A California bartender has been accused of scamming dozens of bereaved pet owners by charging them huge sums for bespoke cremations before dumping the animals in a freezer amid a macabre crime wave across the US.
Victims claim Nejyredth Velasquez, 38, and her partner Anthony Nunez, 35, of Oxnard, California, lied about having their own ‘state of the art’ crematorium to dupe them out of hundreds of dollars for services that included providing paw prints and other keepsakes.
In reality, they had no such thing and in some cases owners were forced to retrieve the rotting remains of their beloved companions in a bin bag after they got wind of the scheme.
It comes amid a disturbing trend in which animal remains have been found in deserts, trucks and mass graves, DailyMail.com can reveal.
In one shocking case, a woman was arrested after allegedly dumping 25 bags of animal carcasses in the Utah desert.
California bartender Nejyredth Velasquez is accused of scamming dozens of bereaved pet owners out of hundreds of dollars by promising bespoke cremations that were never delivered
One of Velasquez’s clients, Robert Balog, 44, (left) said he had to retrieve the frozen remains of his cat Stewie (right) at a parking lot weeks after his ashes should have been returned
Jaqueline Alonso, 36, with her dog Spot, and Gabrielle Real, 23, and her cat Hela, are also among up to 80 of the alleged victims of Velasquez’s ‘scam’
Meanwhile, a Kentucky businessman has been charged after the rotting remains of half a dozen pets were found in the back of his truck.
Police claim the twisted crook lied about having a crematorium and handed back concrete mix and cat litter in urns to owners instead of ashes.
And in Colorado, two veterinarians have accused a crematorium of burying pets in mass graves and dumping bodies at landfill sites.
It is thought hundreds of victims may have fallen prey to unscrupulous operators who are taking advantage of a largely unregulated industry across America.
Donna Shugart-Bethune, executive director at the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories (IAOPCC), based in Atlanta, Georgia, said ‘egregious stories’ were rife throughout the industry.
‘These people are taking advantage of grief,’ she told DailyMail.com.
The tales range from negligent business practices to outright scams and cruelty.
It is thought that there are around 700 pet aftercare facilities in the US, of which less than half are accredited by the IAOPCC.
It means pet owners are often caught out by fly-by-night operators who charge hundreds of dollars for bespoke cremation services that are never delivered.
Dozens of pet owners claim they were fleeced by We Care Pet Cremations, the firm run by Velasquez and Nunez.
The company’s website promised ‘true private cremations in a state of the art new machine’, alongside paw prints and other bespoke offerings.
It also promised communication throughout the entire process, which included collection of the pet and the return of their ashes in an urn to the owner.
But Robert Balog, 44, ended up having to go to a Best Buy parking lot to pick up the remains of his beloved tabby cat Stewie, who had been stuffed into a bin bag after We Care failed to carry out the $560 cremation.
Robert said We Care were quick to respond to his query and collected Stewie from his house in Van Nuys on the same day.
But as soon as they had taken payment, We Care became uncontactable, Robert claims.
Jacob Jetton was arrested after after the remains of half a dozen pets were found in the back of his truck. Police claim he gave concrete mix and cat litter in urns to owners instead of ashes
His friend, Tory Duchene, who had helped look after Stewie, then started to badger the company when they were left without news for weeks.
Her calls would go to voicemail until she was eventually blocked.
It was only when Tory started posting online about the shoddy service that We Care got in touch, agreeing to meet in the Best Buy parking lot.
Stewie had not been cremated when Robert picked him up, despite We Care’s previous assertions that he had.
He remembers winding down the windows of his car as the putrid smell of Stewie’s three-week old carcass filled the air on the hour-long journey home.
‘It was such a shady scenario,’ Robert said. ‘They take advantage of you when you are in an emotional state and don’t take the time to do the proper due diligence.’
Tory was subsequently contacted by dozens of pet owners who had lost trace of their pets after hiring We Care.
Victims claim that the firm, instead of cremating the pets themselves, had dumped between 50 to 80 dead pets at another crematorium, Furrever Friends, with no contact information for the owners.
Other bodies were simply stuffed in a freezer for weeks on end, it is alleged.
Gabrielle Real, 23, from Hollywood, said she had to retrieve her dead cat Hela from Furrever Friends more than a month after she hired We Care, who had also blocked her.
She never received the urn or necklace that was part of the $309 service she had paid for.
Similarly, Jacqueline Alonso, 36, from Huntingdon Park, paid $227 for a package that was supposed to include a paw print mold of her chihuahua, Spot, but was forced to collect the ashes from Furrever Friends six weeks after hiring We Care.
‘This is not about laziness, it’s a total scam,’ she said. ‘They’re taking advantage of people who have just lost their dog or cat.
‘You’re pretty vulnerable at that moment, your head is everywhere.
‘It’s not just a dog or cat, it’s part of your family. It’s the same grief you would have for a family member.’
Tory said some pet owners she had spoken to had paid as much as $1,600 for a bespoke service but it took a year for them to get their ashes.
Others had never managed to trace their pets, while one had been given the ashes of another, she claimed.
‘They’re lying to people,’ Tory said. ‘They claim that they are performing the cremations and that they work with all these local veterinary hospitals, but they don’t.
‘They’re not even performing the cremation. They’re just outsourcing and abandoning the pets.’
We Care has since ceased operating, but Tory now fears the business has restarted under a new name, Honorable Animal Aftercare, after she received an invoice under that name.
DailyMail.com has contacted We Care for a response.
Deputy Lindsey Miller of McCracken County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky investigated Jetton
Deputy Lindsey Miller, an animal cruelty specialist at McCracken County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky, was called into action in March last year following reports of a bad smell in a strip mall in the city of Paducah.
One of the store owners was concerned that a man called Jacob Jetton, who owned a music store in the mall, was also running a ‘weird’ pet crematorium.
When investigators arrived at the scene, they found half a dozen dead animals rotting in the back of Jetton’s truck.
Miller told DailyMail.com the remains had been there for up to three weeks after they were meant to have been cremated.
To complete the twisted scheme, Jetton had been returning concrete mix and cat litter in the guise of ashes to the bereaved owners, Miller said.
‘They are pets, but to most of these people, they are their babies, and it was heartbreaking,’ she added.
Police found no sign that Jetton possessed any cremation facilities when they searched the property where he claimed he had been carrying them out.
Instead, they found only a disused barn, abandoned cars and a trailer.
It is thought Jetton ensnared around 14 victims in total.
He has been charged with multiple offenses including theft by deception and disorderly conduct.
Perhaps most distressing of all was the discovery of 25 bags of animal remains in the desert near St George, Utah.
The bodies were in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was difficult to distinguish between dogs and cats.
But investigations revealed that many belonged to clients of First Call Pet Cremation in Las Vegas, owned by Rick Senninger.
Washington County has filed charges against McKenzie Frei, who is alleged to have been hired by Senninger to cremate the animals, but instead dumped them on the side of a road.
There are no charges pending against Senninger – Washington police said he had not carried out activities in their county.
Senninger said that he stopped accepting new customers and assisted law enforcement once he became aware of Frei’s actions.
Meanwhile, two Colorado veterinarians have sued a pet crematorium claiming it buried pets in mass graves instead of providing the bespoke cremations they charged for.
Edwards Veterinary Care and Western Skies claim that Precious Memories Pet Cemetery & Crematory disposed of animal carcasses at a landfill and in mass graves when the vets had asked for the bodies to be cremated, according to a lawsuit filed in Larimer County in January.
Samantha Staggs, the director of Precious Memories, said in a statement that the firm was ‘shocked’ to learn of the allegations and maintained that it was in ‘full compliance with all laws and regulations’.
Shugart-Bethune, of the IAOPCC, said it was vital pet owners did their due diligence before selecting an aftercare provider.
She said IAOPCC accredited operators guaranteed ‘full disclosure of the pet identification and tracking process’.
