Aurora Woman Starves Her 102 Cats – Sued for $35,000

Shirley Left 102 Cats to  Starve in Garage!

Police Sued Aurora Woman For $35,000 for Mistreating her 102 Cats

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102 cats were discovered dying of hunger and thirst in Shirley Bowman’s garage, after she took off for a 2 week holiday, jailing her cats in her 2-car garage, without providing them any food or water.

Shirley Bowman, a woman in her 50s, was hoarding 102 cats in her mansion home in Aurora, the second largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Most the cats were inbred and ranged from young kittens to elderly cats.

The garage temperature reached 100F and the poor cats were dying and stinking up the place so bad, that the smell reached the neighbor, Kevin Dickes.

Kevin came investigating the smell and saw a dead cat hanging on the garage door, which probably got stuck there till it died. Other cats were found on the rafters or in air ducts in their desperate attempt to escape and survive death….

Six cats died before rescue arrived and eight other cats were so sick they had to be put to sleep.

Aurora Animal Control officers had to call in police and firefighters to help. They had to wear firefighter masks to cope with the dead animal and feces odors, enhanced by the high temperature in the garage.

The surviving 87 cats were malnourished, dehydrated and starving. The cats were rounded up and sent to the Aurora Animal Shelter to recover and find new homes.

Shirley was charged with animal cruelty and inhumane care and was fined $35,000.

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4 thoughts on “Aurora Woman Starves Her 102 Cats – Sued for $35,000”

  1. My that’s sooo crazy! i don’t believe it! Did she really do that to her POOR LITTLE CATS? SHE must be crazy and tremendiously mean to do that! What a bad person…

    Reply
  2. Yup. And she still gets to keep her government job in Maine. It makes me wonder about the security screening processes they use for employment. Animal cruelty doesn’t seem to be a big priority to them, but I would think that someone would consider that the serious lack of good judgement that caused this whole thing might cause other similar problems in a work enviroment.

    Some of the above statements are incorrect. There was food in the garage, but no water (?), and it was Aurora, Colorado where she lived.

    Reply
    • @Marisa: That is really something terrible! Why do they let such people keep their jobs? She should be put in jail for good and forbidden to ever have any pets again! Such a terrible thing to have done to her poor little cats…
      You say that there was food? I was not aware of that, since all 5 of our sources told us that there was none.
      Thank you for correcting us!
      :)

      Reply

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