Crook County woman charged with neglect after dropping off horses and ‘disappearing’

McCarl insisted several times that the horses were fine, even when confronted with graphic evidence of alleged neglect.

McCarl was arraigned in January on two counts of felony animal neglect. On Thursday, she appeared in court for a settlement conference and is due back again in late April.

It’s not the first time McCarl has been accused of neglecting her horses. In 2001, Lane County officials charged her with six counts of misdemeanor animal neglect. She pleaded guilty to three of the charges and was sentenced to three years probation.

In March, neighbors on SE Pony Springs Road east of Prineville began contacting authorities to report two horses in the area looked unhealthy and were clearly not being fed.

Police learned the horses belonged to McCarl, though the property was not hers, and she had recently had a falling-out with the property owner, according to court records.

One horse was a 24-year-old gray and black gelding named Tops, whose hips and ribs were prominently showing, according to police. The other was a white and brown pinto named Gracie, about 10 years old, who was diabetic, suffered persistent problems associated with a club foot and bore a deep and infected cut on one of her legs from getting tangled in barbed wire.

Veterinary treatment for Gracie would cost around $4,000, according to Kate Beardsley, founder of the Bend-based nonprofit Mustangs to the Rescue, who also received calls regarding the horses, court records state.

Beardsley called McCarl and learned she didn’t want her horses going to a rescue group, though she didn’t have the means to care for them herself. Beardsley explained to McCarl the severity of Gracie’s condition but McCarl “minimized” it and insisted she’d never give up Tops and Gracie, Beardsley told police.

Crook County Sheriff’s Office deputy Jacob Koski warned McCarl her conduct was entering criminal territory.

“I explained to Richele that her horses needed to be fed and watered daily and that it had to happen today,” Koski wrote in a court document.

McCarl removed the horses from the property but in late October, Beardsley called police to say she’d again been hearing McCarl’s horses were being neglected.

Sheriff’s deputies next contacted Dennis Frisby, a property owner on SE Combs Flat Road, where Tops and Gracie were found. Frisby told deputies that McCarl’s boyfriend had knocked on his door one night that summer asking Frisby if he could pasture two horses on a small, dirt-covered patch of land on Frisby’s property for “two weeks” while they were moving house.

But after two months, it was clear the couple had no intention of returning for the horses, Frisby told deputies. Frisby had tracked down the boyfriend and learned he and McCarl had broken up. Frisby told deputies he called McCarl numerous times to get her to pick up her horses.

He’d tell her, “I don’t want to wake up and find a dead horse,” to which she’d typically reply: “I’m trying,” court documents state.

Tops and Gracie were seized and earlier this year, a judge approved a forfeiture order, though McCarl fought it in court.