Westberry had been hoarding cats for many, many years
Intro: This article is, I hope, an insight into the behavior of cat hoarder and abuser Julianne Westberry. It is written by a person who knew her and who had dealings with her. Click this link to see articles about her (the link opens a new tab/window).
My experience with her has always been positive and she has helped me in the past. I have known her for 10 years or better, she has always had far more cats that any one person should have.
Myself like many others just assumed all was well, she didn’t have to be a clean person to care for cats. She lived in Anderson when I first met her, the house she was in then had a horrible stench to it, but everyone just assumed again it was from all the cats.
There were deceased cats in the walls of that house when she moved. The house had to be completely remodelled… the entire house.
There were five gallon bucks of cat litter removed when she moved. Reading this now, all the signs were there way back then, but hindsight is 100%. The reason she moved from that house was because she was trying to adopt three little girls. I believe she was successful. They moved to Belton, the first house in Belton. I had over the years gotten cats from her as well as taken cats to her. If I had a question, she was my go to lady. So needless to say it was disturbing that this happen.
I went to her first house in Belton one day to get meds for a sick kitty that I had, she met me at the door and the stench was horrible, the flies were everywhere. I have a feeling this was going on then, now seeing the signs. I had to go home and shower to try and get the stench out of my nose.
Wasn’t too long after that she moved from that location to another location in Belton. I don’t know how she managed to keep those girls all these years, unless once the adoption is final they don’t do checks anymore. I really hate this to happen to her, because I think deep inside she is a good person with a good heart.
Her father did recently pass away, but all this was going on before that happened. The girls should be grown now, so maybe she was feeling alone again or something. I have never known her to have a husband, or boyfriend. She was always just the lonely “cat lady”. Again this is not to bash her name, or add fuel to the flames, but I do honestly believe this has been going on for many many years.
I hope that she will get the help she needs, and on that note she does need some consequences for her actions. She was a smart lady, she knew what she was doing was not right. I request that my name or identifying information be omitted from this, I do still know many people that know her. I will be glad to offer anything information that I have, that I may have missed, because it is puzzling how someone can do such a thing, and I don’t buy the story she snapped, I think this has been happening for years.
P.S. The section in the article that says someone was at her house a few months before this happen, well either she just moved in or that person is lying. Julianne has never had a clean house, always had very smelly stench, the entire time I have known her.
Julianne is a person who should never be allowed to live in society again.She is a very evil and cunning person who was able to con good,kind and genuine people for many years.A person like this will continue to do this no matter what,she has no thought for any beautiful cats that she gets her hands on and the fact she was able to adopt children(which isn’t easy to do)and make them live in shocking conditions proves there is only one thing that matters to her and that is HER.When will the do gooders in society realise that giving these people soft jail terms(if any in most cases)doesn’t help anybody,they deserve to rot in jail and if a death penalty is available then in severe cases maybe it should be considered.Before anyone says BUT THEY WERE ONLY CATS it is not the point,they are living,breathing,beautiful animals and NOBODY has the right to let them live and die like that.This woman is a PARASITE and should not get away with this.
I also believe others were in on the money scam (which includes collecting pledges for vetting and care via paypal and mailed donations, amazon “wish lists”, auctions with items donated by others, etc.
She also claimed she was part of a 501c3. I asked her directly is she was a 501c3 and she told me she was and happily collected many pledges and amazon donations from me. Now, we find she made up stories about spay and neutering the cats, vetting the cats, finding homes for the cats.
And now some of those around her are using bully tactics to silence and scare people. I would like to see her mother investigated, the “boyfriend”, and the boyfriend’s daughter.
I would like to see the authorities make sure that felony charges are filed. I would like to see those who donated money to her to rescue cats file fraud complaints with the IRS, PayPal and Amazon. Stand up people, we need to keep this from happening again!
She took one persons cats to board them while she moved, a person who had donated a lot of money to her and, now, only one cat has been found. Julia won’t even tell her where the other cats are and if they are alive.
A homeless woman’s two well-cared for cats where taken in for boarding, handed over to the BF’s daughter, and now they won’t give them back. The two cats were healthy when taken in and now look unwell, and skinny, stuck in the dirty yard.
People have let this go on for years and years. I guess many people have enjoyed the $$$$ JW took from well-meaning, kind-hearted people. I am disgusted by the descriptions of the filthy homes. YOU ALL KNEW THIS WAS HAPPENING.
Good point Brian. I have heard this before. If true it makes her even more nasty.
Calling on all legal resources to help in seeing that justice is served in this intentional torture and cruelty and the money laundering scheme she developed. Yes, she was a master mind. To prey on the compassion of others who wanted to see these neglected cats and kittens have the opportunity to live long healthy lives. She devised her plan carefully to collect all the money pledged for their care and dumped them with no care. Water was free but they didn’t even get that. I say she did not keep this scheme going all by herself. Someone else was and is involved in seeing the cover stayed in place. Others knew. She knew out of state and out of county rescues could not follow her so she kept the appearance up through social media. So where are all these animals? Are they all dead? Are they the ones carried out in garbage bags? Are they still hidden until they die? There has to be some capable investigators out there somewhere.
I want to know why she’s only facing one charge. Is it because this is a cat case? https://pictures-of-cats.org/punishing-animal-abusers-inequality-between-dogs-and-cats.html
I did see the cats from the house when Anderson PAWS had them. They were so sick I couldn’t risk going closer than my camera would zoom in for photos. I hope to go see some of the farm cats in the coming weeks and help do up bios to get them a home
I was at the house in late April and she was IN THE PROCESS of moving in. So that is why things were clean and in order at that time.
She is a destructive cow isn’t she 😉
As I have said previously, other people were aware of the situation & did nothing. They too are accountable. If the house was in this condition then her children had to smell when they went to school, why didn’t the teachers report it? family members have stated she had a problem for years, why didn’t they report it? obviously from this anonymous letter some of her friends knew, why didn’t they report it? she went to church, why didn’t someone tell the pastor? and why would a man, boyfriend, whatever let someone dump 100’s of cats on his property? In my opinion there is HUGE accountability there because these cats were not being cared for or fed for that matter. If you think the pictures on-line tell a story you should see the cats in person & talk to some of the rescue people about the cats that were in the house of horrors -bite marks on the legs of the smaller cats because the bigger cats were trying to eat them while they were STILL ALIVE!! Letters like this should have been written years ago and even if they were anonymous at least you could say you tried. I know for a fact if anyone in cat rescue had gotten a letter like this they would have acted on it even if the authorities did not. And in this age of social media it’s just too easy to have reported something like this. I had several JW cats I was fostering for her. I asked for help right after this happened & rescues stepped up to the plate & helped me place these cats because I couldn’t handle them long term. Cat rescue people are serious!! Unfortunately evil lurks everywhere & now I am super cautious about everyone as perhaps I should have been to begin with. I continuously pray for the innocent victims in this situation, the cats she came into contact with & the children she adopted. They are truly the innocent victims. The people who knew what was going on are not!!!
Why do people do nothing? Most of the people who knew her were women. Perhaps they were too cautious and frightened of causing trouble.
Many see Julianne as a criminal.
Some see her as mentally disturbed.
I see her as both.
I think she should be placed in a state forensic mental institution where both issues will be addressed.
She needs to be “examined” as a specimen 😉 And treated as a cat hoarder model. We may learn something because even today the experts don’t really fully understand why people end up being cat hoarders.
I think she should be housed with Roger Owens, who got 10 years for dragging a dog. He was into torture as well. Pulled the toenails out of that poor dog. The two of them deserve each other.
Of course reporting it may nott have worked. This is the exact same sheriffs office and close to the same time frame that threatened to lock me up when I reported a gas covered dog about to be set on fire. They could just as easily looked the other way and thhe person who wrote this knows that. This area had some bad police near the end of Gene Taterheads reign.
How can someone not report dead cats in the walls? I don’t understand.
Me either, even the Smell of of the dead would be enough evidence.
Julianne seems to have got used to living in squaller and the pong of faeces, urine and rotting bodies. How does one become like that?
I dont know how she could live like that, Its bad enough with smell of Cat Faeces etc.
I have no sympathy for this evil monster masquerading as a cat lover. Cat lovers do not neglect cats, they do not keep them in filthy conditions and let them to die in agony and misery. Moving from house to house and leaving the filth and evidence of her cruel deeds behind, proves she knew what she was doing, yet she kept on doing it.
Why did no one report her?
My sympathy is with the cats who lived and the cats who died, in her care, although care is the wrong word, she obviously didn’t care.
She needs to be locked up and the key thrown away and never to be allowed within touching distance of a cat ever again.
I hope anyone hearing of this case thinks twice in the future about dumping their cat on any other person or at a Shelter, on any flimsy excuse, because people who do that must share the guilt too, a cat is family and families stick together for life!
Its just so horrible Ruth. I can’t ,even find the words to describe. Its just so horrible. I hope she gets what she deserves, she should have not access to any Cats or animals for life.
Total nightmare for cats for many years from the look of it, I have no sympathy for this woman she’s a killer. I wish someone had done something to stop her years ago.
But as Elisa says she gets a pathetically light criminal charge and she’ll probably get a very light sentence on conviction.
Ok, what? Dead cats removed from the walls of the house and this author still believed that this was someone who should be caring for cats? Gag- producing stench in a house where children lived and the author chose to turn a blind eye and wait for someone else to express concern? I can’t imagine why you published this. Nothing this person wrote contributes a damn thing to this sad situation except further confirmation of the fact that people are clueless and careless.
You make a good point actually. It seems that no one intervened. They were all friendly with her it seems to me. That would have been a barrier to turning her in.
Great story! Michael, I sent you a new story about yet another situation where there were no warning signs to friends or the government. You’ll freak when you see the charges for a DOG issue.
There is discrimination against cats. There is good evidence for it.