Facts that are known:
1) Neither Tim Croft nor Sue Croft have a business license in the state of KY for either of their transport companies, Furry Purrs-n-Whiskers Transport and TCTransport.
2) No health certificates were issued for the adult cats on this transport (the kittens were not required to have them based on their age).
3) Per the Greenville shelter, Amy Verder of Let Them Live Rescue, the receiving rescue, was asked by them directly if she wanted health certificates for the cats on this transport and she declined to have them issued.
4) The appropriate local agency, the Spencer County Humane Society (the local AC officer worked out of this office at the time), was never contacted by Let Them Live Rescue in regards to this. This was a crucial mistake and it greatly compromised this investigation for the purposes of obtaining justice for the deaths and suffering of these cats that this transporter caused by his callous disregard for their welfare.
5) The version of events as told by Amy Verder of Let Them Live Rescue has changed as detailed below. Why is the big question here, because when someone is telling the truth their version of events does not change to such a degree.
6) All of the appropriate agencies have now been contacted - not by the receiving rescue as you would expect (or at least there is no evidence to support this), but by the two women who investigated this situation. The USDA, the KY Dept. of Agriculture, and the local Spencer Co AC officers have all been contacted.
7) The Dept of Ag. investigator has reportedly taken their report of this tragedy and they are attempting to file charges against Tim Croft in Barron County where he lives. This remains unverified at present and the source is Amy Verder so that makes it somewhat questionable. I certainly do hope this is true though.
8) The USDA has not yet responded to the information sent to them or to the messages that have been left for them. The individuals investigating this will continue to follow up on this to ensure that this is addressed via the USDA to the best of their ability.
Articles written by Dena Stapleton who investigated this tragedy (photos and Tim Croft's confession letter are included):
http://www.examiner.com/pet-advocacy-in-national/animal-transporting-laws-and-common-sense
http://www.examiner.com/pet-advocacy-in-national/animal-transport-gone-bad-by-the-crofts
http://www.examiner.com/pet-advocacy-in-national/the-legal-side-to-the-horrible-transport-by-tim-croft
Narative by Crystal Harley who investigated this tragedy:
On June 21, a transport by Tim Croft, and organized by Sue Croft, delivered between 40-45 cats to Let Them Live Rescue in KY. The cats were sent from the Greenville, SC shelter and there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the number of cats sent and the number that was reportedly received. This is just one of many inconsistencies in this situation and Amy Verder, the receiving rescue, lied about many facts in this case and slandered me in the process. I know the truth and so does she. She had asked me to investigate this situation and get the word out about it on June 21st, the day the transport arrived with the 4 adult cats and 14 kittens that had been killed and the other cats in very bad shape. She gave me verbal permission (on the phone) on this date to publish the photos of the dead cats and their carriers. She told me that she had taken photos of ALL of the cats but later this was revealed to be a lie. This was the first of many lies told by Amy during this investigation. On June 29th, Amy all of a sudden refused to cooperate further w/me in this investigation and said that she had not given me permission to post the photos on my page. She also said that she did not want all of the publications re: this on Facebook. When I questioned her about this later on the phone, she said she thought I was only going to publish the photos in the DNA/DNR/DNT group on Facebook. Yeah, that makes sense since there were over 1,600 members in that group and it was an open group, meaning that ANYONE on Facebook could have seen them. She is a liar. When I publicly stated on my warning note re: the Crofts that she was refusing to cooperate in this investigation, she and her daughter proceeded to attack me on her page and to slander me with their ridiculous lies. I officially ended my friendship w/Amy that day and I have had no contact w/her since my last email to her on July 1st. I also withdrew any support of Amy personally or of her rescue that day as I announced on my page. That has been my only public statement re: her until now. Amy proceeded to report the photos that I published of the cats on the transport and my note (since it contained some of the photos) to Facebook for copyright infringement and Facebook removed them. I now realize how important it is to get permission in writing, but since Amy was a so-called friend it never occurred to me that I needed this at the time. Amy did this out of vindictiveness, a need to control how things were presented and obviously NOT because she wanted this off of Facebook as she claimed. I also strongly suspect that she wanted some of the attention that I was getting which believe me I would have gladly shared with her since I never wanted any of that myself. I told her that I was being bombarded with messages re: all of this and that I was having a hard time keeping up w/all of them, even though they were all very supportive and welcome so I was grateful for them.
By all appearances, Amy never actually did much to aid in this investigation, or to do anything to get the Crofts reported in order to hopefully be prosecuted for their crimes. She never reported this horrific tragedy to the appropriate local agency, nor is their any record that I’m aware of that she called the Dept. of Ag or the USDA. She stated that she called the police on June 21st and that they refused to help her. I have no verification that this call was ever made. I told her that day to call the Dept. of Ag and the USDA and I wondered later why she would never answer my repeated questions re: whether or not she had contacted them before she stopped cooperating with me in this investigation. She had not done so as far as I can tell and she must have known this was not right. She has since misrepresented many things in this case, including that there will be criminal charges forthcoming. Their MAY be criminal charges but that is not a certain thing and she strongly implied that there would be, even going so far as to list the # of counts. The appropriate agencies have been contacted, but not by Amy Verder (as far as we can determine) who apparently only went to the effort to conspire w/Sue and Tim Croft on how to spin this entire situation to the advantage of everyone other than Tim Croft who is now the scapegoat for everything. Nice! Don’t get me wrong - Tim is a POS person and what he did to those poor cats I could never forgive but that still does not justify the rest of this.
You might be wondering why Amy would do all of this. I have the answer and it is as I suspected on June 29th and what I told her that day - Amy is covering her ass on something. I know what that is and I’ve known for quite some time now. At the time though I had no idea what Amy was covering up and I was unaware that Amy had also made a horrible mistake with this transport. Many of Amy’s initial statements which she stood by from June 21st until she all of a sudden decided to stop cooperating on June 29th were fairly consistent. So why the big change in attitude on June 29th? Why did Amy proceed to communicate with Sue and Tim Croft? Why are Amy and Tim going overboard to try to protect Sue as it seems to obviously be the case in Amy's note on this topic? My theory: the three of them made a deal: Tim takes the fall for the neglect/abuse of the cats which WAS directly at his hands. Sue gets off on her involvement in this b/c hey, why should they both go down since they already have Tim to take the fall, signed confession included? Sue was reportedly PER AMY, the primary or sole liason for communication during this transport and the person w/whom Amy made all of the arrangements. Amy stated in her Tim Croft DNT note that Sue had nothing to do with the transport at all??? Hmmm… She also mentioned my name many times, clearly trying to disassociate herself from me and to discredit me w/her lies. For someone who claimed she wanted this whole thing off of Facebook, she certainly did the exact opposite. Maybe she wanted the attention but mostly she wanted TO BE IN CONTROL, which is sadly a false illusion on her part. NO ONE IS IN CONTROL OF THE TRUTH, which was my only objective as a means to getting justice for all of these kitties who suffered and died. The same holds true for the person helping me in this investigation and the truth is what we are reporting. I am certainly including the lies, discrepancies and any unanswered questions as well. You are all smart enough to draw your own conclusions.
Amy's version of events changed dramatically right after Dena Stapleton told Amy on June 29th that she thought the shelter had some responsibility for the fact that these cats were transported without health certs. I do not hold the shelter responsible for this, as ultimately it is the responsibility of the transporter and the receiving rescue to make sure all is in order re: the required health certs. I do think that it may be wise for the shelter to require this in the future when animals are being transported across state lines, just because you cannot count on people to do the right thing. The fact that these cats were transported without health certs is the direct result of irresponsiblity by Amy Verder and Sue and Tim Croft. They all should have known better and with the exception of Tim, I can say with certainty that they DID know better.. they just chose not to follow the transport laws. So did Amy think that Dena and I would not contact the shelter or that the lack of health certs would just automatically be assumed to be the fault of the transporters? I can't say for sure but it is no coincidence that within minutes of this conversation that Amy had with Dena, her attitude dramatically changed with me. I will also add that prior to this I had attempted to get the full name of the person that Amy usually dealt with at Greenville shelter and she refused to provide this to me. Why was this if she had nothing to hide?
There is a slight discrepancy between what Andrea w/the Greenville shelter told Dena and what she told me re: whether or not Amy had always gotten health certs in the past when she pulled from their shelter. I have asked Andrea for clarification on this point but at present it still remains unclear. However, Andrea told Dena that Amy has not always obtained health certs in the past for animals she pulled and Amy had also read an email to me from Andrea over the phone that stated the same thing so I tend to believe this is the case. As far as this particular transport, it seems clear that Amy declined to obtain health certs when she was asked by Andrea if she wanted them for these cats. Statements to me from the Greenville shelter on 7-7-11:
"Crystal,
Amy came in person and picked up the cats the first time she did a pull from us- I had health certificates issued, I asked her this time and she did not request them." "I will not be sending any more cats to them, not unless it’s by a transport that we are affiliated with and work with regularly. This has been an awful thing that should have never happened."
Sincerely,
Andrea Sams
The Cat Rescue Coordinator at GCACS
One other note is that Amy Verder was well aware of the fact that Sue Croft had previously shown, in April of this year, no regard for the transport laws re: health certs. The fact that Sue claimed on her transport company (you know, the one she fabricated since this was not a legal company) website that her first transport was in March of this year and yet in her communication w/me in April, she claimed to have no knowledge of the transport laws re: health certs is the ONLY reason that I published my communication w/Sue in April. I have no personal issue w/Sue whatsoever and I have never made any prior attempt to expose her for this publicly until this tragedy occured in June. Sue and I had an argument in April when I made her aware that her planned transport at that time was an illegal one since she admitted to me that she had no plans to obtain the required health certs for the animals in question. The next day Sue made me aware that she had decided to get the required health certs and this was the end of this situation. I decided not to expose Sue for this mostly because she had decided to abide by the law but also because I did not want to cause any issues for the shelter in question and I concluded that there was really no need for this. I knew that I would certainly never have anything to do with Sue again in the future and the night of this argument with Sue, I had made Amy aware of it and in fact I sent her the private communication between Sue and I so that she could see for herself. So why Amy would have ever chosen to use her (or her husband) for transport later truly baffles me. Could it be that she was willing to use the Crofts b/c Amy does not truly have a high regard for the transport laws herself as demonstrated by the fact that she declined to obtain health certs for the cats in this June tragedy?
Screenshots of my April conversation with Sue Croft:
http://rescueundercover.blogspot.com/2011/07/sue-croft-claimed-in-april-to-have-no.html
Amy's original version of events as she reported them to me on June 21st:
Amy Verder called me on June 21st and made me aware of this tragic transport for the first time. I had no prior knowledge that she was planning to pull these kitties or to use either Sue or Tim Croft for their transport or for any transport for that matter. Amy had never admitted to me that she had used Sue Croft for transport since the April transport mentioned above and in that case Sue was not the transporter but the coordinator and the rescue or so she claimed. Amy seemed to be understandably upset as this was shortly after she said she discovered that many of these cats were dead and the rest were in very bad shape, suffering from severe dehydration and urine scald. I have no idea if at this point she had taken the surviving cats to the vet or not.. she never said that she had so presumably she had not. Amy asked me to investigate this so that we could hopefully get justice for these innocent kitties and to get the Crofts blacklisted in rescue far and wide and I agreed to help her. The following are the facts as she initially presented them and which she stood by until June 29th, when she suddenly refused to cooperate further in this investigation.
Amy told me that her initial agreement was w/Sue Croft to transport these cats to her rescue in KY from the shelter in Greenville, SC. She said that later Sue asked her if it would be okay if her husband, Tim Croft, drove the transport instead and Amy agreed to this. Amy NEVER told me that she was aware of Sue being out of town on another transport during the time that Tim drove this particular transport. In fact, AMY LED ME TO BELIEVE THAT SUE WAS IN THE HOME WHERE SHE STILL LIVED WITH TIM DURING THE NIGHT OF 6-20, WHEN TIM SLEPT IN THE HOME WHILE THE KITTIES SUFFERED AND DIED IN HIS CAR. To be fair, she was not 100% positive on this but Amy's later statements indicate that she knew Sue was not at her home that night. There is no way that both of these claims can be true so once again, Amy lied. Amy said that she made all of the arrangements with Sue Croft, including the payment arrangements, not with Tim Croft. She also said that during the transport itself, Sue was the primary, if not the sole, liason for information that was relayed to Amy.
Apparently there were several delays during the initial day of the transport, June 20th, and it was not until very late that night that Amy was contacted and made aware that Tim was too tired to complete the transport as planned and that he had decided to stop at his home in Cave City, KY to sleep and then he would continue the transport in the morning to Amy's home. Amy said that she was told that Tim would bring all of the cats inside his home and provide them with food and water during the time that he was home. Amy also said that Tim had only brought a couple of carriers with him when he went to the Greenville shelter to pick up the cats but that they were filthy (they were covered in feces) and that the shelter would not let him use them. Tim purchased cardboard carriers for all of the cats from the shelter and this is what they were transported in.
The next day, Amy said that Tim had gotten lost trying to find her house so Amy met Tim approximately 10-15 mins away from her home. Amy said that when she arrived at wherever they met, Tim was standing outside of the car, all of the windows in his vehicle were rolled up and the car was not running. She said it was in the 90's that day so basically the cats were sitting in an oven. Amy said that the first thing Tim did was to ask her for the money for the transport and Amy said she paid him. Then they started to unload the cats into Amy's vehicle but Amy said that 2 adult cats and 6 kittens were loose in Tim's vehicle since they had chewed their way out of three of the cardboard carriers. Amy stated that she had two regular carriers in her vehicle and that they placed the loose cats inside her carriers. Amy said that many of the cardboard carriers had been chewed through and that Tim had taped them up w/black electrical tape. Amy also told me that Tim admitted to her at this time that he had left the cats inside his vehicle with the windows rolled up during the entire time that he was at his home the night before. Why Tim would have volunteered such info is a mystery and it really does not make much sense. Amy claimed that she had not looked inside any of the carriers to check on the cats at this time. Why she did not I have no idea other than the fact that Amy said Tim was in a hurry to get somewhere. Still though it would have made sense to make sure what condition the cats were in, especially in light of Tim stating that he he had severely neglected to provide basic care for them and knowing that the cats had been left in a enclosed vehicle for many hours in the summer. Also, since there were loose cats in the car, wouldn't it have made sense to count the cats to make sure they were all accounted for? It seems now that there were in fact a few cats missing so their fates are still a mystery as well but we know it could not have been good. Amy's initial total of the number of cats received on this transport was 12 adult cats and 29 kittens. She later ammended this total to 12 adult cats and 32 kittens on June 29th. It appears from the shelter's records that 47 cats were sent on this transport, leaving 3 kittens unaccounted for. What happened to these poor babies?
Amy said that when she arrived back home she left her vehicle running w/the A/C on and started to open the carriers to assess the kitties and this is when she discovered that many of them were dead and the rest were in very bad shape, mostly due to severe dehydration but she said they had urine scald as well. She told me the initial death count was 4 adult cats and 14 kittens when I asked her this. I also asked her if the cats had health certs and she said she did not know - she said the paperwork was a mess and she looked through it while we were on the phone and she then told me that she did not have any health certs for them. Amy claimed that she had called her local police and that they refused to take a report or to come out to her property. I made her aware that she needed to contact the KY Dept. of Agriculture and the USDA right away to file complaints with them. Amy told me that she took photos of ALL OF THE DEAD CATS on this transport. That was a lie and one of the first that I became aware of. She sent me just under 20 photos on June 21st but I did not look at all of them right away b/c frankly the whole situation had made me feel ill and I had to brace myself to look at the photos either later that day or the next day. I am sure this horrific situation made Amy ill as well and in spite of the fact that Amy screwed this whole investigation up royally, I still do have a lot of compassion for what she went through that day and also the fact that she had to deal w/more deaths later and very sick kitties. Amy also told me that the youngest of the kittens (approx. 2 weeks old) had been transported in separate carriers than their moms were in. This is extremely sad and heartbreaking to me that moms and their tiny babies were deprived of even the small comfort of being together while they suffered and died. When I looked at the photos later I realized that she had only sent photos of a few dead cats, but there were several photos of THE SAME DEAD CATS so really, out of 18 dead cats, there were only 3-4 tops in this one box that she took several photos of. Why? She included photos of some of the cats that were alive, the boxes and carriers but not all of the dead cats as she had claimed she had done. It was very, very odd. The last death toll that Amy reported to me a few days before she decided to stop cooperating in this investigation was 5 adult cats and 19 kittens.
Additional info from Amy later and my conclusions:
I asked Amy later where the rest of the photos were. She said that she sent me all of the photos she had taken. This was either a lie or she fabricated other photos later b/c she sent Dena photos that she never sent to me. I challenged Amy on why she did not take photos of all of the dead cats as she originally claimed to me that she had. She said it was because she did not have a camera and had used her cell phone to take the photos. When I pressed her on this, she said that her camera had been broken for some time and that she used her cell phone to take these photos and basically said that I should be glad she was able to take as many as she had b/c she had to delete some of her other photos in order to make room for the ones that she took re: this transport. I was devastated by this revelation from Amy b/c I knew that the photographic evidence was the closest thing that we had to any physical evidence in this case and now we had very little of that to work with. No official investigation, report or documentation of the physical evidence and now very limited photographic evidence as well. Extremely disappointing. I told Amy that her story about the camera was not even believable (and to clarify I wasn't saying she was lying, just that this was not a realistic excuse); I made her aware that she had three other adults w/cell phones in her home, she could have borrowed a camera from someone she knew in her area or she could have purchased a disposable camera. Amy only got pissed about my pointing this out but she greatly compromised this investigation by not even getting complete photographic evidence and it was a huge blow.
Also, for the record, Amy never told me initially that these kitties (or at least some of them) were already sick w/URI's when they left the shelter. She only told me this much later but I point it out b/c these kitties were already in a vulnerable condition prior to this transport of hell and if anything the care they received during the transport should have been more than what would be required or expected had they all been healthy.
I did not realize initially that Amy needed to call her local AC facilty (the local ACO at that time was also the magistrate in her area) since I do not live there and therefore I don't know her local area that well. Amy later claimed that she had in fact contacted the Spencer County AC office but this was a huge lie. The Spencer County ACO, Jerry Davis, denied that Amy had ever contacted them in regards to this transport. This was actually the first huge mistake that Amy made that compromised this investigation and the main reason why it is doubtful that criminal charges for the death and suffering caused to these kitties will ever become a reality.
Amy claimed (during the time that she was still cooperating in this investigation) that the only agency she had contacted was the KY Secretary of State to attempt to verify if the Crofts had business licenses for their respective transport companies: Furry Purrs-n-Whiskers Transport and TCTransport. As I stated above, Amy refused to answer my repeated questions to her about whether or not she had contacted either the USDA or the Dept. of Ag. There is absolutely no record as of yet that she ever contacted either agency. Dena is the only one who contacted the Dept. of Ag and got the report filed with them. It was only because of Dena's efforts that the Dept. of Ag investigator went out to Amy's home and got Amy's statement. There is no confirmation at this time that charges will be filed against Tim Croft as Amy strongly implied.
The only thing that Amy really did that could be considered helpful in this case is in getting Tim to confess in writing to his crimes against these poor cats. However, I strongly suspect that even though Tim most certainly does deserve to be held accountable for this, he is also being set up a bit by Sue and Amy to take the fall for everything. Sue was also very complicit in this particular transport as she organized the entire thing and was the liason during the transport. Amy was guilty of refusing the health certs offered to her by the shelter which as we all know is a violation of the transport laws when crossing state lines. I firmly believe that at least Sue and Amy conspired together in an attempt to minimize the fallout for themselves. In the end, they both cared a lot more about covering their own asses than they ever did for getting justice for these defenseless kitties. Tim should be charged with criminal neglect and abuse of these cats but since he reportedly has some sort of a significant mental health illness, I would not be surprised if he is able to get his confession thrown out and without that, there is absolutely no case, since thanks to Amy there is no record of any physical evidence to document the horror that took place. Frankly, I expect that not only will Sue and Amy get away with their disregard for the laws but Tim will too. I hope I am wrong on this one and if so I will be happy to see some measure of justice for the unimaginable horror and pain that all of these poor souls suffered at Tim's hands. It just is not fair to only blame Tim for the horrible outcome in this case.
Amy also reported to me on June 29th that Sue Croft had made an agreement with her to reimburse her for the costs of the medical treatment needed due to the severe dehydration and whatever other health issues the cats had as a result of Tim's neglect and abuse. Prior to this Sue had refused to pay for this is my understanding. Amy told me that she told Sue that if she wanted to keep this out of civil court that she would have to pay these vet bills. The estimate that Amy gave me for the vet bills was $577. I have no idea if Sue ever paid her anything towards these bills but based on what Amy told me that day it did not sound very likely that Amy would see any money in the near future. So does this factor into the conspiracy between Amy and Sue? It is certainly possible and since Amy claims that she can't afford an attorney, perhaps making a deal w/Sue was the only way she thought she would get reimbursed for these expenses. It still in no way justifies Amy's lies and this cover up as nothing could justify victimizing these poor kitties all over again. It also begs the question - if Sue was not involved in this transport as Amy now claims, as they all claim, they why the hell is Sue making an agreement to pay Amy for these vet bills? I know it is not out of the kindness of her heart, lol.
So what this comes down to is that we have two people who claim to be paid transporters but that have no business licenses, a cruel and heartless man who directly caused a great deal of suffering and deaths for the cats on this transport, a questionable rescue who lied over and over and apparently conspired w/at least one if not both of these so-called transporters to protect themselves. The kitties are the only victims in this and my heart breaks knowing that they suffered as they did and I am sad that there will most likely not be any real justice for those who are responsible. I hope that I have been able to illustrate how some of these other factors played a role in this tragedy. If Amy had not chosen to use a questionable transporter and if she had not agreed to let the said transporter's husband drive the transport instead, these cats never would have been in this monster's care. If Amy had reported this to the appropriate local agency, there would have been documentation of the physical evidence and an excellent case for criminal charges for the deaths and the suffering caused. If Amy had not stopped cooperating in this investigation and had not conspired w/the Crofts to at least protect Sue, she would be seen in a much more favorable light now, even in spite of her own huge violation of the law by not obtaining the required health certs. She has brought a lot of negative attention to herself and to her rescue as a direct result of all of this. I am sad to say that based on many things that I am learning from credible sources about Let Them Live Rescue, this seems to be way overdue. In addition, if Amy had not conspired with Sue Croft, Sue would be clearly seen as more culpable in this particular transport and rightly so if Amy's initial report on this was accurate. However, Amy is a known pathological liar so trying to find the truth in her statements is truly like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Good luck!
Other lies and inconsistencies by Amy Verder in her 7-3-11 note, "Tim Croft and his Death Trap Transport... Here are the Facts so far!!":
"Sue already has stated that they would need to get Health certificates so that is why the monies were needed up front. There were going to do this when they got there." This would appear to be a lie since Amy herself declined to obtain the required health certs when the Greenville shelter asked her directly if she wanted them. Amy never told me the $75 deposit she paid had anything to do with health certs. Amy did however say that the total fee for the transport, $375, was so high b/c it was going to include the required health certs. The funny thing is that the Greenville shelter does not charge extra for health certs, the health certs are included in the pull fees. Amy would know this if she had ever obtained health certs for animals that she had pulled previously from Greenville. Hmmm...
"Tim from what I learned arrived in an small station wagon with out proper crates per the shelter. He has two large dog crates. They gave him the cardboard vets office type disposable cat crates. And used the two crates he had for the two largest litters of kittens and moms." This completely contradicts what Amy told me both on the phone and in writing, where she said that the shelter would not let Tim use the filthy crates that he had brought with him.
"I called him he finally for the first time answered and asked him where he was he was merely 15 minutes from my home and I went to meet him in church parking lot." Why then did Amy send Dena a photo of a green car with it's hood up, matching the description of Tim's vehicle parked in the grass in what appears to be a residential area? She labeled the photo "death car" by the way.
"[Tim] said couple cats are out inside so can you just open your vehicle and let’s get them into yours I had a empty carrier inside my vehicle and grabbed it for the lost cat. There turned out to be several." This is not what she told me exactly as I have detailed above. Are we to believe that Amy stuffed 8 cats, including 2 adults, into ONE carrier?
"We got all them in and the lose cats there were many inside the car.. They stank so bad he stated they must have shit after they ate this morning." This is a lie or at the least this is NOT what Amy told me initially on June 21st and what she stood by prior to issuing her note on July 3rd. According to Amy it was at this point that Tim admitted to leaving the cats inside his vehicle the entire night before while he slept inside his house and admitted to never having fed or watered them either. So why the change in the timeline of Tim's confession? Could it be b/c Amy never did a damn thing to help in this investigation until AFTER she refused to cooperate with me further on June 29th? She knew that I would not stop investigating, no matter how much she slandered and attacked me. She must have known that she had to do something to make it appear that she was doing something to get justice for these kitties. Nice how she tried to spin all of this but ultimately she failed in her efforts to deceive for her own personal gain.
"I know that Sue was not involved in the transport of any of these cats personally all she did was set it up through Tim, to my knowledge Sue was not in SC or in KY at the time of Pickup or delivery of any of the cats on this transport that she was heading to east coast with her own transport." Ummm, setting it up was most certainly being involved, plus Amy also said that Sue was the liason during this entire transport and Amy said that she believed Sue was at the home she still shared with Tim the night before when Tim left the cats in his car. If she found out later that Sue was not in the home that night, that is fine but her presentation of this info is misleading at best. Amy was most certainly accusing Sue of being involved in this transport in all the ways that I've mentioned, plus Amy said that at one point Sue had met Tim during this transport to get carriers or something of that nature. So at that point, Sue and Tim were both present for whatever that is worth. No one that I am aware of ever blamed Sue directly for the suffering and death of these cats.
"Upon seeing the cats and the dead ones and my being physically made ill over this Crystal Harley called me and wanted to know when she did why I was so distraught and I told her while crying my heart out what was happening and she wanted to see the photos that I had taken a took about 25 or so before dropping my camera and breaking the it. But was still able to get the photos uploaded and to her." Amy called me that day, I did not call her. Amy immediately told me what was going on and I never asked her why she was distraught. Amy was upset and was crying at one point but she was definitely not crying her heart out. I never asked to see the photos, Amy said she would send them to me and in fact did send them to me while we were on the phone. She NEVER, EVER said anything to me about her camera during this conversation. The topic of her camera only came up a few days later when I asked her for the rest of the photos since she told me during this call that she had taken photos of all of the dead cats. Even then her story in no way resembled this version - Amy claimed that her camera had been broken for some time and that she used her cell phone to take these photos. As I've stated elsewhere in this, her story was not even remotely believable.
"She then told me that she was going to go public with all this and did so immediately with it all." No, we both discussed how to proceed with this after Amy asked me to investigate this for her and it was agreed that I would publish the photos and a warning note in order to get the word out about the Crofts while I investigated and prepared an official DNA/DNR/DNT on them. No good deed goes unpunished.
"I am not sure as to all her account to everything she clearly placed what she says in her own words and did not bother to listen to half of what was told to her and when she started attacking me on her note when I asked her questions to what she was doing and what she was saying and the comments she was stating she then said I was not cooperating with her legal investigation into this and started calling me in messages all types of names and accusations. This is when I informed her that I wanted no part of what her drama was. She clearly has a way of causing much drama to all horrible enough situations." This is false as well except of course my note was in my words but it was based on all that Amy had told me and it was really just a brief summary of the facts and I added to the note regularly as I learned new info about the Crofts, etc. Amy never asked me what I was doing or voiced any criticism of how I was handling things until the time that she stopped cooperating in the investigation. As I stated, she only objected to my publishing the photos which for approx. 8 days she had no issue w/whatsoever. I've never referred to this as a legal investigation. Amy did stop cooperating in the investigation and she lied about not wanting the details on Facebook and she lied when she told me that she had not given me permission to post her photos of this transport. She even came up w/some crazy story about her change in attitude being caused by a woman I don't know named Laura Fine that did not check out when I looked into it. I'm sure I called Amy a bitch but that's nothing considering all of the names she has called me but whatever. She was acting totally irrationally and hateful and this certainly was not the first time she has done so. There was no drama until the point where Amy decided to publicly slander me after I posted on my note that Amy was refusing to cooperate in this investigation. She is of course a liar as usual.
"Crystal Harley has stated that she was in contacted with many people that have complained about Sue Croft and her treatment of their animals and situation I do not know she did not share that with me on who is saying what." This is a blatant lie. I said that I had been contacted by individuals who had their own complaints about Sue but I never said that any of them complained about Sue's treatment of their animals. I also had a ton of people contacting me because they were concerned about this tragedy and they genuinely cared. All of these individuals have been extremely supportive and most of them I did not even know prior to my publicizing this tragedy. Maybe Amy was jealous of the attention I was receiving or maybe this was just her way of trying to create her own version of reality but either way, this is not true and certainly not based on anything that I actually told her.
"It is not a matter of like or dislike but it is about clear facts and not changing or adding to the facts in all this it is so that the real facts are made clear. Clear is that Tim Croft acted alone when he went to shelter and picked up cats and Tim acted alone when he brought the cats and kittens to me." What a freaking hypocrite! The only person who has changed their version of the so-called facts is Amy Verder. I have remained consistent in all of this, as has Dena. Amy is a liar who changed many of the "facts" in this case but since when do the facts change? They don't unless you are lying and making up a cover story. Amy has never tried to make any of these discrepancies clear. Amy is directly responsible for attempting to derail this investigation and for making the true facts in this case very hard to distinguish from the many lies. As far as the actual physical transporting of these cats, it would appear that Tim acted alone, however he was not the only one involved in this transport and Amy's statement saying that he was is in direct opposition to everything that Amy was saying between June 21 and when she issued her note on July 3rd.
"At this point there is clearly legal actions that will be being taken. Yes I was told that facebook is not the means of resolving this matter and that I need to handle it in legal channels and not on the pages of facebook. I agree with this." Okay, well I call Amy's bluff on this one. Amy has a bad habit of threatening to take legal action against others, yet she never does. She claims that she cannot afford an attorney for all of these messes that she seems to continually find herself in. Please give us your attorney's name and contact info Amy so that we can verify that you are indeed pursuing legal action in this matter. Amy's county attorney's office (equivalent to the prosecuting attorney in most areas) is whom she says told her to keep this off of Facebook, not her personal attorney or any attorney working on her behalf. This is the same office that refused to help her when she tried to obtain a restraining order against Susan Barrett so Amy has made many disparaging statements about this office in the past. At any rate, Amy claimed in her note that she agreed that this matter should not be handled on Facebook, yet she published this very long note on the matter? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Liars always do you know.
"I will keep those of you posted that really are here for updates and facts and not witch hunts and drama." Once again, Amy is such a huge hypocrite. She is directly responsible for certain witch hunts and the cause of a great deal of drama and chaos. She like to make it appear that it was me and/or others who did this but her claims are all based on lies and she will use anything that she can to her own advantage if it suits her purposes. Amy truly has the most distorted self-image of anyone that I have ever known.
"The USDA was left several messages. The authorities were sent several messages and visits I will be having appoints this week in order to see what is to follow on this and what avenues that they will take and I can take." Sure, the USDA was left several messages but there is no record at this time that Amy left them any messages. Dena however certainly did leave several messages for the USDA and I have contacted them as well via a contact of mine. Dena and my contact are the only persons who contacted the USDA on this matter as far as we have any record of and Dena is the only one who contacted the Dept. of Ag as well. Amy had one visit from the Dept. of Ag investigator as a direct result of Dena's efforts. I'm curious as to what appointments Amy had that week re: this situation. If she would care to substantiate such claims, I'd be interested to see what proof she has to offer on this.
"I do not have further funding for the hiring of one as suggested by legal counsel." Umm, speaking to the county attorney's office does not qualify as "legal counsel." LOL
"I know that there are alot like all things multi stories out there Crystal while she is personally invested in going after Sue Croft for her own personal reasons for a situation that her and Sue exchanged words over and Crystal from that point on has had Sue in her sights." This is utterly ridiculous - I never had a personal investment in going after Sue, there were no personal reasons for my doing this investigation except that I did it as a favor to Amy, and I have never done anything that would indicate that I "had Sue in my sights." It's true that I had an argument w/Sue Croft in April when she made me aware that she planned to transport animals w/o health certs for a rescue that she had planned under the name of Seven Star Sanctuary. It did get ugly b/c Sue blamed me for ruining the transport and thereby the rescue, even though this was totally false. I never publicly outed her for this b/c the next day she made me aware that she had decided to get the required health certs, I knew the local rescue who facilitated this rescue was aware of the situation and I did not want to cause any issues for them or the shelter. The way that I looked at it, the issue was resolved and I had truly hoped that Sue had learned an important lesson re: the transport laws. I never spoke to Sue after this since she revealed herself to be a hateful, unstable person during our last communication. If I had wanted to go after Sue at this point I would have started looking into her then but I never did anything against Sue and she represented herself as a part of Seven Star Sanctuary (a rescue) and had never said anything to me about her being any sort of official transporter. If she had, I am sure that I would have followed up on this since she was claiming ignorance of the transport laws. Amy knew all of this as soon as it took place so she was well aware of the issues we knew of where Sue was concerned. Amy clearly likes to use questionable transporters as she has a pattern of this. Why is the question?
"I also following up on what Crystal alleged in her message to me contact 7 star - she stated she had communicated with them through email and that they were asking her for her advice on what they should do with letting people pull on their 501c3 and that they seperated and severed their ties with Sue Croft a while back because of bad reasons.." I'm not sure what the hell Amy is trying to say here but I don't recall ever suggesting that Amy contact Seven Star Sanctuary. Why would I when I had that covered myself? Seven Star did ask for my opinion on letting people pull animals under their 501 so that much is accurate. I never said that Seven Star severed their ties w/Sue awhile back b/c of bad reasons. Amy is the one who told me that Sue Croft and Seven Star parted ways some time ago. This turned out not to be the case at all. Seven Star only officially ended their association with Sue Croft a very short time ago (well after this transport of hell) but I will be writing about this separately as it has nothing directly to do w/this particular issue. The only reference that I ever made in my previous warning note about the Crofts to Seven Star Sanctuary was that Sue Croft had presented herself as being a part of this rescue when I met her earlier this year. There are certain other individuals who tried to use this association for their agenda against Seven Star but I had nothing whatsoever to do with that nor do I have even the slightest interest in doing so.
Amy continues on in her note about the situation where these other individuals (the admins behind the Help Bring Smokey Home page on Facebook) copied my warning note w/o my permission and added their own text to the top of the new note they created with it, attacking Mary Thomas of Seven Star Sanctuary. She then stated, "Crystal had told me herself it was taken and the verbage was added to it or it was added in bits to others notes and walls and private groups." I made Amy aware of this situation but I never said anything about walls or private groups in relation to this. I only told her what I had stated above and also that the admins of the page refused to remove their unauthorized copy of my note so I reported it for copyright infringement and Facebook removed it. I was then banned from their page which was fine b/c I know who the admins behind the page are and I have little respect for them personally or for the way they have used Smokey's situation to further their own agenda against the CCAC group. In the interest of full disclosure, I also posted my support of their mission for Smokey to be returned to his original owners and I asked the admins of this page to send me any info they had re: Mary Thomas of Seven Star since they were posting about her repetitively on their page. I also asked in this initial communication who the admins of the page were b/c from a journalistic point of view, I cannot use info from an unknown source. Their response was simply that this was "none of my business." They were very rude which is why I found out independently who the admins were and why there was a discussion on their page that day between them and myself. Amy is well aware of the situation re: Smokey since I told her all about it since her friend Rosy Milazzo-Kirby was implicated in this at least initially. Amy often claims ignorance of many things that I know full well she is aware of. It's a tiresome pattern of behavior and a lame attempt in my opinion to appear to be univolved in certain situations.
"As I said I will update this as I can and as progress is available but here are the facts that I am releasing so far.. these are the facts as I know them to be.." LIAR!! These were the fabricated "facts" that Amy released in a clear effort to make it appear that she was pursuing justice for these kitties, to cover up Sue's involvement in this transport as well as her own mistakes, to discredit me, and of course to set this up in such a way that when the true facts were released there would be some doubt since she was contradicting her own initial statements as she knew I would report what she had told me about all of this. How stupid does she really think people are? Does she think that because she is a rescue that gives her some special credibility? It does not and in fact if anything, it makes it that much more important for her to be honest and to be transparent. This is the opposite of what Amy is clearly.
I have no personal agenda with any of this except that I do take what done to these poor innocent cats personally and I am also highly offended at Amy's baseless attacks on me. Even though I have clearly tried to illustrate just how deceptive Amy has been in this situation, I did not do so out of retribution but rather because I won't protect Amy (or even myself from her attacks and slander) by covering up the truth or the many lies and inconsistencies in this situation. Reporting the truth and all that I know in this situation is the only way that I know how to stand up for these cats, beyond the other actions that Dena and I have taken in this matter. Ultimately I am here for the animals and not for any of the people involved. I refuse to be a party to this cover up and conspiracy and you can either respect or criticize this but I am comfortable in knowing that I have done what I feel is the right thing to do. Anything less is unacceptable to me.
This tragic transport and the resulting investigation could have had a much better outcome if things had been properly handled at the time that the transport arrived. Sadly, it appears, to me anyway and of course I know Amy quite well, that at the end of the day, Amy only cared about protecting her own reputation and image, and clearly not about getting justice for these kitties. Her actions also proved to be a huge roadblock in our efforts to get the word out about the Crofts so that they could hopefully be significantly prevented from endangering other animals. It was impossible to issue any sort of official warning when we were trying to sort through all of the lies, inconsistencies, attacks and the cover up that took place. Now that we know that we've done pretty much all that we can on this investigation, we need to get the word out to all of the shelters and rescues that we possibly can. If any of you would like to help in this effort, it would most certainly be appreciated.
Tim Croft - DNT/DNA/DNR & Sue Croft - DNT:
http://rescueundercover.blogspot.com/2011/07/tim-croft-dntdnadnr-and-sue-croft-dnt.html
Amy Verder's original written statement to me:
I had asked Amy to write an outline for me of the main points that occured and I told her that I would add to it with what I had in my notes from our initial conversation re: this and then I would send it back to her for her approval and then once it was finalized, it would be published as part of the official DNT/DNA/DNR on the Crofts. This never was completed prior to Amy choosing to no longer cooperate in this investigation. The number of the dead kittens does not match what had told me on the phone earlier so who knows for sure. This is the outline that she emailed to me.
From: Amy Verder
To: Crystal Harley
Subject:
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:04:02 -0400
off the GCAC board sue croft contacted me to take the job of transporting the cats from Greenville to me in ky she actually wanted her husband to do the job..fine he was suppose to have a van turns out he arrived in a little green escort hatchback.
the shelter was even alarmed. they made it work as he told them he is a mere 6 hrs from me 8 hrs later he had not arrived and 10+ hrs later he text to say tomorrow he would meet me to and he would take the cats to his home and he would let them out and feed them and water them and arrive in the morning with them.. for he was in traffic and it would be hours still to me and that was ok then.. morning came started calling said took while to get ready he would never reply to me it was sue who would txt me or call and she was not with him she alleged.
he called me lost hours later just a mere 15 minutes from my house asked for money when I met him gave it to him and started to open my doors to my large suv and he started grabbing the 11 cardboard boxes and shoving them in my vehicle said he wanted to be fast he had to get to somewhere before they closed today hours away.
at this point it was already 95 degrees and hot as hell the smell was horrible my son said omg did they all shit in their crates and Tim said they did all night long that when he opened the door to his car it smelt like kitty pan world.. he left the cats all in their kennels all night no food or water for hours babies were separated from moms and cats and kittens had dug out of the containers..
they were in cardboard for he arrived at shelter without any kennels said he had to leave them his last transport.. he did have two large with him and two small they were filled full of dog shit the little ones and the shelter did not let him use them they gave him cardboard carrier that they sell for $8 ( I know I have bought them from them before )
they were upset as well but did not think anything was wrong other than cramped and Tim reassured them that he was heading straight to me..
we were rushing for Tim was rushing and I wanted to get my home and get kitties food and water... and trying to keep them in the holes that that dug, some had blood feet from chewing and teeth out the sides of it..
he had electrical taped the cardboard containers closed.
he was standing outside the car when I arrived the windows all up on car no ac on and smoking a cig. BASTARD.. said he had just gotten out..
Get home we jump out leaving ac running in vehicle and start taking them out one by one and cleaning them to be horrified at the crates and the condition - takes not a lot to make cats stink when we opened this up it make me vomit I have a iron clad stomach this did me in....
The death toll is adding up.. we are now at 4 moms and 11 babies dear God this is sick...
Crystal I just do not have the vet money to cover this and the fucking foster backed out because I can not cover the vet for her and her kitty litter and food when she came to me about pulling them... nice!Upcoming related info:
Sue Croft - her prior association with Seven Star Sanctuary
