Attractive bartender accused of defrauding heartbroken pet owner as pandemic spreads across the US

• A woman allegedly abandoned 25 bags of dead animals in the Utah desert.
• Six dead pets found in back seat of man’s truck in Kentucky
• Colorado veterans accuse crematorium of burying pets in mass graves

A California bartender has been accused of charging dozens of bereaved pet owners millions of dollars for custom cremations and then dumping the animals in freezers, amid a spate of horrific crimes across the United States.

The victims said Nejlez Velazquez, 38, and her partner Anthony Nunez, 35, of Oxnard, Calif., scammed them out of hundreds of dollars for services that included providing footprints and other mementos. They claim that they lied about having their own “state-of-the-art” crematorium. .

In reality, there is no such thing, and in some cases, owners have been forced to collect the rotting bodies of their beloved companions in garbage bags after learning of the scheme.

This comes amid a disturbing trend of animal remains being found in deserts, tracks and mass graves, as revealed by DailyMail.com.

In one shocking incident, A woman has been arrested on suspicion of dumping 25 bags of dead animals in a trash can. Utah desert.

on the other hand, kentucky A businessman has been charged after the rotting bodies of six pets were found in the back of his truck.

Police allege the crook lied about having a crematorium and replaced the remains with concrete mix and cat litter in the urn and returned it to the owner.

And in Colorado, two veterinarians They accused the crematorium of burying pets in mass graves and dumping bodies in landfills.

It is believed they may have fallen prey to unscrupulous traders exploiting an industry that is largely unregulated across the United States.

Donna Shugart Bethune, executive director of the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematoriums (IAOPCC), based in Atlanta, Georgia, said “horrible stories” are rampant throughout the industry.

“These people are taking advantage of grief,” she told DailyMail.com.

Stories range from negligent business practices to outright fraud and brutality.

There are believed to be approximately 700 pet aftercare facilities in the United States, but less than half of them are accredited by the IAOPCC.

This means pet owners are often caught by companies that charge hundreds of dollars for custom cremation services and never deliver.

Dozens of pet owners claim they were defrauded of money by We Care Pet Cremations, a company run by Velasquez and Nuñez.

The company’s website promised “true individual cremation with state-of-the-art new machinery,” along with footprints and other bespoke services.

They also promised to communicate throughout the process, including picking up the pet and returning the ashes to the owner in an urn.

But 44-year-old Robert Balogh had to go to a Best Buy parking lot to retrieve the remains of his beloved tabby cat Stewie, stuffed in a trash bag, after We Care failed to pay for a $560 cremation. It stopped happening.

Robert said We Care responded quickly to his inquiry and picked Stewie up from his home in Van Nuys the same day.

But as soon as the payment was made, Robert claims, he lost contact with We Care.

Tori Duchesne, a friend who helped take care of Stewie, began blaming the company after not hearing from her for weeks.

Her calls went to voicemail until they were eventually blocked.

It wasn’t until the Tories started posting online about the poor service that We Care contacted them and agreed to meet them in a Best Buy parking lot.

Stewie had not yet been cremated when Robert came to pick him up, even though We Care had previously claimed that Stewie had been cremated.

He remembers rolling down the car windows on the hour-long drive home, the rotting smell of three-week-old Stewie’s carcass filling the air.

“It was a very shady scenario,” Robert said. “They take advantage of you when you’re emotional and don’t take the time to do proper due diligence.”

Tory has since been contacted by dozens of pet owners who have lost trace of their pets after hiring We Care.

The victims allege that instead of cremating their pets themselves, the company dumped 50 to 80 dead pets at another crematorium, Ferber Friends, without providing the owners’ contact information. .

Other bodies were said to have simply been stuffed into freezers for weeks.

Gabriel Real, 23, who lives in Hollywood, said that more than a month after asking We Care, he had to adopt his dead cat Hera, who had also been blocked, from Farber Friends. Told.

She did not receive an urn or necklace, which was part of the $309 service she paid for.

Similarly, Jacqueline Alonso, 36, of Huntingdon Park, paid $227 for a package that was supposed to contain a footprint impression of her Chihuahua, Spot, but the We Care company Six weeks after being hired, he was forced to collect remains from Farber Friends.

“This is not a matter of laziness, this is outright fraud,” she said. “They are taking advantage of people who have just lost their dog or cat.

“In that moment, you’re pretty vulnerable and your head is all over the place.

“It’s not just a dog or a cat, it’s a member of your family. It’s the same grief you have for a family member.”

Tory said some pet owners she spoke to paid as much as $1,600 for the custom service, but it took a year to receive their remains.

Some were unable to trace their pets, and others were given the remains of another person, she claimed.

“They’re lying to people,” Tory said. “They claim they are doing the cremations and working with all the local veterinary hospitals, but that is not actually the case.

“They don’t even do cremations. They just outsource the pets and abandon them.”

we care has since ceased operations, but Tory is now receiving bills under a new name, Honorable Animal Aftercare, and is concerned that the business may be reopening under that name.

DailyMail.com has reached out to We Care for a response.

Deputy Lindsey Miller, an animal cruelty specialist with the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky, was dispatched last March to reports of a foul odor at a shopping mall in Paducah.

One store owner was concerned that a man named Jacob Jetton, who owns a music store in the mall, also ran a “bizarre” pet crematorium.

When investigators arrived at the scene, they found six decomposing animal carcasses in the back of Jetton’s truck.

Miller told DailyMail.com that the body had been there for up to three weeks after it was supposed to be cremated.

To complete this twisted plan, Jetton disguised the concrete mix and cat litter as ashes and returned them to the owners’ families, Miller said.

“They are pets, but to most people they are their babies and that was heartbreaking,” she added.

Police searched the premises where Jetton claimed to have performed cremations, but found no evidence that he owned a crematorium.

Instead, only disused barns, abandoned cars, and trailers were found.

Jetton is believed to have trapped around 14 victims in total.

He has been charged with multiple charges including theft by deception and disorderly conduct.

Perhaps most tragically, 25 bags containing dead animals were discovered in the desert near St. George, Utah.

The decomposition of the bodies was so advanced that it was impossible to tell the difference between a dog and a cat.

But an investigation revealed that many belonged to customers of First Call Pet Cremation in Las Vegas, owned by Rick Senninger.

Washington County charged Mackenzie Fry, who was hired by Zenninger to cremate the animals, but instead dumped them on the side of the road.

There are no charges pending against Senninger, and Washington police said he does not operate in the county.

Zenninger said that once he became aware of Frye’s actions, he stopped accepting new customers and assisted law enforcement.

Meanwhile, two veterinarians in Colorado are suing a pet crematorium for burying their pets in mass graves instead of providing the custom cremations they charged.

Edwards Veterinary Care and Western Skies said in a lawsuit filed in Larimer County in January that Precious Memories Pet Cemetery and Crematorium failed to treat animals when veterinarians requested that their bodies be cremated. They claim the bodies were disposed of in landfills and mass graves.

Samantha Staggs, director of Precious Memories, said in a statement that the company was “shocked” to learn of the allegations and insisted it was “in full compliance with all laws and regulations.”

IAOPCC’s Shugart Bethune said it was important for pet owners to do a proper assessment before choosing an aftercare provider.

He said IAOPCC-accredited businesses ensure “full disclosure of pet identification and tracking processes.”