CARY, North Carolina -- Days after a photo of a dog with its mouth duct taped shut spread across the internet, police in Cary, North Carolina have announced that they located the dog’s owner and arrested her.
The Facebook post has been taken down since it was first posted on a page belonging to “Katie Brown.”
On Friday, November 27th, just before 10:00 a.m. a person with the Facebook name Katie Brown posted a photo of her dog with its mouth duct taped shut. The caption read:
Once comments started flooding in, she posted again, justifying her actions:
She later wrote:
According to the Facebook profile, Katie Brown lives in South Daytona, Florida, but she went to school at Central Connecticut State University. Police say that she has lived in both Torrington, Connecticut and Avon, Connecticut.
Police and animal control departments in all three cities investigated the post, and apparently got so many emails and calls over the weekend that some of their servers crashed.
However, Katie Brown ended up not being in any of those locations.
On Monday, November 30th, police in Cary, North Carolina, issued a press release that they had arrested 45-year-old Katharine F. Lemansky -- who had a Facebook page with the name “Katie Brown.”
Lemansky has been charged with one count of cruelty to animals, a misdemeanor, and she admitted that the incident occurred in Cary, North Carolina.
Cary Police Captain Randall Rhyne released this statement:
Lemansky faces up to 150 days in jail, as well as a fine, and she will next appear in court on December 14th in Wake County, North Carolina.
No other charges are expected to be filed against her.