1. I m Jennifer and set up this Fundraiser for my dear friend Janice in July of 2017, when I heard from Leslie Szumlic that she was killed. Her home situation was in terrible conditions, her dearest friend Dawn Rodriguez told me. She passed away of cancer a year later. I wanted the raised money to go “soley” to safe the 54 remaining animals in her home, many in terrible conditions I was told. I started to work together with a few rescues that were willing to take them in and we even had Vets set up. All would have been wonderful and no animal would have died, had her husbund Kent let rescues get the animals out of this home. Then Janice’s son and sister got wind of the money raised and started to harass me day and night that they wanted it for the lavish funeral they had planned, so they said. I said that the GoFundMe page was soley for the animal that needed to get out of this house, as their HOA threatened with the removal of all animals because of unlivable conditions. Since the husband Kent refused to let the various rescue people have access to the animals, the HOA called ASPCA and all animals were removed. Most likely killed. I was heartbroken as I knew Janice would have never wanted a lavish funeral, but a good home for all her babies. I called it “Janice Lockamy animal rescue fund” for a reason. I live on the other side of Florida and wasnt present. When her son, who never gave a damn about Janice, nor her sister, started to harass me and made up false claims, I decided to release the money to Kent. GoFundMe found that rather strange as I made crystal clear that this money was to be used only to safe these poor animals. So after going back and forth with GoFundMe, who held the money in escrow for 2 weeks, I couldnt take the son’s harrassment anymore and told GoFundMe to give them the money. Come to find out, they had an insurance policy that covered the funeral cost and the raised funds by me and mostly my friends went to the son, who went on a vacation. Before I told GoFundMe to release it to this scum family, I urged the Donors to request a refund, as GoFundMe misused and mis distributed it, and that it will go to the family for alleged funeral cost. My animal loving friends were outraged, as my purpose was to rescue these 54 poor souls.I assume all were euthanized. or so I was told. The 19 cats that were in her van while transporting them to a rescue on the day of her accident, some went to rescue but sadly 2 died and 2 ran off and were never found, although we organized rescues to look for them for days. All I wanted to do was help my friend who helped me with transporting 2 senior cats to my home, who came from this horrible place in Hillsborough. I wanted to give back to my dear friend Janice. But instead her money hungry son who never gave 2 pennies about her or her beloved animals, nor her estranged sister cared what Janice would have wanted. Her husband Kent married his longtime girlfriend just 4 months after Janice was killed, because he fell asleep behind the wheel. Its an athrocity and it sickens me to this day what they have done. I m glad Janice saw what we all tried. I just tonight saw this posting, so I appologize for the late reply. I hope this clears up your alls worries. I will never start a GoFundMe ever again as they are terrible and just wanted their 3% profit. If youd like to see the corresponding emails between GoFundMe and Kent and I, just contact me. I also found some rescue groups in the Hillsborough/ Tampa area terribly mean and unkind. When someone wants to do something good you should be thankful and not speak lies. In memory of Janice and our dear friend Dawn. I miss you both. I m so sorry I couldn’t safe your furbabies, but your horrible greedy family made it impossible and stole it. I m glad Janice saw it all from heaven and is now reunited with her furbabies. God bless.

   Reply ↓

   • Hi Jennifer. Thanks for this. I will read your comment carefully and reply more fully soon.

     Reply ↓

2. Jared at gofundme.com told me the fundraiser is offline right now because: “It looks like we are reviewing this campaign to make sure the Campaign Organizer is all set up correctly. The campaign link you have will be up and running again soon. Please check back in the next few hours to donate.”

   Reply ↓

   • Thank you very much for your comment. Another lady, Terri Wolfe also commented on this and you may wish to read her comment. It appears that there were problems with distributing the large sum of money raised. There was hassle and it was decided to close the account to avoid the hassle.

     Reply ↓

     • Hello. Please read my reply above. I just saw this thread.

       Reply ↓

       • Hi I am reading it. Sorry for the slow response.

         Reply ↓

       • Jennifer, I wrote an article about it. Please click on the link below to read it:

         https://pictures-of-cats.org/10165-crowdfunding-money-raised-for-cats-of-rescuer-killed-in-car-accident-misappropriated-by-son-and-husband.html

         If there is something that you’d like to change please tell me and I’ll do it promptly. Thanks for your comment and I am so sorry for how this ended.

         Reply ↓

3. Are all of the personal cats still there or what has become of them?
   It was said many/most of them needed vet attention.

   Reply ↓

   • To my knowledge, the husband/family threw out all the cats/dogs. Rescues, volunteers stepped in to take the pets. Nice family, right?

     Reply ↓

     • Thanks Novette.

       Reply ↓

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>