North Reading family warns about trainer after dog's death
NORTH READING - Bart Hanson and his family in North Reading are pushing to get the word out: be careful who you trust with your pet. "Looking back at this, if I saw a news report with somebody else like this four weeks ago, it might have stopped me," he said.
Instead, his purebred French bulldog Charlie is a memory. The last time his family saw him, was when he left with a Connecticut dog trainer who went by the name Lily.
They hired her through the app Thumbtack, paid her $1500, and agreed on another $750 upon Charlie's return a couple weeks later. But when that time came, they got a text saying Charlie was gone.
"She said that she doesn't know if somebody took him while she was walking outside her car, or because her battery was dead in her Tesla if the windows were down and he jumped out of the car. Her story just didn't make any sense," said Hanson.
The police report shows that was just one of several stories she gave. Detectives tracked down Lily's legal name, Josephine Ragland, who had done business on the same app, Thumbtack, in California several months ago. That's when Carolina Bruchilari's German Shepherd allegedly disappeared in Ragland's care. "We have never seen him again," said Bruchilari.
In North Reading, police said while Ragland was being questioned, she finally admitted she had spent most of her free time away from the dog, at a casino. She said Charlie collapsed while she was gambling. Police found the dog's body in some woods about 35 miles from her parents' Connecticut home "emaciated".
"When he left here, he was 30 pounds. In the autopsy they said he weighed 22 pounds," said Hanson. "I'm sure that he was in a lot of distress, making noises, and I just, I can't believe they just let him sit there and basically just die," he said. "That's really the hardest part."
Thumbtack sent WBZ a statement. "We are actively investigating the situation. We take the integrity of our platform seriously..."
Police found four other dogs at Ragland's home. All were returned to their owners, but that has them wondering about more potential victims. Ragland is facing charges of larceny and obstruction of justice and is due in Massachusetts court in a couple weeks.