KANSAS CITY, Mo — The owner of a metro rescue group that works to help animals is now charged with nearly killing one.
Kate Quigley, director of Chain of Hope, was in front of a judge in municipal court Tuesday, accused of poisoning a dog.
Lucy is an active, happy and healthy 8-year-old dog, but her owner Willie Crutchfield said he came home one day in November to find Lucy had gotten sick several places in the yard and was acting strange.
“I came back out front and noticed two pans on the ground, a pan of water and a pan of food that I didn’t giver her,” Crutchfield said. “The next morning my dog was — she was kind of drooling. She wasn’t herself.”
Crutchfield said Lucy has food allergies and had a severe reaction to the food dropped over his fence by the folks from Chain of Hope, a nonprofit group that canvases neighborhoods in Kansas City in search of abused and neglected animals in distress.
“She is not one of them,” Crutchfield said. “My dog has got a large yard to run around in. She has a new igloo dog house that is heated. She is well fed. She eats twice a day, snacks twice a day. She needs nothing.”
Crutchfield said it took two veterinarians and hundreds of dollars to figure out what was wrong with Lucy, and her reaction could have been fatal.
“I called animal control that Monday, and I went to the office over on Prospect, and they said they have had so many complaints and cases against this woman for doing things like this and even worse,” Crutchfield said. “Apparently nothing is done to her, and she feels like she can do whatever she wants because she is getting away with it.”
Kate Quigley is charged in Kansas City Municipal Court with injuring or poisoning an animal for the incident with Lucy, and court records show she has at least two previous cases for violating the city animal ordinance.
Court representatives told FOX4 Quigley is currently on probation, but on Friday we learned she is no longer on probation.
Quigley didn’t respond to FOX 4’s requests for an interview. She will be back in court March 28.