Carly Jo Underwood, 29, of Midland, Texas, was arrested and booked into jail on 16 counts of cruelty to non-livestock animals – torture, after authorities said she left the dogs to fend for themselves when she abandoned her home.
Bankers serving a foreclosure notice on Underwood's home discovered the dead dogs.
Some of the dogs were said to have been left in their kennels, while others were free to wander around inside the house.
At least a few of the canines cannibalized each other during the eight months that Underwood was gone. Fecal matter and urine was said to be present everywhere.
All that remained of some of the dogs was tufts of fur.
Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter told CBS 7 that inside Underwood's house, 'The stench of the smell was terribly strong.' While walking through the home, he noted, there was no movement in the cages.
'Then you get to looking, Lord, there’s carcasses in there. It’s just fur and bones, and the doors are locked, it was very sad,' Painter said.
Underwood left her position as a board member at the no-kill Dust Bowl Animal Rescue in Midland last year.
Her former coworker said that she had no idea why Underwood abandoned the dogs — which she believes came from the shelter — to their deaths.
'From the photos that I have seen, they are unrecognizable. There's no way for me to say what dog is which,' Mesha Randolph, President Of Dust Bowl Animal Rescue, told KMID. She also added that 'There was just fur, fur everywhere. That's all you could see.'
Randolph said that leaving the dogs behind was uncharacteristic behavior on Underwood's part.
'I cant even fathom where her mind is at, where her mind went because I knew her personally and that's not the person I knew,' Randolph said, adding that she could not comprehend how someone who 'truly loved animals could do this.'
In all of his years at the Midland County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Painter had never seen an animal cruelty case this severe.
“We’ve had others that have been bad, where they mistreat the animals. You find some sick, you find some alive, and some dead, but none that were locked up in cages with no hope of getting out,” Sheriff Painter said.
How this former rescuer was able to leave her dogs behind is a question Sheriff Painter was hoping to have answered Wednesday.
“We have not been able to talk to Mrs. Underwood because she has hired an attorney,” Sheriff Painter explained. “He has told us that he does not want us talking to her, so we are at a loss to get a reason or an explanation.”
But what matters now, Painter says, is that Underwood is behind bars thanks to an unlikely ally -- Underwood's own mother had been cooperating with investigators all along.
In fact, she was the one who tipped off deputies of her daughter's flight back to Midland from Nevada.
“No animal or any person should be treated that way,” Sheriff Painter said.
Underwood will be arraigned before a judge Thursday morning and her bond will be set.
Once deputies wrap up their investigation they will turn over the case to the District Attorney’s Office who will then present it before a grand jury.
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