Man says PETA took his dog from porch, killed her
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 10:37 pm
http://hamptonroads.com/2014/11/man-say ... killed-her
By Joanne Kimberlin
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 1, 2014
ACCOMACK COUNTY
Parksley is off the radar, even for Virginia's Eastern Shore. Tucked away west of the peninsula's main corridor, it's surrounded by farm fields and chicken houses - a town of fewer than 1,000 souls living rural lives up near the Maryland border.
No one in this story is used to headlines. Except for PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. This just might be the first time in its history that the Norfolk-based group's publicity machine is lying low.
At the center of a drama pitting local officials against each other and drawing outrage from around the globe:
Maya, a 3-year-old Chihuahua. (Picture the Taco Bell dog.)
Video shot by a security camera six weeks ago shows a woman identified by authorities as a PETA worker scooping Maya off the porch of her owner, a Mexican immigrant named Wilbur Cerate, who lives outside Parksley in a run-down trailer park named - somewhat surreally - Dreamland 2.
Before Cerate could get his dog back, Maya had been euthanized. According to Cerate, a representative from PETA came to his trailer bearing a fruit basket as a token of apology.
Up until last week, Cerate was telling his story to all who would listen. He called the sheriff, who pressed charges against the two PETA workers seen on the video. He gave TV interviews. A week ago today, on Monday morning,, he led a few dozen supporters on a march to the office of the Accomack County commonwealth's attorney to protest the prosecutor's decision to drop charges against the workers.
By that afternoon, though, Cerate had lawyered up. Outside his home, situated on the backside of a muddy, potholed loop through Dreamland 2 (there's also a Dreamland 1), Cerate apologized to a Pilot reporter.
In broken English, he said he now has an attorney, who has advised him to stop talking.
Others remain willing or have become so. Again, except for PETA.
Known for its in-your-face animal advocacy campaigns - everything from throwing red paint on fur wearers to comparing slaughterhouses to the Holocaust - PETA's public relations staff has not returned multiple messages seeking comment.
The tiny dog's demise began around noon on Saturday, Oct. 18. According to the prosecutor, PETA workers were at the trailer park picking up strays at the request of a nearby landowner, who said dogs from the park had ripped up the udder of his milking cow, killed a goat and terrorized his rabbits.
Cerate was at home when the roundup began but left to buy a dog bed for Maya, according to one of his friends, Edward Armstrong, who runs a tax business in Parksley.
Cerate got Maya as a puppy, Armstrong said - a gift for his daughter, now 9. He'd just given the dog a bath, removing her collar and leaving her loose on the porch - a lean-to built of particle board - to dry out on what was a warm day.
"That dog was very well trained," Armstrong said. "She wouldn't leave the porch."
When Cerate returned and found Maya missing, he suspected PETA and reviewed the video in his security camera. It showed a white van backing up to his trailer, two women getting out and opening its rear doors. There was Maya, wriggling toward them down the steps, then scurrying back up onto the porch. A woman follows, picks her up, puts her in the van, shuts its doors and drives away.
Cerate immediately called PETA, but he couldn't reach anyone. He called again the next day but was told no dogs had been picked up at the park. That Monday, he showed the video to Armstrong, who urged him to call police. On Tuesday, - three days after Maya was taken - the fruit basket arrived at Cerate's front door with word that she had been killed.
Accomack Sheriff Todd Godwin charged the workers, both women from South Hampton Roads, with larceny.
"If it was me or you who did something like that," Godwin said, "PETA would eat us up."
Godwin obtained arrest warrants and contacted PETA, who he said sent the women to Accomack accompanied by an attorney. The workers were booked and released.
PETA euthanizes nearly 90 percent of the animals it takes in, a rate often criticized by other animal groups. PETA defends its practices, referring to itself as a shelter of last resort - a place that provides a merciful death for animals too sick, old or otherwise unfit for adoption.
But state regulations call for a minimum holding period of five days, said Debra Griggs, president of the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies. Pickups are also required to be reported to a locality's animal control.
"In Maya's case, PETA did neither of those things," Griggs said. "It's a serious violation."
Aside from that, she said, the video shows "a happy, healthy, sweet dog on its own property, and that flies in the face of everything we believe in - not only about our pets but our property rights in general."
Griggs joined the protest march on the prosecutor's office.
"It was a very interesting cross-section of people," she said. "There were some locals, but some were from as far away as D.C."
Godwin, the sheriff, is also frustrated with the prosecutor, Gary Agar. Godwin said he has "no idea" why Agar dropped the charges: "We can't figure it out."
Initially, Agar would say only that he wasn't "satisfied that the evidence is capable of showing criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't feel I have to explain it. It only invites argument, and I'm not going to debate my opinion."
On the day of the protest, however, he issued a two-page statement that said Maya had no dog tag and had, at times that day, been off the porch. To convict on criminal intent, Agar wrote, prosecutors would have to prove the women knew they were "stealing property." Instead, it's "more probable" they believed "they were gathering animals that posed health and/or livestock threat."
Cerate and his supporters aren't satisfied with that. They can't imagine how anyone could consider a Chihuahua - average weight: 4 to 6 pounds - a danger to livestock.
Armstrong said PETA workers were familiar with the trailer park, having been there before to collect abandoned pets and donate dog houses.
"They started coming about two months ago," he said. "They'd met Mr. Cerate's family and knew who Maya belonged to."
Outside his trailer last week, Cerate said he was tired. All the ruckus has caused him to lose sleep. His story has appeared in The Huffington Post and the New York Daily News. More than 5,500 people have "liked" a Facebook page dedicated to Maya, with posts from as far away as Asia, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Cerate's surroundings may be humble, but he's trying to provide a decent home for his family. Broken windows, discarded furniture, old tires and trash litter the rest of Dreamland 2. Cerate's lot is neat, with mulched flower beds, a trampoline and a jungle gym.
The security camera was mounted in the hopes of keeping what little the family has.
Without it, Armstrong said, no one except PETA would ever know what happened to Maya.
