Former worker reports brutality at Spindletop Refuge

The Spindletop Morgan Building after death of 39 dogs

Each day, a former worker at Spindletop Refuge is coming forward with reports of horrible brutality and abuse at the Willis, Texas facility still open and boarding dogs.

In the agreement with Montgomery County, Leah Purcell was allowed to continue working with animals by running her boarding facility. How can anyone be allowed to even handle an animal after nearly three hundred dogs were removed and in deplorable conditions.

A former worker whose name is being withheld to protect their anonymity and to insure safety from retaliation has stepped forward to try and help those people who placed dogs for care and boarding at Spindletop.

Just a paid hourly employee at Spindletop, this person became overwhelmed by the conditions at Spindletop and did not know where to turn. "Whenever there were medical issues with the dogs, Louise would send April back there and supposedly check them out."

"I can tell you that April was their go-to guy. She has powerful information about the history of that place. All three of them were habitual liars.  I could never do anything to hurt a dog or animal of any kind and it broke my heart for the whole time I was working there. But I can say that I did help a lot of the dog's in certain ways that would not have come about without me constantly making recommendations for them."

The employee attempted to aid the investigation after the raid in hopes of helping to reunite some of the surviving near 300 which were sequestered at Montgomery County Fairgrounds. The employee attempted to contact investigators and never received a reply. Several of the dogs on Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs Facebook page have been positively identified as dogs who perished in the Morgan Building due to horrific conditions and no cooling in the middle of a hot East Texas summer.

"I actually have some of my own concerns about how the investigation began. I was in the back of the property where about 200 out of the 300 were housed and we were about two hours into working the dogs. When all of a sudden a hand full of cops and h/s (Humane Society) came to collect all the workers.'

'While about twelve dogs were out in the outside runs with full sun exposed in mid-July. I had to argue with the the officers that these dogs could not be left in the hot sun for extended amounts of time. After putting my foot down and refusing to cooperate until the dog's were housed out of the sun did they let me put them back in their arranged crates."

Recently recovered texts from April Longhurst, the longtime right-hand attendant of Leah Purcell and Spindletop, have disclosed information about a 'farrier' who was taking truckloads of dogs and killing them.

"April held so many secret's of that place . I alway's felt that April knew deep dark secrets of Spindletop, due to the way she carried herself around the place and the way she talked to Leah's mother Louise when they argued.

Since the raid and seizure, Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs Facebook page has been searching for answers so that those who entrusted dogs at Spindletop could find closure. Many of these people attempted to communicate with Spindletop attorney Zandra Anderson, but have come away hurt and with their questions unanswered. 

This good person has offered to help those who still have unanswered questions about their dogs. Some of the dogs whose pictures have been recognized on Facebook are 'Nero, Delilah, Dewy, Lucky, Ava, George, Buster, Bridgett, Fawn, Grace, Tyson, Rayford, Holly, Dude, Glorianna, Momma, Kenny, Scarlett, Stricker...' all who are believed to have perished in the Morgan Building.

It's become doubtful that the individuals who harbored these secrets while cruelly teasing the only people who cared about these dogs will ever be punished. So much evil surrounds this entire case that it becomes difficult to list all the criminal activity. Pit bulls and other animals will continue to follow the goings on at 11797 Calvary Road and hope for the day that justice will be done for the hundreds and hundreds who suffered and died there.

Liars, lawyers, death, abuse: the dog killers of Spindletop

Abuse at Spindletop

It's been nearly a year and a half since nearly 300 dogs were confiscated from the horror hotel known as 'Spindletop Refuge.' Not one of the 'players' have been punished for their gruesome behavior, however, one person has stepped forward to try and help the many who entrusted animals to the torture den masquerading as a shelter.

Anyone who hasn't heard of Leah Purcell and the operation known as Spindletop Refuge can still read about the operation on the web under a new moniker Texas Canine-Equine Solutions. The site promotes "connecting people with their animal loved ones for 27 years," but that promise didn't come true for Reunion Rescue's Stella.

Although told that Stella had 'been adopted to a wonderful woman in Dallas,' Reunion Rescue asked repeatedly for contact information for the 'wonderful woman in Dallas.' Each day, Leah Purcell had a new reason for being unable to furnish the information. Her computer was broken, misplaced the application and a million other excuses, all of them lies. Although Reunion Rescue has an especially strict foster to adopt program, Purcell found a way to navigate as only a slick criminal and con-artist can do.

The failing Reunion Rescue had as did hundreds, if not thousands, of others was to believe the garbage printed about the place.....all lies. For years, Leah Purcell fooled a lot of us. She fooled Best Friends, Montgomery County Shelter, courts of law where Purcell was called to testify as an expert witness. For years, Leah Purcell and Spindletop were considered the end-all be-all of animal rescue and rehabilitation. My crime was in wanting to believe she cared as much about the dogs as I did. I believe others fell under the same spell of this witch as I did, hoping there was a fairy tale future for the many innocent dogs we placed in her care.

With a slick South Texas law school lawyer, Zandra Anderson, who bills herself as 'Texas Dog Lawyer' to run interference, Leah Purcell never did a day of time for her criminal activity. Anderson has led trusting parties to believe she had knowledge of their dogs.

Zandra Anderson's voluminous lists of falsified claims in an effort to have me fired from the Examiner:

http://freepdfhosting.com/95ca1a0cbe.pdf


http://freepdfhosting.com/6766727fe4.pdf 

"Since Zandra was the only positive hope we had been given, we were terribly afraid to offend her, for fear that she would retaliate by having -------- killed.  Yes, after what Leah had done with Zandra's knowledge, we had no confidence that Zandra would act with good conscience toward us or toward any of the dogs.  Our preference would have been to tread very softly until we could return again to Conroe and to the Spindletop facility at Willis to have another and closer look to search for our Scarlett.

Of course, we subsequently made two such additional trips, without success.  And finally Zandra refused to correspond with us any further."

Many others have stepped forward on the Facebook page Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs with their own recollections in trying to find out what happened to pets boarded at Spindletop. Many had been told, as Reunion Rescue had, that their dogs 'had been adopted by a wonderful family right down the road.' As more and more people began to share their stories, one got the feeling Wendy Torrance had when she first got her hands on Jack Nicholson's work-in-progress and realized she was dealing with a homicidal maniac. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," written over and over hundreds of times in his manuscript. In our case, the story 'your dog was adopted by a lovely couple down the road' was the story so many of us were fed. 

Reunion Rescue's Stella who was killed at Spindletop

Zandra Anderson has issued multiple falsified documents to the Examiner in an effort to stop me from telling people what happened at Spindletop. I published these complaints in an effort to inform the public so other innocent dogs do not suffer at whatever Spindletop is being called now, Texas Equine Canine Solutions where a recent tour of the grounds revealed dogs in crates on dirt floors to one unsuspecting potential customer. 

A former worker has contacted me about Stella. It seems Zandra was actually telling the truth about one small thing. Stella was not killed in the Morgan Building. Instead, "I know for a fact that Stella WAS NOT in the Morgan Building the day the ac quit working, because she was housed in the very back of the property in the largest building which I worked every day."

"I am sorry to be the one to have to tell you this , but Stella did pass away about a month before the raid took place .. I began to notice Stella loosing weight at a very high rate and was reporting to Louise Purcell daily that she needed to have proper medical attention . She never was looked at by a professional, and passed away about three week's after first sign's of her issues."

Visored Anderson stoutly negotiates with officials during the raid

According to Zandra Anderson's sworn and published 'statement, 'FALSE. Marabito alleges that Zandra Anderson 'stood on the grounds where our dogs like Reunion Rescue's Stella were buried." Not only is this false, Marabito has been told that this dog was not involved in any such incident, and this dog did not belong to Reunion Rescue as suggested.'

This statement among some 40 to 50 other false claims by Anderson in trying to clear her client of animal abuse and killing by having me fired from the Examiner. In her claims, Zandra Anderson accuses me of being 'dangerous,' 'vulgar,' 'obscene,' besides accusing me of making up the Spindletop story as 'you know or have reason to know is false, misleading or fraudulent.' My question is this. What could be more fraudulent or obscene than killing and hurting innocent animals one has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect and lying about it? Even going so far as to lead caring people on by dangling notions of their abused and killed dogs before them like a deranged kook might tease a starving dog with a morsel of food.

Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs Facebook page is filled with stories about animals taken to Spindletop and entrusted to these monsters. If these had been children instead of dogs cast off by society, would Montgomery County allow Leah Purcell to continue her business on Calvary Road? Rumors have recently surfaced about Purcell moving to 'Marble Falls with her boyfriend' to start up a new facility.

Craig Malisow's excellent piece "No Sanctuary at Spindletop," frightening tales of animal abuse, burning dogs alive and beating animals with hammers by sex offenders ends with a dark promise by Purcell. "Purcell, he said, chalked it up to a simple "misunderstanding." He said Purcell told him something even stranger: I'll get my dogs back."

The former worker who has stepped forward recalls, "One day out of the blue about a month before the raid a guy showed up on the property driving a very large U-haul truck . He was a very odd individual and when I first met him I asked so will you be working the dogs with us? And he replied that he could not divulge the reason for his being there." 

"I noticed that the back of the truck he drove was lock with a padlock. I wanted to see what was in the back. Him, April, and the Purcells were up to something very secretive and only moved and did whatever it was they were doing at nighttime." 

Suspicion of a 'strange man from Louisiana' hauling off 'truckloads of dogs to be shot' have been voiced by more than one party. Was this 'U-haul' man the same character? There are so many questions left unanswered. Where are the dogs in the Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs photo album? The ones not accounted for by Montgomery County and the Humane Society? 

Why is the IRS so lenient about the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars paid to James Brewer by myself and other animal rescuers who sent dogs to be boarded at Spindletop? Was that money taxed? Zandra Anderson runs her own 'charity' promising to 

Anderson in her many untruthful claims, states, "the refuge took in dogs that were owned, then the owner relinquished any ownership rights in the placement." Does this statement account for the many suspected of being loaded up on a strange man's U-haul with a padlock at night, never to be seen again? 

We'll probably never know the answer to these questions as only 'April and the Purcells' were involved in the dirty dealings. Until we have answers, the Facebook page Spindletop Missing and Dead Dogs will go on searching. Stella's photograph will remain forever on Reunion Rescue's website as a tribute and a memory. Zandra Anderson's falsified statement to the Examiner that Stella is claimed to be in Austin and 'begging for donations on a dog she contends is dead.' The great crime for any human is to hurt the animals that were placed in their care.

Zandra Anderson knows a thing or two about fundraising as she raises donations without benefit of a non profit for an outfit called 'Texas Dog Commission,' which promises to 'defeat bsl in Texas.' The emblem above Anderson's Paypal donation button reads 'the advocate for dogs & their owners.' How much of a donation would it take for us to find out where all the missing dogs went on those late night U-haul rides?

One thing is for sure. I, for one, will continue to write about and search for answers surrounding the abused and killed animals at Spindletop. Those who had a hand in hurting Stella and the other many animals at Spindletop might be going on with their lives, but I am going to be watching and waiting, even if it takes forever. That is a promise.