Police seize five pets

Denton police seized four cats and a dog Wednesday from the vacant home of a couple who claimed the city owed them $206,000 for mistakenly killing their dog in May.

DRC/Al Key

Denton Animal Control Officer Calvin Sanders walks a dog to his truck to take it to the city animal shelter Wednesday. Neighbors said the owners left the dog and four cats at 1009 Hillcrest St. when they moved out of the house.

According to police and neighbors, Shawn Snider and Beth Bayless-Snider left the pets behind after moving out of a rental home on Hillcrest Street nearly two weeks ago.

Neighbors said they’d been leaving food and water for the animals and working to find new homes for them.

Reached by phone, Shawn Snider said he moved out because he could not afford the rent, but he refused to talk about the animals. He told police he’d visited the home to check on their welfare, police spokesman Jim Bryan said.

The Sniders relinquished ownership of the pets to the Denton animal shelter and likely won’t face animal abandonment charges, Bryan said. The animals will be available for adoption immediately, he said.

Cemetery suffers damage

A woman who plowed over 16 gravestones in Oakwood Cemetery with a minivan Tuesday evening says she didn’t realize she hit them and wants to apologize to relatives of the dead whose graves she disturbed.

The 45-year-old woman was booked into city jail as Debra Kay Dixon. She says her name is Debra Parks Bagley.

DIXON

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said during an interview in city jail Wednesday. “A lot of people will be mad at me. I didn’t mean to hurt anything.”

Police say a call from a witness helped officers identify the blue minivan and stop the driver.

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