I just heard this on a dane group. I guess she was known in the dane showing circuit. Wonder what happened? Very very sad that she did not place these dogs or surrender them to a shelter. http://www.bradfordera.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18487602&BRD=52&PAG=461&dept_id=569780&rfi=6Numerous dogs discovered in Bradford Township home
By: JASON BURT Era Reporter
An agent for a local realty company hired to check on a residence for occupancy and estimate cleanup costs found a mess even he could not expect - more than 20 Great Dane carcasses.
Bradford Township Police, along with McKean County Humane Officer Tony Danias, are investigating a cruelty to animals incident at a Bradford Township home located at 320 W. Corydon St., near the intersection with Dorothy Lane.
Danias said Sunday that it was brought to his attention by a worker, Jack Buckles, going in to clean up the foreclosed house.
Buckles found several decomposed bodies of the domestic dogs lying in kennels behind the home, police said. He was hired to go to the home to begin cleaning and restoring the property so it could be put on the market. He said that when he went to a small building at the back of the property he found the bodies of two dead Great Danes enclosed in a small room likely used as a kennel.
"They had no way of getting out because the door leading to the kennel was nailed shut," Buckles said.
Buckles was upset by the discovery as he has a number of retired greyhound dogs that he had rescued and cares for.
Danias said Buckles saw the dead dogs and got a hold of him. He said because of the scope of the situation, he enlisted the help of Bradford Township Police Chief Dave Doyle and Code Enforcement Officer Merle Silvis for resources and manpower.
"People don't surprise me a whole lot," Danias said, "but this (to me) was even upsetting, to put it mildly. There's not a humane officer or cruelty officer that I know of that hasn't come to a scene for one reason or another and found a dead animal. But that many under those conditions, that was the shocker part of it.
"It was a horrific scene. There have been a couple other things that really shocked me, but I'll remember this one for a while."
The police arrived at the scene with a search warrant and protective clothing and masks.
Officers throughout the investigation found 21 dog remains, including bodies and bones of adult and younger dogs, on and near the property that were both inside two boarded-up back buildings used as kennels and throughout the land in shallow graves behind the buildings. The remains of some were found wrapped in tarps and underneath old carpet or rugs on the ground.
Police said the dogs were in varying degrees of decomposition and died during a period of three months to nine months ago.
"Some of them (search team members) were running out in the bushes and were gagging," Buckles said.
Danias said, according to local media, the smell of the decomposition likely went unnoticed by neighbors and occupants at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, which owns property that borders the back of the West Corydon Street property. He said the smell was not detected because the bodies were covered by lime, soil, debris and even dog feces.
Danias explained the McKean County SPCA works on donations and takes animals without a charge.
"If ... whoever the owner of the animal could have turned them over, we would have adopted them" without a charge, Danias said.
Danias said they took in 19 live cats from Eldred three months ago, adding that none were turned away.
The residence was recently vacated by Cheryl A. Magnotta, who had been known in the past to hold a licensed kennel for breeding Great Danes. A Google search online for Magnotta found two Web sites with a Cheryl Magnotta listed with an address of 320 W. Corydon St., Bradford, Pa., as a member of the Great Dane Club of America, winning third place in 2004 for dogs she owned in a black, female Great Dane category.
Officials said the home had been repossessed by a lending agency, and Magnotta had not lived at the house for the past several months. Police have been attempting to locate her for questioning since Tuesday.
Danias added that he had cited Magnotta in the past for neglect of the dogs and believes she let her kennel license run out, according to local media.
A police officer said a local veterinarian is examining a couple of bodies to determine the cause of death. He said the charges will likely include cruelty to animals for possible starvation and neglect.
Police said the investigation is continuing, and charges are forthcoming.
"We're utilizing a lot of Bradford Township resources in this investigation," Danias said. "And they were more than cooperative. It's going to take team work to make this whole thing go."
(Editor's note: Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald reporter Kate Day Sager contributed to this article.)