Horses starving, dying on Snohomish farm
SNOHOMISH -- Raising and selling horses has been a way of life for 72-year-old Phil Roeder, but it’s also what now has him in legal trouble.
The Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office is charging Roeder with two counts of animal cruelty. For the last five years, Animal Control has received nearly two dozen complaints about the condition of Roeder’s horses.
Court documents show some had hair loss, rain rot, bacterial and fungal infections, lice and overgrown and cracked hooves. Animal Control officers said they found the horses eating moldy hay and one horse was in a stall full of manure with no clean bedding. Currently, there are about a dozen horses on his property, including two foals born in the last two months.
Dr. Hannah Mueller sees a lot of abused horses in her vet practice and saw Roeder’s horses firsthand. She said she has no doub they have suffered.
“There is significant pain from muscle wasting. There is stomach pain from lack of nutrition and eventually, the horses actually die,” Mueller said.
Documents show several of Mr. Roeder’s horses have died -- one was found stuck in a fence. We asked Roeder about that and he said he couldn’t recall the incident.
“I saw a picture of that and I don’t remember that,” he said. “Whether the horse was lying down or what not. I’m not sure of that.”
Animal cruelty investigators with Pasado’s Safe Haven are frustrated it took this long to charge Roeder.
“I hope they put a possession ban on him so he can no longer own horses. I think it needs to be used as an example that no longer will animal cruelty be ignored in Snohomish County or anywhere else,” Kim Koon said.
During an interview, Roeder said he hates being micro-managed by women, referring to the female animal control investigator on the case. He also said he has been harassed by neighbors about the condition of his animals and has had enough.
“Most of them don’t know nothing about nothing. I’ve done 50,000 horses in my life and I know a little bit about them. I’m getting tired of it and I’m probably going to end up suing a lot of people and taking their cars, their houses and bank accounts away from them if they don’t leave me alone."
Roeder is scheduled to be arraigned on animal cruelty charges July 2.