ILLEGALLY ACQUIRED HORSES
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Submitted by SBH Clay, www.saplonline.org
November 2011

Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of horses are stolen each year. Horse thieves make quick money by unloading illegally obtained horses to killer-buyers and slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouses typically kill and process horses within 24 hours, making it impossible to trace and recover animals in time.

Judy Taylor of Kentucky sought help in caring for her two beloved Appaloosa horses, Poco and PJ, due to her own serious health problems. At the recommendation of a friend, she contacted Lisa and Jeff Burgess. The couple agreed to take care of the animals with the understanding that, if they were unable to continue doing so, the horses were to be returned to Judy. Despite this agreement, within seven days of receiving the horses, the Burgesses sold them to a known killer-buyer for $1,000. Soon after, Judy discovered what had happened and frantically searched for her fraudulently acquired horses.

Eventually she learned the horrifying truth—her horses had been slaughtered for their meat. Successful charges were brought against the Burgesses. The Kentucky Court of Appeals noted “the Burgesses’ conduct clearly rises to the level of being outrageous and intolerable in that it offends generally accepted standards of decency and morality, certainly a situation in which the recitation of the facts to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim, ‘Outrageous!’”

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