The cat rescue community is in mourning this week following the tragic death of one of our own. A well-known and beloved cat transporter of death row rescues was killed in a traffic accident over the weekend.
Janice Lockamy, 60, was killed in a car accident July 2 while transporting 21 cats from Tampa Bay Animal Control in Florida to Suzy’s Zoo Sanctuary for Special Needs Kitties in South Carolina. Her husband, Kent Frank Lockamy, 69, was seriously injured. The Brandon couple were both wearing their seatbelts and alcohol wasn’t involved in the crash.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, at 3:29 p.m. their 1999 Toyota 4Runner was traveling northbound on I-75 near Brooksville in the outside lane when it left the roadway. After entering the east shoulder the 4Runner then traveled back across the roadway where it collided with the concrete barrier then crossed back onto the roadway. The vehicle overturned and came to rest upright on the shoulder.
The injured cats were taken to Hernando ACC. I have a tentative list of the missing cats from Cindi Tanksley who is in contact with Suzanne Melton of Suzy’s Zoo. Gavin, Trixie, Jackie, Jade and unnamed kitten are known missing at this time. Animal Control in the area is trying to help set traps for them near the Sherman Hills Golf Course in Hernando County. It is unknown if undocumented cats were also on board. Suzanne will likely make a post to update.
Frank was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital with what are described as serious injuries. He has a long road to recovery ahead, both physically and emotionally. Please help this family if you can and feel free to leave a comment below to remember her. Janice never asked for a dime and wouldn’t even accept gas money for transport.
Her dedication to getting the cats to where they needed to go will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family.
This article will be updated as information becomes available. The fundraiser link was removed. It was someone trying to profit from Janice’s death. Anyone who gave is asked to submit a fraud request for a refund.
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Elisa
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i’m a retail-level tax preparer, and this particular deal COULD just be “nobody on staff/volunteer/in the community can figure out how to properly fill out and send in the Form 990”, although not finding somebody qualified for three years straight is a little “things that make you go hmmmm……”
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i990.pdf
let’s just say *I* never want to try doing one. i’ll stick to doing the best for my working poor and majority-Latinx (demographics of my neighborhood) tax clients that i can and coming home to cuddle my cats afterwards.
also, i sadly have no trouble whatsoever believing that rescue workers have a jacked-up suicide/depression/mental health issues rate. (they’re basically the animal equivalent of first responders in a lot of cases, and last i heard the PTSD rate for first responders who mostly deal with humans is about 30% and they’re more likely to suicide than die in the *official* line-of-duty.)
https://rudermanfoundation.org/white_papers/police-officers-and-firefighters-are-more-likely-to-die-by-suicide-than-in-line-of-duty/
did you make the trip?
did you make the trip?
This Anonymous comment here is just plain BS !!
NO rescue group gives out WHO adopted what cat with the adopters phone number and addresses !!
That is STANDARD practice when you do animal rescue and adoptions, simply because the adopters dont want to be hasseled or victimized by these facebook nutcases that always want to scream WHERE DID THE CATS GO ??
The cats where adopted out PERIOD thats where they went.
And its no ones dam business to WHOM they where adopted out to. Every rescue group does adoptions and has all their paperwork where each cat is sent and all adopters are subjected to a background check and home check usually again standard practice, but that still does not mean that a rescue group has to publish publicly their adopters names or other info. In fact a adopter can sue a rescue group for publishing their names phones and addresses.
But I guess these facebook nutjobs didnt think about that did they?? Again, unless you have physically been to that rescue groups facility then do not cast stones PERIOD !!! Because all you are doing by bashing rescue groups WITH NO PROOF of wrong doing is harming innocent cats and making it near to impossible for a rescue group to keep saving lives!!
I am so sick of these nutjobs that forever grow in numbers that are just down right plain evil scumbags preying on rescuers that are only trying to save lives and get little thanks as it is for Gods sake !!!
Denise ; Well said here you are right, I have seen it time and time again where a bunch of facebook idiots gang up on a rescue group for no reason when they have never even been to that rescue group or seen ANY of their animals. I hope the KARMA bus hits them all in the ass real soon LOL