PETA Trial (Day 4): Toby, Annie, and a Drug Bust in the Making

PETA Trial Day 4:
Toby, Annie, and a Drug Bust in the Making

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January 25, 2007 | Day Four is in the books, and the complexion of the PETA-Kills-Animals trial has changed completely. While yesterday's testimony focused on the nuts and bolts of what happened prior to the arrest of two PETA employees in June 2005, today's was far more emotionally taxing.

Did you know that some of the dogs allegedly killed by Adria Hinkle had names? We didn't either. But Bertie County (NC) Animal Control Officer Barry Anderson testified today that two Dalmatians named Toby and Annie -- dogs he described as "just healthy, playful, and well-fed" -- were among the animals he naively turned over to Hinkle and her PETA coworker Andrew Cook on June 15, 2005:

"They came to the shelter to take all the dogs that were not being quarantined or on hold for any reason and take them back to Virginia. My understanding was that if it's an animal that's good or adoptable, you try to find homes for them. especially the two Dalmatians that were running around. And I asked her [Hinkle] if she thinks that those two dogs were adoptable. And she said yes, you know, she thought that they shouldn't have a problem at all finding homes for those Dalmatians."

Toby and Annie were the subject of some serious legal wrangling this morning, as Hinkle's lawyer tried to bar Anderson from describing that conversation. Defense attorneys claimed that Anderson's recollection of the conversation was not included in the "discovery" materials provided to them by the prosecution. But the D.A. searched her notebooks and satisfied Judge Cy Grant's curiosity, so Anderson was allowed to share the chilling story with the jury.

Ahoskie, NC newspaper editor Cal Bryant reported this morning (in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) that unnamed "PETA officials attending the trial" now acknowledge Hinkle killed animals from Anderson's shelter -- including those two Dalmatians -- while the PETA van was still in the parking lot. Presumably, this was just minutes after Hinkle assured Anderson that the dogs were adoptable. Jurors may never hear this disturbing detail, but coffee shops in Ahoskie are buzzing about it.

Anderson was optimistic that PETA would give these animals (and all the others that eventually turned up dead) a good-faith effort at adoption. He even handed over his own dog to Hinkle -- a spirited terrier that he and his wife had trouble housebreaking:

"I knew that the dog was a very good dog, but we weren't that successful with it. You know, we were gone most of the time, the kids were at school and so forth, and I knew that by talking to Ms. Hinkle that she could possibly find a home for it, someone that was looking for a good dog. To my understanding, she found a home for it in Virginia."

His dog's name was "Happy." Not even PETA could make this stuff up.

Another episode that made some jurors visibly uncomfortable concerned incriminating documents recovered from the PETA van Adria Hinkle was driving when she and Andrew Cook were arrested. At PETA, it seems, the animal-killing isn't complete until the paperwork is done. Hinkle and Cook, it emerged today, kept a "Field Work Daily Log" describing all the animals they collected and dispatched to The Big Doghouse in the Sky.

Each line on the log has a space to record an animal's breed, sex, age, and condition. Here are just a few of the actual examples read into evidence, as Hinkle and Cook described them:

Breed: Beagle

Sex: Female

Age: 6 months

Condition: Adorable

Breed: Schnauzer

Sex: Male

Age: Born

Condition: Perfect

Breed: DSH [Domestic shorthair cat]

Sex: Female

Age: 7 years

Condition: Pregnant

Question: If these defendants weren't PETA employees, who do you think would be outside the courthouse protesting? Yep. PETA employees.

On cross-examination, defense attorneys tried to get Anderson to concede that he knew his shelter's animals would all be euthanized after PETA picked them up. After 15 minutes of badgering, the animal control officer finally answered "yes" when he was asked if he ever "saw PETA employees injecting animals."

But this was quickly put into context by prosecutor Valerie Asbell during her "re-direct" questions:

Asbell: When you'd see PETA employees inject an animal, what were you told they were doing?

Anderson: Sedating the animals for the ride.

Asbell: And did you ask them, when you saw them inject an animal, what they were doing?

Anderson: Yes.

Asbell: And what did they tell you?

Anderson: That's what they were doing.

Asbell: Which was what?

Anderson: Sedating the animals for the ride, to take back to Virginia.

Asbell: Did anyone, including Ms. Hinkle, ever tell you that they were killing the animals by injecting them at the shelter?

Anderson: No.

After a short mid-afternoon recess, lawyers gathered in front of the bench for what looked to be a very contentious conference. We would soon find out why. The prosecutor's next witness was Brian H. Reise, a supervisor with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Greensboro.

Reise produced a DEA Certificate of Non-Registration (in his words) "certifying that there is no registration in North Carolina for PETA to handle, in any capacity, controlled substances" -- meaning that PETA may not legally "administer, nor handle, procure, manufacture, or distribute controlled substances as a practitioner, retail pharmacy, animal shelter, distributor, researcher, medical lab, importer, exporter, and/or manufacturer in North Carolina."

Oops.

Just to be absolutely clear, the D.A. asked Reise about the specific drug found in PETA's infamous tackle-box "death kit," and found in the organs of the animals recovered from the scene of the crime:

Asbell: If they don't have a federal registration in the state of North Carolina, nobody from PETA in Norfolk, Virginia can dispense or administer drugs in North Carolina. Is that correct?

Reise: Not controlled substances.

Asbell: And sodium pentobarbital is a controlled substance?

Reise: Sodium pentobarbital is a controlled substance.

We leave you tonight with the words of Detective Jeremy Roberts, who concluded his testimony this morning. Asked by a defense lawyer why he charged Hinkle and Cook with animal cruelty for merely "putting animals to sleep," Roberts replied:

"I believed that it was cruel when they refused to find these animals homes, or at least try to. And without even trying, trying to find them homes, your clients killed these animals. I believe that's cruel."

And asked if he had ever charged a defendant with Animal Cruelty before, or if he's charged anyone since the PETA arrests, Roberts answered: "No sir. We've never had a case like this."

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