Florida officials charged a woman on Wednesday with three felony counts of animal cruelty following allegations that she fatally poisoned her neighbor’s pets.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd stated at a Thursday press conference that the pets, a 4-year-old pregnant Chihuahua named Daisy and two cats named Luna and Pancake, died suddenly within hours of each other on August 16, 2023.
“Their family loved them,” Judd said at the press conference, shared on Facebook. “The children and all of the victims of the family are devastated.”
The owners called the police in the last moments of one of the pet’s life, and the agriculture crimes unit took over the investigation. After months of working with the University of Florida, Texas A&M University, and Michigan State University, the detectives determined Phorate, an insecticide, poisoned the pets.
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Judd said they also found Phorate in a bowl of food the neighbor had put out. Tamesha Knighten, a 51-year-old licensed practical nurse from Lakeland, was arrested Wednesday and charged with three felony counts of animal cruelty. One for each of the animals’ deaths, and an additional charge of exposing poison in a public place.
Daisy, Luna, and Pancake’s owners told detectives that Knighten had previously threatened to poison the pets if they came into her yard. They also said Knighten had yelled at the family’s children that day.
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Judd said detectives reviewed surveillance footage of Knighten wearing a plastic glove and putting out a Styrofoam bowl containing what looked like food. Judd said she told detectives she put the bowl of chicken with her “special seasoning” out to feed the animals in the area.
According to Judd, she also told detectives the pets were coming into her yard and might have gotten into her ant killer. But he said they did not find ant killer in the pets’ systems.
Despite clear evidence to the contrary, the suspect consistently denied responsibility for killing her neighbor’s pets. She claimed that being a nurse, she had too much to lose. It’s disturbing to contemplate how someone in the medical field could commit such a cruel act of poisoning and killing two cats and a pregnant dog.
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“This suspect, despite all evidence to the contrary, repeatedly denied killing her neighbor’s pets, even telling our detectives that she’s a nurse and had too much to lose,” Judd said in a press release. “It takes a cold-hearted person to poison and kill two cats and a pregnant dog — it’s hard to imagine how a person in the medical field could do such a thing.”
Knighten posted bail on Thursday. Attempts to reach her through the listed phone number went to voicemail. Her attorney information is not yet available, according to a representative from the Polk County Clerk of Courts and Comptroller.
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