NAME: Melvin Eggemeyer - former animal control worker WHERE: Sparta, Illinois CRIME: Sparta residents said that former animal control worker, Melvin Eggemeyer was complained about before a dog in his possession was found dead by its owner on Oct. 4. The dog belonged to Chuck Kelley, son of Sparta Mayor Charles Kelley. Randolph County State’s Attorney Jeremy Walker confirmed that Eggemeyer was charged with cruelty to animals, a class A misdemeanor, on Tuesday for the incident and is scheduled to appear at 9 a.m., Nov. 4, in court. Kelley and his family came home that day to find their 8-year-old chocolate lab, Mocha, was missing. Kelley was told animal control had picked up Mocha and called Eggemeyer to claim his pet. Kelley was under the impression Mocha was alive at the animal control building but arrived to find him dead in his cage. Eggemeyer was suspended by Sparta Commissioner of Health and Safety Gary Hanna and resigned shortly after. Paula Allard and her husband, veterinarian Dr. Tim Allard, believe that this could have been avoided had complaints about Eggemeyer’s job performance not been ignored in the past by city officials. The Allards own and operate Sparta Animal Clinic and offered to x-ray the exhumed remains of Mocha to aid in the investigation of how he died. Dr. Allard made his own report on the results and sent them to Idexx Laboratories in Tennessee to be examined. An Idexx radiologist made the same conclusions as Dr. Allard. Those conclusions could not be disclosed because of it being an active case. The Allards said they first complained to Hanna, Eggemeyer’s supervisor, after an incident in December 2013 when Eggemeyer came to retrieve the remains of a German Shepard that had just been euthanized. “He backed his truck to the back door, put the tailgate down, loaded the dog’s body on the tailgate and drove out of here with this dead dog stretched across the back of his tailgate,” Paula Allard said. “This is what prompted us contacting Gary Hanna to talk to him about the behavior of his animal control officer.” The Allards said that the tailgate was open when Eggemeyer left and clients in their waiting room saw the dead animal taken away. As Eggemeyer left the parking lot and approached a nearby restaurant the dog fell off the tailgate. “The only way I found out about this was because I was told by one of our clients in the waiting room,” Paula said. “He drove down the road and the dog fell off the back of the truck in front of Doreen’s restaurant while a bunch of children were in there eating with their parents.” “We told Mr. Hanna that this was unacceptable practice,” she said. The Allards also said Eggemeyer would not follow protocol on what to do with stray cats when he picked them up. Animal control workers are supposed to check stray animals for tags and scan for an implanted microchip to determine ownership. “He brought a cat in here one day and wanted us to euthanize it and the vet that worked for us at the time said they would not euthanize the animal because it did have a microchip,” Paula said. “He (Eggemeyer) got upset and took the animal and left and we don’t know what happened to it.” Bobby and Linda Mines of Sparta said that they lost their cat, Miss Kitty, in August and looked for her for a week. Six days later Linda’s neighbor told her she found the cat nearby four to five days earlier and thought it was dead. This prompted Linda to call animal control to see if they had picked up her cat’s body. The Mines’ cat was wearing tags containing their phone number, address, and proof of vaccinations. “So I called animal control to see if they picked up my cat and he (Eggemeyer) said that he did the week before,” Linda said. “So I told them I wanted my cat so we could cremate her and he said that he had already disposed of her.” Mines said she was able to get Miss Kitty’s collar at the police department, but feels that she was not listened to in her complaints. “We called Gary Hanna and left a message asking for our cat and we never heard back from him,” Mines said. Hanna would not comment for this story but sent a statement via fax that said, “The City of Sparta sincerely regrets any time in which a resident’s pet dies while in the care of the local Animal Control Officer.” The statement went on to say that any further inquiries must be made to the Randolph County State’s Attorney. Sparta Police Chief Sean Lukes said that he had not heard any complaints about Eggemeyer before the incident and added that the town would have proper training in place for the position in the future.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 19:05:15 +0000
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