You can learn a lot about a person from the way they treat animals.
According to the FBI, serial rapists and murderers often have a history of cruelty to animals.
And police were sickened by what this Florida woman did to a dog, two birds, and a dozen cats.
They say not to judge a book by its cover because looks can be deceiving.
This is especially true for serial killers, as there is not a specific mold they all fit into.
But there are a few traits that many murderers and rapists have in common.
And that is a history of cruelty to animals.
“Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty against animals don’t stop there; many of them move on to their fellow humans,” the Wilbarger Humane Society reported. “The FBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appear in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers, and the standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders.”
If animal cruelty is a sign of being a killer, then it is a good thing that police arrested this Florida woman for animal abuse.
Police in Melbourne, Florida recently responded to a tip about animal abuse at a local residence.
When deputies arrived on the scene, they were sickened by what they found inside the home.
“Nearly 20 animals starving and living in filth were confiscated from a home in Melbourne this week,” Fox35 Orlando reported. “Deputies confiscated a golden retriever named Sunny, two birds, and more than a dozen cats from a home on Coventry Street in Melbourne.”
All the animals were starving to death and living in horrendous conditions, even for an animal.
Sheriff Wayne Ivey said there was “urine, feces, and trash lining the home.”
Sunny, a 10 year old Golden Retriever, was losing its hair from starvation and “flea nests the size of a golf ball.”
It was so bad that Sheriff Ivey said he wished he could put the woman, 75-year-old Patricia Merrill, in the same condition as the animals.
“If I had my way about it, she’d get treated just like these animals did,” he said.
He said he had no sympathy for her over the 18 counts of felony animal cruelty and unlawful confinement.
“I don’t feel sorry for her,” he said. “I don’t care. She’s going to jail. She let 18 animals suffer at her hands.”
Merrill claimed that she did not have time to clean her home and that there has not been water on the property for two years.
“These people are sorry individuals that can’t do what they’re supposed to do, can’t do what’s responsible,” Ivey said.
Merrill has her next court date on September 17.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
