Updated ... Same Westport woods lot, same animal horrors

Six years later, police discover dead, dying animals on property

By Bruce Burdett
Posted 7/20/16

By Bruce Burdett

Six years ago, Westport Police uncovered a horrific scene of dead and abused animals on a large property off 465 American Legion Highway.

And apparently little has changed in …

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Updated ... Same Westport woods lot, same animal horrors

Six years later, police discover dead, dying animals on property

Posted

Nearly to the day six years ago, Westport Police uncovered a horrific scene of dead and abused animals on a large property off 465 American Legion Highway.

Apparently little has changed in the years since despite town and state pledges to keep a close eye on the place.

Police obtained a search warrant this week for that same site and discovered many more dead and mistreated animals. By late Thursday they had found 600-800 animals —some dead, many in miserable condition.

The probe began after a man reported last week that 18 of his goats had been attacked and mauled by two Rottweilers — the dogs, too, were found to be in bad condition.

By late Tuesday, Det. Jeff Majewski said police had searched about a third of the 70 acre property which he said is divided up into 20 lots, some of which have ramshackle shed and animal pens.

As before, they discovered dogs chained to buildings, trees and posts — one had nowhere to stand but on clamshells and broken glass. What food and water was left for them hadn’t been changed in a while — buckets were disgusting with slime and rotted material; food was maggot-ridden.

Carcasses of dead sheep lay in the open as other animals, some in bad shape, walked around them.

Three goats were deemed too far gone to save — they were euthanized.

And the odor was awful, he said — a mix of rotting flesh and food and animal feces.

“As a resident of Westport I am ashamed — we should all be ashamed that this keeps happening,” Det. Majewski said.

“Because agencies, like the town Board of Health, are not stepping up to play a more significant role and see to it that properties, especially this property that they already knew about, are inspected and made to follow the rules, these horrendous things keep happening,” the detective said.

“This isn’t farming,” he added.

Police believe that, as before, property owner Richard Medeiros, who lives at 252 Gifford Road in Westport, has been renting lots on his land for cash although there are no permits and have been no required town inspections for such an operation nor business taxes paid.

Among the many discoveries at the property so far …

• Evidence, Det. Majewski said, that some of the lots are “basically used as party hangouts or places to stay for awhile.”

There are shacks with generators, microwaves, wood stoves, mattresses, “none of them with building permits … So we have people we know nothing about coming here and doing whatever they want, way out of sight, three quarters of a mile from the road … “

• Recently LoJack “pinged” a stolen car and traced it to one of the lots. There police found three stolen vehicles — a Mercedes, an Infiniti and a Yamaha motorcycle. In plain sight on a shelf were eight firearms that police have not been able to trace.

• During this week’s investigation, Mr. Medeiros was told that he would have to do a state-approved environmental cleanup where an illegal oil tank had been leaking. The next day, Det. Majewski said the tank had vanished — no cleanup was done.

• Police say that Mr. Medeiros rents the lots for $100 to $200 a month in cash — they say it has not been determined whether that income is declared. Also, Det. Majewski said that Mr. Medeiros in some cases only knows his tenants by first name and cell phone number. A ledger book of payments also does not include full names.

• Police believe some of the animals are slaughtered for feasts in the area and possibly for sale (although no record keeping of what happens to the animals is evident). For sanitation and disease control reasons, slaughter except for personal consumption by owner, may only be done in licensed and inspected facilities.

• A man who kept over 90 goats there told police that recently about 18 of them suddenly started shaking and soon died. “No veterinarian was ever called — no report of this was made.”

• When a similar operation in Dartmouth was shut down a few years ago, one of the animal owners “simply brought his livestock over to this property in Westport” and carried on as before.

• The rottweilers that killed the sheep were emaciated and had suffered muscle loss, a veterinarian said.

• A dog owner there said he doesn’t feed and water his dogs daily. Rather, he comes by every few days and “power feeds” his dogs — “whatever that means,” Det. Majewski said.

• Two men that police encountered at one lot had no driver’s license‚ but had driven there. Some have criminal backgrounds.

“One alarming thing about all this is that these woods are close to residential Westport neighborhoods,” — Jillian Way, Shannon Drive … “What if those dogs had come upon children instead of sheep …” the detective said. And it “is not comforting to think that people from who knows where, maybe armed” are coming and going.

• People from Fall River and other places “are bringing their trash to Westport and burning it here illegally on the ground.”

• Last year, the town’s animal control officer responded to a complaint there and said she witnessed animal-related issues that she reported to the Board of Health. Det. Majewski said the BOH eventually sent out an inspector in January of this year who reported that he found nothing amiss.

“Perhaps he was not able to see all of the lots out there,” Det. Majewski said, but had he asked, authorities could have assisted him in gaining access to any part of the property.

After the discovery six years ago (August 2010), the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals visited the property but decided that it would not pursue animal cruelty charges for the time being against the owner or tenants of property off Route 177 in Westport.

The group will instead, a spokesman said, make future unannounced inspections of the property and the case remains open.

During that inspection, MSPCA spokesman Brian Adams said, “They found that many of the properties no longer had animals." They learned that some of the animals had been auctioned off and others had been moved elsewhere.

And after that discovery six years ago, Westport officials said they would check on whether the Medeiros property qualifies for the agricultural property tax break it gets from the town.

The investigation involved numerous agencies. Detectives from Westport, Dartmouth, Fall River and State Police, officials from Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, veterinarians and inspectors from Animal Rescue League of Boston and Mass. SPCA, and others pored over the property.

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