"Animal Cruelty Case Uncovered: Texas Woman Arrested After Dozens of Dead Animals Found"

Last week, a 22-year-old woman named Rachel Ann Sword from Texas was arrested. Landscapers working at her ranch found many dead animals, including 12 horses and 24 dogs. She was charged with being cruel to animals, both pets and livestock. The charges include serious felonies due to the severity of the situation.

Someone from the Collin County Sheriff's Office said they started looking into Rachel Ann Sword because of a complaint from people who were fixing up her land. These workers found some dead horses. The Sheriff's Office checked into the complaint, and on August 1st, they got a legal order to take away all the animals on her property. Her place is on Graybill Road in Westminster, which is about 50 miles from Dallas.

“During the execution of the warrant, investigators seized two dogs, two horses, one cow, one lizard, and one snake, which were turned over to Animal Services personnel for their care and control,” the statement from CCSO said. “While at this scene, in and around a number of buildings located on the property, Sheriff’s investigators discovered the remains of 12 horses and 24 deceased dogs in advanced states of decomposition.”

A report from Dallas Fox's KDFW mentioned that during their investigation, detectives found out that the place where the dead animals were found belonged to Sword's older grandparents. A document explaining why they had a reason to search the place reportedly said that the grandparents had a hard time moving around and they thought Sword was looking after her own animals on the ranch.

But investigators who were there mentioned they smelled a bad smell in the area. This led them to find a dead dog in a cage close to the grandparents' house. They noticed that there was no food or water around the cage where the dog was found.

Sword's grandparents lived in a house on the property, and Sword herself lived in an RV parked behind their house.

As they kept looking around the property, the deputies said they found 23 more dead dogs in different stages of rotting. Some of these dogs were locked in cages without any food or water. Others were put into pens that were always in the sun.

The deputies also found twelve dead horses on the property.

The document mentioned that the condition of the horses varied - some were completely skeletons, while others still had some skin and fur left. This showed that their deaths didn't happen recently.

When questioned by investigators, Sword said that her husband owned the animals, but he passed away about three weeks before. She admitted that she should have taken care of the animals after his death, but she was feeling very sad and couldn't bring herself to do it, as per KDFW. However, records showed that there were at least 16 reports of animal cruelty on the property since 2019.

One of the landscapers who talked to the authorities, Alston Mays, talked to KTXA about what happened. He said, "The whole place smelled really bad, like something had died. There were cages all over the place, and lots of dead animals. You could also see skeletons all around."

Sword was arrested and put in the Collin County Jail. Right now, she's being held there with a bond of $85,000.

The Collin County people said that they really care about the safety of animals everywhere in their area. They're taking this situation very seriously. They also mentioned that they have strict rule against leaving animals alone or treating them badly.