A California bartender has been accused of scamming dozens of grieving pet owners by charging them huge sums of money for custom cremations before dumping the animals in a freezer amid a macabre crime wave across the United States.
The victims claim Nejyredth Velasquez, 38, and her partner Anthony Nunez, 35, of Oxnard, California, lied about having their own “state-of-the-art” crematorium to trick them out of hundreds of dollars for services that included providing fingerprints. of paws and other memories. .
In reality, they had no such thing, and in some cases, owners were forced to recover the rotting remains of their beloved companions in a garbage bag after learning of the plan.
It comes amid a disturbing trend in which animal remains have been found in deserts, trucks and mass graves, DailyMail.com can reveal.
In a shocking case, A woman was arrested after allegedly dumping 25 bags of animal carcasses in the Utah desert.
California bartender Nejyredth Velasquez is accused of scamming dozens of grieving pet owners out of hundreds of dollars by promising personalized cremations that were never delivered.
One of Velasquez’s clients, Robert Balog, 44, (left) said he had to retrieve the frozen remains of his cat Stewie (right) in a parking lot weeks after his ashes should have been returned.
Jaqueline Alonso, 36, with her dog Spot, and Gabrielle Real, 23, and her cat Hela, are also among the up to 80 alleged victims of the Velasquez ‘scam’
Meanwhile, a Kentucky The businessman has been charged after the rotting remains of half a dozen pets were found in the back of his van.
Police claim the offender lied about having a crematorium and returned concrete mix and cat litter in urns to the owners instead of ashes.
And in Colorado, two veterinarians have accused a crematorium of burying pets in mass graves and dumping bodies in landfills.
It is believed that hundreds of victims may have fallen victim to unscrupulous operators who are taking advantage of a largely unregulated industry across the United States.
Donna Shugart-Bethune, executive director of the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematoriums (IAOPCC), based in Atlanta, Georgia, said “horrific stories” were rife throughout the industry.
“These people are taking advantage of the pain,” he told DailyMail.com.
The tales range from negligent business practices to outright scams and cruelty.
There are believed to be around 700 pet care centers in the US, less than half of which are accredited by the IAOPCC.
This means pet owners are often blindsided by operators who charge hundreds of dollars for custom cremation services that are never delivered.
Dozens of pet owners claim they were fleeced by We Care Pet Cremations, the company run by Velasquez and Nunez.
The company’s website promised “true private cremations in a new, state-of-the-art machine,” along with paw prints and other personalized offerings.
He also promised communication throughout the process, which included picking up the pet and returning its ashes in an urn to the owner.
But Robert Balog, 44, ended up having to go to a Best Buy parking lot to pick up the remains of his beloved tabby cat Stewie, which had been stuffed into a garbage bag after We Care was unable to carry out the cremation. of $560.
Robert said We Care responded quickly to his inquiry and picked up Stewie at his home in Van Nuys the same day.
But as soon as they accepted payment, We Care was no longer contactable, Robert claims.
Jacob Jetton was arrested after the remains of half a dozen pets were found in the back of his truck. Police say he delivered concrete mix and cat litter in urns to the owners instead of ashes.
His friend, Tory Duchene, who had helped take care of Stewie, began harassing the company when they went without news for weeks.
Her calls would go to voicemail until she was finally blocked.
Only when Tory began posting online about the poor service did We Care get in touch and agree to meet in the Best Buy parking lot.
Stewie had not been cremated when Robert picked him up, despite We Care’s previous claims that he had.
He remembers rolling down the windows of his car as the putrid smell of three-week-old Stewie’s corpse filled the air during the hour-long drive home.
“It was a very murky scene,” Robert said. “They take advantage of you when you are in an emotional state and don’t take the time to do due diligence.”
Tory was subsequently contacted by dozens of pet owners who had lost track of their pets after hiring We Care.
Victims claim that the company, instead of cremating the pets, dumped between 50 and 80 dead pets at another crematorium, Furrever Friends, without contact information for the owners.
Other bodies were allegedly simply stuffed into a freezer for weeks on end.
Gabrielle Real, 23, of Hollywood, said she had to retrieve her dead cat Hela from Furrever Friends more than a month after hiring We Care, which had also blocked her.
She never received the urn or necklace that was part of the $309 service she had paid for.
Similarly, Jacqueline Alonso, 36, of Huntingdon Park, paid $227 for a package that was supposed to include a paw print mold of her chihuahua, Spot, but was forced to collect Furrever Friends’ ashes six weeks later to hire We Care.
“It’s not about laziness, it’s a total scam,” he said. ‘They are taking advantage of people who have just lost their dog or cat.
‘You’re quite vulnerable at that moment, your head is everywhere.
‘It’s not just a dog or a cat, it’s part of your family. It’s the same pain you would feel for a family member.
Tory said some pet owners he had spoken to had paid up to $1,600 for a personalized service, but it took them a year to get their ashes.
Others had never managed to track down their pets, while one had been given another’s ashes, he said.
“They’re lying to people,” Tory said. ‘They claim that they are doing the cremations and that they work with all these local veterinary hospitals, but that is not the case.
‘They’re not even doing the cremation. They’re just outsourcing and abandoning the pets.’
We care It has since ceased trading, but Tory now fears the business has restarted under a new name, Honorable Animal Aftercare, after receiving an invoice under that name.
DailyMail.com has contacted We Care for a response.
Deputy Lindsey Miller of the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky investigated Jetton
Deputy Lindsey Miller, an animal cruelty specialist with the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky, was called to action in March of last year after reports of a foul odor at a shopping center in the city of Paducah.
One of the store owners was concerned that a man named Jacob Jetton, who owned a music store in the mall, was also running a “strange” pet crematorium.
When investigators arrived at the scene, they found a half-dozen dead animals rotting in the back of Jetton’s truck.
Miller told DailyMail.com that the remains had been there up to three weeks after they were due to be cremated.
To complete the devious scheme, Jetton had been returning concrete mix and cat litter in the form of ashes to the grieving homeowners, Miller said.
“They are pets, but for most of these people they are their babies, and it was heartbreaking,” she added.
Police found no signs that Jetton owned cremation facilities when they searched the property where he said he had been carrying them out.
Instead, they found only a disused barn, abandoned cars and a trailer.
Jetton is believed to have caught about 14 victims in total.
He has been charged with multiple crimes, including theft by deception and disorderly conduct.
Perhaps most disturbing of all was the discovery of 25 bags of animal remains in the desert near St George, Utah.
The corpses were in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was difficult to distinguish between dogs and cats.
But investigations revealed that many belonged to clients of First Call Pet Cremation in Las Vegas, owned by Rick Senninger.
Washington County filed charges against McKenzie Frei, who was allegedly hired by Senninger to cremate the animals but instead dumped them on the side of a road.
There are no charges pending against Senninger: Washington police said he had conducted no activities in his county.
Senninger said he stopped taking new clients and assisted authorities once he learned of Frei’s actions.
Meanwhile, two Colorado veterinarians sued a pet crematorium, alleging that it buried their pets in mass graves instead of providing the custom cremations for which they charged.
Edwards Veterinary Care and Western Skies claim Precious Memories Pet Cemetery & Crematory disposed of animal carcasses in a landfill and in mass graves when veterinarians requested that the bodies be cremated, according to a lawsuit filed in Larimer County in January.
Samantha Staggs, director of Precious Memories, said in a statement that the company was “shocked” to learn of the allegations and maintained that it was “fully compliant with all laws and regulations.”
The IAOPCC’s Shugart-Bethune said it was vital that pet owners do their due diligence before selecting an aftercare provider.
He said IAOPCC-accredited operators ensured “full disclosure of the pet identification and tracking process.”