MONROE - A second defendant is facing a long list of animal cruelty charges and potentially prison time in connection with the discovery of dozens of malnourished German Shepherd dogs outside a rural home near Shullsburg last autumn.
The news and number of animals shocked many and was one of two major dog neglect cases in the two-county area in as many months.
That second defendant in the shepherd case, Merits Luevano-Arellano, 46, is now charged with one count of mistreatment of animals causing death, a Class I Felony in Wisconsin; and 56 misdemeanor animal cruelty/neglect charges. She is scheduled for an initial hearing at 9 a.m. February 25 in Lafayette County, before Circuit Judge Jane Bucher.
“There were was no dog food in sight, and appeared to have been none for a while,” wrote one of the investigators, in a criminal complaint describing the property.
The complaint also described horrifying conditions generally on the property and said there were indications that some of the barely living dogs may have been eating from the partially decayed carcass of a dead one.
“I spoke with (the defendant) who advised they were (a co-defendant’s) dogs, and that she had not fed them in several months either.”
The German Shepherds were first encountered on October 15, when Lafayette County deputies were dispatched to 20462 Wardsville Road in the Town of Seymour, for a check welfare case. The property was searched and at about 7:30 p.m., on Oct. 17, Jeslias Z. Murillo-Lopez, 37, was taken into custody. Later, at about 1:15 p.m., deputies and GCHS staff returned and seized 18 living dogs and one dead dog ranging from very small puppies to adult dogs — all German Shepherd breed.
Murillo-Lopez — the co-defendant facing 60 charges related to the case — is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Lafayette County Circuit Court on January 21 before Judge Jane Bucher.
His Bond was set at $25,000. Murillo-Lopez also has open circuit court cases from late September that include felony second degree sexual assault/use of force, strangulation and suffocation, child abuse-intentionally cause harm, and misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct charges).
