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19 Horses Discovered Dead On Minnesota Farm

ReportingJames Schugel

HEWITT, Minn. (WCCO) ― Investigators are looking into what happened to 19 horses found dead on a farm in Hewitt, Minn. Horses wandering on a road pointed Todd County sheriff's deputies to the problem. When they went to the farm, they found bones and carcasses of horses scattered everywhere; some have been there for months.

A humane investigator with the Animal Humane Society is part of this investigation. They say a man in his 60s owns the farm as well as the animals.

"We have horrible pictures. I haven't seen such horrible pictures in the 20 years I've been doing this," said Drew Fitzpatrick, who is taking care of the few horses found alive. She founded and runs a non-profit organization that cares for neglected horses called Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Foundation. "We take in the horses that have no where else to go," said Fitzpatrick.

Last week Fitzpatrick picked up the nine horses still alive on the farm, and now she's caring for them at her farm in Sherburne County. "Food. That's all they needed and they weren't getting that simplest element of life. They were not getting food," she said. The horses she now has need that food, medical care and dental care. Some of them are so thin you can see their ribs, and they also have parasites.

The man who owned the horses turned them over to investigators, and then they gave them to Fitzpatrick. He just couldn't take care of them anymore. "I think that people are just having to make a decision on whether or not to pay their mortgages, feed their kids, or take care of the animals, and I think the animals are getting the short-end of the stick," said Wade Hanson, a humane investigator with the Animal Humane Society. Hanson is going to push the Todd County Attorney for criminal charges in this case. So far, the county attorney has not charged the owner, who has been in jail for the last month on another unrelated charge.

Now his horses are with Fitzpatrick, recovering. She's helped other animals recover, and she believes in just three months, these horses will be much stronger and much healthier.

Hewitt is located almost three hours northwest of the Twin Cities.