Pittsburgh-area woman charged after police find 160 dead rabbits

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) -- A Butler County woman was charged with animal cruelty after state police found hundreds of animals living in deplorable conditions and just as many dead inside her Franklin Township home back in November.

Wendy Czapski was scheduled to appear Tuesday afternoon for an arraignment, but her family notified the court she had to be taken to the hospital because she was feeling stressed and nervous about the hearing.

State police were called to a home on Country Club Boulevard in Franklin Township for a possible case of rabbit hemorrhagic disease due to a large amount of dead rabbits. But what they encountered was far worse.

"For me, anytime there are live animals that are forced to live with dead animals, I think, to me, that just describes -- defines, hell," said Ruth Thompson with the ANNA Shelter.

According to the criminal complaint, state police found 160 dead rabbits, some just skeletons, in the garage, not from disease, rather due to horrific animal abuse.

In addition, 137 rabbits were living among the dead in filth. They were locked in unclean cages without food and water. Once the owner, Wendy Czapski, voluntarily surrendered the animals, the ANNA Shelter in Erie was called in to help.

"They were all loaded with parasites. A lot of them had syphilis which is really common in rabbits, especially when they're kept in unsanitary conditions. Quite a few of them, I want to say about 40 of them, had what we considered extraneous medical -- missing limbs, broken necks, broken backs, just in really bad condition."

Police say they also found four dogs and two cats inside the home who were described as healthy but living in "unfit" conditions.

Czapski was charged with one count of aggravated cruelty to animals and 142 summary charges of animal neglect.

"To purposely starve, to purposely neglect, there's just no excuse for it," Thompson said.

The ANNA Shelter in Erie says they have 25 bunnies who are fully vetted and ready to be adopted.