An agent for a local realty company hired to check on a
residence for occupancy and estimate cleanup costs found a mess
even he could not expect – more than 20 Great Dane carcasses.

Bradford Township Police, along with McKean County Humane
Officer Tony Danias, are investigating a cruelty to animals
incident at a Bradford Township home located at 320 W. Corydon St.,
near the intersection with Dorothy Lane.

Danias said Sunday that it was brought to his attention by a
worker, Jack Buckles, going in to clean up the foreclosed
house.

Buckles found several decomposed bodies of the domestic dogs
lying in kennels behind the home, police said. He was hired to go
to the home to begin cleaning and restoring the property so it
could be put on the market. He said that when he went to a small
building at the back of the property he found the bodies of two
dead Great Danes enclosed in a small room likely used as a
kennel.

“They had no way of getting out because the door leading to the
kennel was nailed shut,” Buckles said.

Buckles was upset by the discovery as he has a number of retired
greyhound dogs that he had rescued and cares for.

Danias said Buckles saw the dead dogs and got a hold of him. He
said because of the scope of the situation, he enlisted the help of
Bradford Township Police Chief Dave Doyle and Code Enforcement
Officer Merle Silvis for resources and manpower.

“People don’t surprise me a whole lot,” Danias said, “but this
(to me) was even upsetting, to put it mildly. There’s not a humane
officer or cruelty officer that I know of that hasn’t come to a
scene for one reason or another and found a dead animal. But that
many under those conditions, that was the shocker part of it.

“It was a horrific scene. There have been a couple other things
that really shocked me, but I’ll remember this one for a
while.”

The police arrived at the scene with a search warrant and
protective clothing and masks.

Officers throughout the investigation found 21 dog remains,
including bodies and bones of adult and younger dogs, on and near
the property that were both inside two boarded-up back buildings
used as kennels and throughout the land in shallow graves behind
the buildings. The remains of some were found wrapped in tarps and
underneath old carpet or rugs on the ground.

Police said the dogs were in varying degrees of decomposition
and died during a period of three months to nine months ago.

“Some of them (search team members) were running out in the
bushes and were gagging,” Buckles said.

Danias said, according to local media, the smell of the
decomposition likely went unnoticed by neighbors and occupants at
the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, which owns property that
borders the back of the West Corydon Street property. He said the
smell was not detected because the bodies were covered by lime,
soil, debris and even dog feces.

Danias explained the McKean County SPCA works on donations and
takes animals without a charge.

“If … whoever the owner of the animal could have turned them
over, we would have adopted them” without a charge, Danias
said.

Danias said they took in 19 live cats from Eldred three months
ago, adding that none were turned away.

The residence was recently vacated by Cheryl A. Magnotta, who
had been known in the past to hold a licensed kennel for breeding
Great Danes. A Google search online for Magnotta found two Web
sites with a Cheryl Magnotta listed with an address of 320 W.
Corydon St., Bradford, Pa., as a member of the Great Dane Club of
America, winning third place in 2004 for dogs she owned in a black,
female Great Dane category.

Officials said the home had been repossessed by a lending
agency, and Magnotta had not lived at the house for the past
several months. Police have been attempting to locate her for
questioning since Tuesday.

Danias added that he had cited Magnotta in the past for neglect
of the dogs and believes she let her kennel license run out,
according to local media.

A police officer said a local veterinarian is examining a couple
of bodies to determine the cause of death. He said the charges will
likely include cruelty to animals for possible starvation and
neglect.

Police said the investigation is continuing, and charges are
forthcoming.

“We’re utilizing a lot of Bradford Township resources in this
investigation,” Danias said. “And they were more than cooperative.
It’s going to take team work to make this whole thing go.”

(Editor’s note: Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald reporter Kate Day
Sager contributed to this article.)