A Summerfield woman was arrested at PetSmart in Lady Lake on Sunday after being accused of breaking into a Groveland man’s home and stealing his three dogs.
Cynthia Kaye Muir, 72, told deputies she took the three Maltese dogs because she was worried about their health, a Lake County Sheriff’s Office report states. She was charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling and grand theft and released later in the day on $12,000 bond.
Sheriff’s deputies met with the Groveland man Saturday night when he reported that his two adult dogs and a puppy were missing. The man said he had been away from home most of the day but had left his door unlocked, as he often does. The man said the dogs hold great sentimental value because they belonged to him and his deceased wife.
The man also told deputies that a neighbor saw 72-year-old Cynthia Kaye Muir, of Summerfield, allegedly taking the dogs. The neighbor told deputies that the theft happened between 11 a.m. and noon Saturday and she saw Muir leaving the residence carrying one dog at a time, a sheriff’s office report states.
The man said he had received a call from Muir, who had worked with his late wife, offering to purchase the dogs for $400. He told her the dogs, which he valued at $2,450, weren’t for sale and she refused to return them, the report says.
The deputy then spoke with Muir by telephone with a Marion County sheriff’s deputy present at her home. She initially denied any knowledge of the incident but after being told that a witness saw her taking the animals, she claimed the owner is an alcoholic suffering from dementia and she had “rescued the dogs” because they were malnourished and possibly injured, the report says.
Muir originally claimed she had taken the dogs to an animal hospital at a PetSmart store in Clermont. But after speaking with the deputy a second and saying she “did a terrible thing,” Muir admitted to taking them to the Banfield Pet Hospital at the PetSmart in Lady Lake, where she realized she couldn’t afford the thorough exam she wanted each dog to have. So she instead gave the older dogs to employees from Max’s Pet Connections, a non-profit rescue organization, which had a table set up outside PetSmart. She kept the puppy and admitted that she had hidden it earlier when the Marion County sheriff’s deputy was at her house.
Muir and her husband agreed to bring the puppy and meet the deputy and a Lake County animal control officer at the Lady Lake PetSmart. And a representative of Max’s Pet Connections also agreed to bring the two adult dogs so the animal control officer could check them out, the report says.
Muir was taken into custody after handing the puppy over to the animal control officer. She quickly became “argumentative” while stating that she had done nothing wrong because she was “rescuing” the dogs. And she advised the deputy that she wasn’t “going anywhere” and demanded that he remove the handcuffs from her wrists, the report says, adding that Muir’s husband also because argumentative and had to be escorted away from the area.
The representative from Max’s Pet Connections said Muir had signed paperwork saying she was the owner of the dogs. She then turned the two older animals over to the animal control officer, who said there were some health issues with them that needed to be investigated further, the report says. The puppy was deemed to be in good health except for having fleas.
On the way to the Lake County Jail, Muir told the deputy that her husband was with her the day she took the dogs but he waited outside and never entered the Groveland man’s home. She said the neighbor had told her the man wasn’t home and she could check on the dogs because his house was unlocked. And she said a different neighbor actually went inside the residence to bring the dogs out, the report says.
Muir, who lives at 10346 SE 179th Pl. in Summerfield, is scheduled to appear in a Lake County courtroom on April 8 at 8:30 a.m. to answer to the charges.