVID era, when people felt isolated and shelters were literally being emptied due to the dramatic uptick in adoptions. Unable to find a companion animal through normal channels, some people stole pets for themselves.
But the shortage was short-lived, shelters and rescues are back in the familiar situation of having too many animals, and there’s no impediment to someone simply adopting a cat or dog instead of inflicting trauma on the animal and its family.
We hope the Layfields receive good news soon, and Willa is returned to the warmth and love she’s known with them.
Your cat may mean the world to you, but in American courts she’s no different than a TV or an air fryer.
With a quick resolution to a UK cat theft that made international news, it’s become clear that our friends across the Atlantic are way ahead of us in crafting laws that protect animals.
In the US, the legal system views pets as property. You can see the vestiges of our agricultural past in the way animal-related crimes are categorized. Here in New York, they’re found in Agriculture and Markets law, not the state penal code.
The former was written to handle things like compensation for killed or stolen livestock, not to recognize the emotional damage a thief does to both the person and pet when they’re separated.
Today laws forbidding puppy mills and defining the responsibilities of municipal pounds are lumped in with legislation governing things like farm fencing and how horses may be tested for performance-enhancing drugs ahead of county fairs. It’s archaic, confusing and limits the legal consequences for mistreating pets.
Credit: Breno Cardoso/Pexels
That means the penalties for stealing someone’s beloved dog or cat amount to a slap on the wrist. Your cat may mean the world to you, but in the eyes of the court she’s worth the $175 fee for adoption and shots you paid to a shelter.
That’s also why police enforcement is a crapshoot. If someone makes off with your furry friend, you might get lucky when you find out the local sheriff loves his dogs dearly and makes sure animal-related crime is taken seriously.
Or you might get a desk sergeant who thinks you’re wasting department resources, glowers at you from behind the desk as you submit your report, and leaves it in a pile with other things he believes are beneath the dignity of real police.
It’s easy to blame the police, but their attitudes are impacted by the outdated laws and a society that hasn’t caught up. SPCA law enforcement officers are often treated like Ace Ventura with a badge, and police agencies are reluctant to devote significant resources to cases that will amount to misdemeanor charges, which can be pleaded down further in court.
Credit: Alexandros Chatzidimos/Pexels
Compare that to the West Yorkshire police, who launched an investigation when security camera footage showed an Amazon delivery driver stealing a family’s cat a week ago. Happily the feline has been reunited with her people and is back home, but neither the driver nor the company are off the hook, as the police still have an active investigation.
In the UK, courts take animal-related crimes seriously, and so do the police. That’s because of several important pieces of legislation, starting with the Animal Welfare Sentience Act of 2022.
The law finally frees cats and dogs from any remaining association with property laws. Instead they’re viewed as what they are, sentient creatures who have their own feelings. It also recognizes animals like the octopus, which can be startlingly intelligent.
That opens the door to legislation like the Pet Abduction Prevention Act of 2024, which takes into account the trauma to the human and animal victims. Both dogs and cats are likely to be deeply confused and distressed at being taken from their people, and cats in particular don’t do well when removed from their territory.
When a judge sentences a person for, say, stealing a family’s beloved senior dog, he can take into account the stress both the family and dog endured, and the disruption to their lives. When a couple breaks up and both sides fight over a cat, the judge can base a decision at least in part on what’s best for the kitty.
You can’t do that when a law says the animal in question is no more important than a toaster.
The 2024 law cited more than 2,000 dog abductions and more than 400 cat thefts in 2020, and it has legal teeth — judges have discretion to put convicted pet thieves behind bars for as many as five years.
American lawmakers should take a look at how things are done across the pond. At a time when rancorous politics and divisive ideology stains almost everything, this is an opportunity for legislators of all ideological stripes to work together, earning a win for themselves, and most importantly, for animals.
Pain In The Bud 