BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Bradford deputies arrested a 42-year-old Brooker woman after they said she entered a neighbor’s RV without permission and stood by while her dog attacked and killed her neighbor’s dog.
Mary Catherine Holton was arrested on Wednesday, November 13, for aggravated animal cruelty. She pleaded not guilty to the charge.
According to an arrest report, the victim arrived home on the evening of Thursday, November 7, to find her small maltipoo dog “Tuxedo” dead in a pool of blood.
The victim also found a pink tumbler cup on her kitchen counter, which she said did not belong to her, and a black sneaker outside the residence with the matching shoe in her kitchen.
“(The victim) stated that her dog was very friendly and would run to the front door and bark every time someone approached,” wrote reporting officer Zachary Jones in the arrest document. “(The victim) also stated that the previous evening, while turning her vehicle around in her driveway, there was a white female walking a brown dog she described as a boxer in her driveway.”
The deputy added that after the victim asked the woman to leave her property, the “woman angrily yelled back before leaving.”
Several neighbors told deputies they saw a woman with dirty blonde hair walking around the area with what they described as a tan and brown pit bull.
Surveillance video shot the day after the crime from a nearby home showed a woman walking with a tan and brown dog, and four construction workers repairing the victim’s house the day before the incident told deputies they saw the woman in the video walking the dog while holding a pink tumbler cup.
Deputies then contacted the defendant at her home.
“Holton stated that she was walking the brown and tan dog and had gone onto the victim’s property and believed that God told her to go into the RV.” wrote Jones in the report. “Holton stated that upon entering, the brown and tan dog attacked the victim’s dog. Holton stated that she did not know if the dog died or not and left.”
