Woman charged after 20 dead dogs found in Ohio home

SCIOTO COUNTY, Ohio — A woman was arrested in Ohio after animal control officers said they found dead animals inside of her home.

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Neighbors reported a bad smell and flies from a Scioto County home, prompting the Portsmouth City Health Department to send an animal control officer to the property, WSAZ reported.

“It’s just a horrible scene,” Wendy Payton, the officer sent to the property, told WSAZ.

Payton told the station that she and another officer found many dead dogs inside the home, and more than two dozen more alive but in rough shape.

Samantha Damron, 29, who rents the home and lives there, was arrested and charged with dozens of counts of animal cruelty, WSAZ reported.

An animal shelter in Scioto County, which took in the surviving animals, posted pictures and videos of the dogs to their Facebook page, saying “This is by far the most horrific thing I have ever seen or smelled. We now have 27 dogs at the pound and 1 at Shawnee Animal Hospital. 20 dead … 20!”

In the post, rescuers said that the dogs were in such poor condition that “most can’t walk from being in crates.”

Payton told WSAZ she talked to Damron and asked her how this happened, and Damron told her she just got overwhelmed.

“She didn’t really show any emotion,” Payton told WSAZ. “She didn’t really show any remorse about the dogs being locked in the cages and what they looked like, the thin condition they were in.”

The house Damron and the dogs were living in has been condemned, the station reported.

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