A recent Evansville, Indiana, police report describes a horrific scene with dead kittens packed in a freezer, more long-dead cats and a house full of maggots and “brown matter.”
Responding officers described a scene with a strong ammonia odor that burned their eyes. One of them threw up.
“I observed litter boxes with feces,” one officer wrote. “The feces that was once solid had now become liquefied. Maggots moved in and around the litter boxes appearing to have not been touch(ed) for a significant amount of time.”
Officials described a “brown matter” on the stairs to the basement that appeared to be “a mix of animal feces, mold, and other unknown substances.” It was so slick, they needed to use the handrail.
Who was charged in the Evansville animal cruelty case?
Martin L. Haugland, 65, of Evansville, faces 10 misdemeanor animal cruelty charges. He says he’s innocent.
The statute under which Haugland was charged appears under the legend, “Abandonment or neglect of vertebrate animals,” in Indiana Code. It states, “A person who: has a vertebrate animal in the person’s custody; and recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally abandons or neglects the animal; commits cruelty to an animal, a Class A misdemeanor.”
Haugland told the Courier & Press that the cats were never his and belonged to the man who owned the house and died recently. But Abbi Fahse, an officer with the Evansville Police Department’s humane unit, said Haugland had established residency in the house.
“Even though (the cats) didn’t physically belong to (Haugland), he still lived in that house for an extended period of time, which makes him just as responsible as (the homeowner) — which if (he) were still alive, he’d face the same charges,” Fahse said. “He still had just as much control as (the homeowner) did, to the cats.”
Haugland told the Courier & Press that the deceased homeowner had planned to bury the cats officials found in a freezer.
Why are there no felony charges?
The charges are misdemeanors and not felonies, Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers said, because they stem from the allegation that 10 cats under Haugland’s care and control at 919 E. Mulberry St. — eight cats that were still alive plus the two on the basement floor — suffered starvation and dehydration, not physical injury or abuse.
“We would have charged (Haugland) with more if we could have,” Moers told the Courier & Press. “It’s just really unfortunate that the (Indiana) animal statutes don’t reflect the severity of these crimes, in my opinion.”
There were actually 18 cats total, dead and alive, in the house on Mulberry, according to EPD’s Humane Unit.
The 10 separate cruelty to an animal counts that Haugland faces account for the eight cats found alive and the two that were dead on a floor. The eight dead cats found in a freezer — six of which were kittens — aren’t part of the criminal case against Haugland, officials said, because they do not know the cause of death.
Officials say no one cleaned the cats’ litterboxes, cats needed water
Abbi Fahse, an officer with EPD’s Humane Unit, said Haugland had established residency and had — like the homeowner — failed to tend to the cats’ litterboxes. Ever.
Fahse’s report stated that Haugland told her the homeowner “never” cleaned out the litterboxes, and neither did he.
The two dead cats found in the basement had been dead for a long time, according to the police report — one near the bedroom Haugland once used. Haugland said he didn’t know about them, and he’d since moved to a room upstairs.
After a necropsy, officials found the two cats had died of starvation and dehydration.
Haugland said those cats probably died when the homeowner was in the hospital. They were “sick anyway,” he said.
Harrison Maglinger, one of the officers who responded to the scene, had to leave the basement to vomit; and both he and Fahse contracted fleas from the home, according to the report.
The house’s main floor also had brown matter covering the stairs, furniture and ceiling fan, the report said. In the bathroom, officers found a bathtub full of grey, foggy water and a toilet with mold and maggots moving along its base.
According to Fahse’s report, Haugland told her the homeowner fell sick three years before his death and stopped cleaning the house.
Local nonprofit traps remaining cats
Local trap neuter return (TNR) nonprofit Feline Fix filed a complaint about the property at 919 E. Mulberry St. in Evansville
Feline Fix trapped cats inside and outside the house and took control of their care. Representatives of Feline Fix said the cat food Haugland left was covered in feces and bugs. Any water he may have left was long gone, said Feline Fix founder Jamie Taylor.
Feline Fix said the property had been abandoned, but that Haugland was the last known resident.
How are the surviving cats doing now?
Fahse said they are already in markedly better condition. Those cats had fleas, high white blood cell counts and what Fahse’s report calls “eye complications due to the high levels of ammonia and smoking.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Responders sickened by animal cruelty case after they found dead kittens in freezer, starved cats
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne and Jenny Porter Tilley, USA TODAY NETWORK / Indianapolis Star
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