By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post
As the Ellis County Sheriff’s department continues to investigate the strychnine poisoning of three dogs in Hays, the owner of two of the dogs wants her neighbors and the community to know she does not believe the deaths were an accident.
According to Amanda Keeler, her two Labrador retrievers and a neighbor’s chihuahua died within hours of each other on Dec. 18 in a neighborhood just west of Hays. A local veterinarian determined the cause of death to be strychnine poisoning.
Keeler, who is the mother of a 5-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl, said her kids loved their dogs, Jango and Pita.
“They were good animals and people need to know something happened,” she said.
Keeler said her son watched her dog die in a “terrible” way. All three dogs died of respiratory failure within hours of each other.
Keeler thinks the deaths are suspicious, saying someone could have baited or fed the dogs food tainted with strychnine on purpose. According to Keeler, who lives with her husband and kids in Prairie Acres — a housing division west of the bypass — their community is “small and isolated.”
“It is very unsettling to know that someone … is capable of doing this, with complete disregard for the consequences,” Keeler said.
Keeler said she knows there is “little to no chance” of catching the person responsible, but she wants whoever is responsible to know the pain caused to her family. She also wants the community to keep a close eye on their animals so the same tragedy does not happen to another family.
According to Ellis County Sheriff Ed Harbin, it was a local veterinarian who first contacted police about what he considered “suspicious” deaths. Harbin said his department is just as worried about determining if the deaths were intentional — and finding the source of the strychnine is a top priority.
“Where was it? How did it (strychnine) get where it did? It is where a small child could come across it?,” he said. “I don’t want to put a scare into people, but I mean obviously if it is was intentional, the source might be gone, but if it wasn’t (intentional) is the source still out there?”
Harbin said investigators have questioned several neighbors at Prairie Acres, and there is a “person of interest.”
The national Humane Society is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department at (785) 628-1040.