Caroline Dawn Pennington, who is in charge of an animal rescue center, was arrested on 30 counts of animal cruelty on Friday. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is also looking into her for fraud.
She worked at the Kershaw County Humane Society for four years and was in charge of scheduling staff before she quit on Thursday.
Deputies say she was running a 501(c)(3) certified rescue service called “GROWL” in an illegal way out of her residence on Dibble Lane. A neighbor told police that the house smelled like “death.”
“The home was in disrepair from general neglect,” said investigator, Lt. Joe Clarke. “The surfaces of the floor and the cabinets were covered in fecal matter, there were areas you could tell these animals had urinated. It smelled bad, it’s summer, it’s humid. As we were walking through the home, we kept finding dead animals in carriers… Some were unidentifiable as dogs or cats.”
Richland sheriff’s deputies and animal control started searching the property and found the dead bodies of 28 dogs and 2 cats. Investigators say that it looked like they had been malnourished, and that their bodies had been in the house for at least 9 months.
Investigators also thought that the property had been left empty. Deputies say that Pennington was still getting money for rescue efforts at this time.
“If you’ve done business with this woman or had contact with her, given her any kind of money, or given her products to help her animal rescue in the last year, we’d like to talk to you,” Lt. Clarke said. “Don’t hesitate to give us a call.”
Call Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC if you know anything else about this case or if you did business with Pennington in the last year.
