October 25, 2017
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
A warrant has been issued for a Custer City woman charged with cruelty to animals, a criminal felony, after she failed to appear in court recently.
39-year-old Sandra Lynn Larkey was scheduled to appear for a recent preliminary hearing conference. After her “no-show” in court, her bond was raised from $1-thousand to $5-thousand dollars.
Larkey was charged in August with one count of cruelty to animals after a deputy allegedly found a number of animals with little food or water. Some puppies had open sores on their backs, around their mouths and other places. Some were bleeding.
According to the probable cause affidavit, someone had advised the sheriff’s department that there were about 20 dogs near the intersection of Custer County roadways 21854 and 880 not getting fed or watered.
When deputies arrived, they found a yard and barn pasture areas full of tall weeds, trash, pieces of scrap metal and other materials along with several undrivable vehicles. Nearby were two horses and a donkey behind some fencing. One allegedly had sores and scabs around its nose with green runny mucous streaming out of both nostrils. Flies covered their coats.
The court document says deputies found a couple buckets of what looked to be old, rotten horse feed and a couple of bags of horse cubes that had been torn open, but were in poor condition.
Three pit-bull mix dogs with ribs, spine and hips sticking out met the detective appearing to be females that just had puppies. One had a large abscess on her jaw that looked to be infected. 18 puppies were found drinking from a mud puddle on the side of the road and eating the rotten horse food lying in the grass.
The animals were transported to animal rescuers affiliated with Friends for Life.
After leaving Larkey a message regarding the situation, she called the deputy back the following day saying she didn’t think there was anything wrong with any of her animals. She advised him that there was a large concrete trough behind a barn that held several gallons of water and that she had food out for the dogs and horses and had recently gotten more. She told the investigator that she could supply proof, documentation for the deputies report.
A bench warrant for Larkey’s arrest was issued on Monday.
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