Creepiness

Ok so it's been awhile and I promised to share something creepy that recently happened. This was just a little before Halloween, how appropriate.

I got a call for a Welfare Check on Animals. The complaint was that the calling party was concerned that there was a very bad smell coming from the dog owner's house. And that the owners had a lot of dogs. The Calling party was concerned that the dogs were not being cared for and dying. There was also a note about the CP being asked by the dog owner to help put dead animals in bags and in garbage. Nice huh? Oh it gets better.

This hadn't been my call originally. The call came in the previous day. The officer assigned couldn't find the address as it was dark and the streets in this particular area are very confusing. Not to mention that he was given the street name and house number! After he spent time trying to unsuccessfully find it, he pended the call for the next day. That was how I ended up with it.

Now, I was less than thrilled that day. I was assigned to work the southern part of the county. Not an area I am entirely familiar with or comfortable in. But I adapt. I was also on my last day of the week and my two week vacation, the first I have had in several years, started that next day. And after running around the entire southern parts of the county, this was my last call for the day.

So I arrived at the address and parked in front of the poorly kept front yard. As soon as I got out of my truck I could smell it. It was the unmistakable smell of death.

As an ACO this is a smell that you can recognize if you pick up a lot of DOAs (dead on arrivals) and road kill. It's never a pleasant smell, but not one that really bothers me too much.

Anyway, I wasn't even on the property yet and could smell it strongly. It was old death. Something that had been dead for awhile.

I took a quick look around to try to get an idea of location of the source of the smell. There were a couple of piles of clothing in the driveway. As I approached the driveway it smelled very strong. But I couldn't quite locate it. There weren't any trash cans. Which according to the report, the animal remains may have been put in the trash. No cans. Just piles in the driveway of clothing. I side stepped the clothes and approached the front door. It didn't appear that anyone was home since there were no cars in the driveway or on the street parked. I figured that I would end up posting a notice and clear out.

As I approached the door I saw a Missing Persons flyer attached to the front door. A young couple's picture centered on the flyer. Apparently both were missing. I knocked several times and got no answer. I didn't hear any dogs barking either. So I wrote my notice and stuck it in the crack of the door as I usually did. There just wasn't much more I could do at this point.

I walked across the lawn this time towards my truck, the smell was ever-present while I was on the property. I was about half way to my truck when the neighbor one house away caught my attention. He hollered to me that the people that live there aren't there. I acknowledged that I figured that out. We approached each other. Maybe he might know when the owners would be home as he obviously knew they weren't home.

The neighbor then told me that all the people that lived there were in jail. He then asked me, didn't I watch the news? They had found the missing couples bodies in the garbage cans at this house. Well at least the Male's body was stuffed in the garbage can right here on the side of the house. Apparently the female's body was in a garbage can and wheeled around the corner to a field and dumped out. This was according to the neighbor.

No, I hadn't been watching the news recently due to working late hours and not getting home in time for the news. But ya, wow. The neighbor told me more and showed me where the garbage cans had been next to the garage. It was then I noticed the police tape across the gate next to the garage. I also heard a small dog barking in the backyard. The neighbor told me that they had several of the small chihuahuas, maybe 6 or 7. they used to have more, but he thinks that maybe some were killed or died. He wasn't sure. He showed me the big smelly stains on the ground where the decomposing bodies were.

Wow.

He then said that the cops had been there from about 4pm yesterday until about 7am this morning and they were going to be coming back. But it was nearly 4pm and they had not returned. The neighbor stated the there was not one in the house. He didn't think anyone was going to be back to the house.

So this now became a issue. I knew there was at least one dog on the property, and possibly 7. It was also possible that the owners would not be returning home. This was also a major crime scene. And of coarse I had no luck getting in touch with any of the cops that had been on scene or were working the case to find out if I could enter the property to get the dogs or at least find out if family members were going to be back to care for the dogs.

I finally decided that since I couldn't get any authorization that I could or should enter the property, I would post a Pre-seizure notice. At least this would give the cops an idea that Animal Control was contacted and that we needed contact or something. We could always come back at the cops request. I was surprised that we hadn't been called by them when they were on scene. As this is what they usually do.

There was just too much ookieness to this whole scene.

Apparently this was a huge local news story that was on all the channels.

Ya, creepy.

Oh, and did I mention this happened on my birthday?

Happy birthday to me huh?