Petaluma police have arrested a 61-year-old San Francisco woman who kept at least 150 cats in a two-story green house she bought exclusively for the cats to live in.
Police responded to a vandalism call at the house at 210 Baker St. in a residential neighborhood of Petaluma at about 1 a.m. and were greeted by an overwhelming stench of urine and feces drifting through several shattered windows and an open screen door, said police Sgt. Ralph Evans.
Fearing the stench might be the result of a dead body, one of the officers went inside the house and found cats everywhere, living in horrible conditions. At least three cats were found dead, including one that had been partly cannibalized.
"When he opened the door, he was overcome by the smell of feces and urine," said Evans. "All of the floors of the residence were covered with it."
As police and firefighters were inspecting the house just before 7 a.m. -- wearing hazardous materials suits -- the cats' guardian, Marilyn Barletta, drove up in her Mercedes station wagon to feed the cats. She was arrested and later charged with felony cruelty to animals.
Inspectors retrieved about 85 cats from the property and took them to an animal shelter. They were back on the scene this morning to try to retrieve as many as 100 more, many of which were hiding in walls and in the garage.
"(Barletta) admitted it had gotten out of hand," said Nancee Tavares, the manager for Petaluma Animal Services, who helped question Barletta at police headquarters. "She thought she was doing good and she started with maybe 10 cats, but they weren't spayed or neutered and it got out of hand. She believes that any life is preferable to being euthanized."
According to Evans, Barletta bought the $400,000 house five years ago for the cats after Marin Humane Society officials refused to take any more of her cats for their adoption program. Barletta, a retired real estate agent who lives on Polk Street in San Francisco, never lived at the sparsely furnished house but would visit it daily to feed the cats, Tavares said.
Over the past five years, the cats apparently bred without restrictions, multiplying rapidly until there were several generations of litters living there, Tavares said. On average, a female cat can have two litters per year with about six kittens each, Tavares said.
Barletta had set up an appointment to see about having Petaluma Animal Services take some of the cats off her hands, Tavares said. "She had that appointment scheduled with me today and she was hoping some of them could be adopted," said Tavares, who described Barletta as well- dressed, cooperative, articulate, sad and overwhelmed.
Barletta was charged with animal cruelty and posted bail yesterday. Tavares said her department was trying to get Barletta to agree to release custody of the cats so they can be immediately assessed for diseases. If she doesn't agree to that, the case will have to go before the animal services department for a hearing, Tavares said.
Tavares said Barletta fits the description of an animal hoarder, which is described in an online psychiatry article as a person who is in a state of denial that prevents him or her from seeing filth or understanding that animals are sick, dying or dead.
Greg Mitchell, 49, a landscaper who also lives across the street, said neighborhood cats would flock to the house at night and could be heard moaning, screeching and fighting.
"It had been going on for years," Mitchell said. "I knew her. I met her when I bought the house four years ago. I thought she was just a quirky lady. She was well-dressed, she drove a nice car. She didn't seem to be (unstable)."
Tavares said her department had been getting calls from neighbors for a year about the cat problem but Barletta always refused to let inspectors on her property. Despite the conditions that were found inside the house, there were no indications of a serious problem based on how the property looked from the outside, Tavares said.
"We'd go to the door and we couldn't smell anything outside and it looked pretty clean," Tavares said. But inspectors were not prepared for the conditions inside the house when they went yesterday to retrieve the cats. "It was incredibly bad," Tavares said. "There were cats in drawers, they were in the walls."
Inspectors found a dead cat in the garbage, another in a cat carrier and a third that had been partly cannibalized in the refrigerator, which was shut off. Most of the cats were feral, Tavares said, and ranged in size from undernourished kittens to well-fed adults. "There was definitely a pecking order," Tavares said. "The dominant cats got first pick and the others got the leftovers." Tavares said she was unsure how much dry food Barletta had to carry with her to feed the cats, but that a cat typically requires at least a cup of food per day. Many empty food bowls were scattered around the house, she said.
"Most of these cats have never been outside in their lives so the outside is terrifying for them," Tavares said. "Many of the adults are totally wild, feral cats. They will have to be put down because there are so many nice lap cats that need homes. Nobody wants feral cats like this."
Many of the cats lashed out and bit inspectors trying to round them up, Tavares said. Case UpdatesBarletta was ordered released Aug 16, 2004 from a mental health treatment center after psychiatrists there concluded she could not be restored to competency to stand trial on misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.
Barletta, 64, smiled broadly as Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert Dale ordered her released from Sutter Hospital's Norton Mental Health Center in Santa Rosa. He had committed her there for treatment on June 21 after suspending criminal proceedings against her.
Dale noted that Barletta has 434 days' credit for time served in jail. He said the court couldn't keep her at the Norton Center because that time is more than the year in jail she would have served had she been convicted of one count of animal cruelty.
Assistant Sonoma County District Attorney Greg Jacobs offered no argument against Barletta's release.
"You can't proceed against someone if they are not competent," Jacobs said after this morning's ruling.
"You do not keep people in jail because they happen to be unique," Barletta's attorney Gregor Guy-Smith said after the hearing.
The disposition of the case this morning ends a saga that began on May 22, 2001 when more than 200 cats, some of them dead, were found in squalid conditions in a home she owned on Baker Street in Petaluma. Most were too sick or feral to be adopted, so they were euthanized.
Barletta was charged with animal cruelty and later with tampering with evidence when she returned to the house to feed more cats that were found there. The house was eventually renovated and sold.
Barletta was taken into custody in July 2003 when she failed to keep an appointment for a psychological exam. She posted $50,000 bail, missed another exam and traveled to Florida before she was arrested in San Francisco on Oct. 27.
She was in the Sonoma County Jail between Nov. 6, 2003 and June 21, 2004 when she was ordered to the Norton Center for treatment. Barletta claimed throughout the proceedings she was not hoarding the cats, but simply trying to find homes for them. She also was found to be collecting cats in Sausalito and Novato.
The three attorneys who represented her during the past three years argued she needed treatment, not incarceration, for her propensity to collect cats. The district attorney's office in April offered to reduce one of the two felony animal cruelty charges to a misdemeanor and to dismiss the other charge. Barletta would have been sentenced to three years' probation under the offer.
Criminal proceedings were suspended later that month and Barletta was found incompetent to stand trial in May.
In a letter to the court this month from the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, two psychiatrists at the Norton Center concluded she is incompetent to stand trial and cannot be restored to competency by any means available to them.
The psychiatrists said medication or therapy could possibly help Barletta, but she is not interested in such treatment and they cannot compel her to take those measures.
Doctors Serge Abramovich and Mark Kasprow said Barletta exhibited no behavioral problems and has a "fixed and rigid thought pattern." | Source: ABC Local - Aug 16, 2004
Update posted on Oct 9, 2004 - 12:17PM |
Officers arrested San Francisco resident Marilyn Barletta, 64, at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel Monday night (Nov 3, 2003), said San Francisco Police Department spokesman Dewayne Tully.
Barletta has been charged with felony animal cruelty and is alleged to have hoarded 202 cats, some of them dead, in unsanitary conditions at her Petaluma home two years ago.
According to Tully, police arrested the woman around 11:10 p.m. after Hilton Fisherman's Wharf manager Dan Cui, 27, recognized her from newspaper reports he had read. Cui apparently called police after Barletta checked into a room.
After police arrived at the hotel, the officers were interviewing the manager when Barletta walked by. Police reports say that Cui spotted her and yelled, "That's her, she's the one from the paper!"
Tully said Barletta was arrested without incident and that the hotel manager agreed to store her belongings at the hotel. After her arrest on a $75,000 warrant, Barletta was taken to Central Police Station and was then booked into county jail. She is awaiting transport to Petaluma, Tully said.
Police found the 202 cats in Barletta's Baker Street home in Petaluma in March 2001. Barletta was reportedly missing in July after being jailed for failing to show up for a psychological examination to determine if she was capable of standing trial.
Read More: Update posted on Nov 6, 2003 - 4:27PM |
It�s been four months since Barletta, 64, failed to appear at a Sonoma County Superior Court hearing. She was out on $50,000 bail pending a trial on felony animal cruelty charges for keeping approximately 200 cats in squalid conditions in her Petaluma home.
Barletta has managed to make two trips over the past four months to Florida, where her mother and brother live, according to Steve Heffelfinger, of Wine Country Investigations in Windsor. He�s been tracking Barletta and trying to bring her back to court. Heffelfinger said Barletta has colored her hair twice, going from silver to blonde to brunette, and is living off cash. | | Update posted on Nov 6, 2003 - 4:24PM |
Barletta was ordered to jail Wednesday after skipping a court-mandated psychological exam. Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert Dale suspended the criminal proceedings against Marilyn Barletta, 63, and ordered her taken into custody on $50,000 bail. She will remain in jail until her next court appearance Friday.
Read more: SFGate.Com | | Update posted on Jul 19, 2003 - 12:50PM |
| In January 2002, the Sacramento City Council voted 6 to 0 to place a nuisance-abatement lien on Barletta's house. The cost being sough included $4,925 for disposal of the bodies of about 160 cats that were too wild or sick to be adopted. | | Update posted on Jun 18, 2003 - 11:40AM |
| Prosecutors in Sonoma County say for the past several months, Marilyn Barletta has been keeping 40 cats at an office in Sausalito. The allegation was made public Tuesday morning during Barletta's latest court appearance. Officials say the owner of the Sausalito building evicted Barletta and gave the cats away after neighbors complained about the noise and the stench. (May 2002) | | Update posted on Mar 20, 2003 - 3:53PM |
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