Clerk's call led police to missing rabbits

By Bob Heye and Associated Press Published: Jan 23, 2007 at 8:34 AM PDT Last Updated: Apr 12, 2007 at 10:38 AM PDT
Clerk's call led police to missing rabbits »Play Video
A rabbit confiscated from Miriam Sakewitz in October of 2006 is inspected and cared for by a volunteer. Sakewitz's property held hundreds of dead, dying and caged rabbits.

HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - An obsessed woman broke into a police holding area to take back about 130 rabbits she had been accused of neglecting, police said.

In October, Hillsboro police seized 150 live rabbits from the home of Miriam Sakewitz and found nearly 100 more dead ones in a trio of freezers. Sakewitz was charged with 257 counts of animal neglect. Her trial is pending.

The remaining living animals were confiscated as evidence and taken to a facility to help them recover.

Police and volunteers had cared for the rabbits since then, keeping them at what Commander Chris Skinner called a "secure, undisclosed location."

"They were having a quality of life they hadn't seen," Skinner said. "They were being cared for several times a day."

But on January 14, volunteers found a lock and chain-link enclosure cut and 130 of the bunnies were gone. Skinner said suspicion fell immediately on Sakewitz.

"In her mind, they are her rabbits. She is very obsessed with them," he said.

Sakewitz couldn't immediately be located.

A phone call from a concerned hotel clerk led police to a motel in Chehalis, Wash. The clerk became worried about the way Sakewitz spoke of the rabbits, then looked up her case on the Internet and called police.

Police said they tailed her and stopped her Monday, finding nine rabbits in her car, one dead.

They said they found 132 more at a Chehalis horse farm where she was renting space, with two more dead. Police said she faces burglary charges. She was lodged in the Lewis County Jail.

Skinner said police had segregated the rabbits by gender, but Sakewitz mingled them.

"You see where I am going with this?" Skinner said Tuesday. "We are not sure how many rabbits we are going to end up with after a 29-day gestation period."