A neighborhood wants answers after someone dumped a bag of dead puppies right near their community mailbox.
AUSTIN (KXAN) – A Texas neighborhood wants answers after someone dumped a bag of dead puppies right near their community mailbox.
The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating the case.
“Inside this plastic bag were several decomposed puppies. They were decomposed to the point that they couldn’t really be made as to what type of dog that might have been,” said BCSO Support Services Captain Michael Sorenson.
‘Hope they didn’t suffer’
Miranda Lowry and her family were the first to discover the trash bag.
“The flies were just insane,” Lowry said. “It was swarming.”
While driving into her neighborhood, Lowry said her family saw the bag at their community mailbox in Burnet. The smell was so strong, she said, that they immediately knew something was wrong.
“We had intended to just kind of check it out and then go put it in our community dumpster that we have about a half-mile down the road,” Lowry said. “But at that point, I was like, ‘No, don’t mess with it.’ “
The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office responded after she called 911. When she found out what was inside, it broke her heart.
“Something like this is really gut-wrenching,” she said.
Lowry added that animals have been dumped at the same spot at least once before.
“It was a bunch of cats, kittens (then),” said Lowry, whose family took in one of the kittens. “They were about six months old.”
Now, she says, she’ll never be able to look at a trash bag the same way.
“Every time I see a trash bag on the side of the road, I’m gonna be concerned like, ‘Hey, should we go check it out?’” Lowry said.
She has also asked her property owner association to add cameras near the mailbox, to keep this kind of thing from happening again.
What are the penalties for this?
BCSO said there are serious consequences for this type of crime.
“This is a horrendous offense. If we could locate the person who did this, we could actually fall on them a criminal offense for cruelty to animals,” said Sorenson.
Cruelty to animals is also a minimum class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by fines and jail time.