Two of the horses lucky enough to survive starvation and neglect are Cammie, left, about 4 and Baby, who rescuers expect is turning two. Photo credit: Christine Whaley
The image projected on a screen in a Wicomico County, Md. courtroom last month was heart wrenching: A white mare lying in a muddy pasture, struggling to lift her head, her lifeless foal beside her. Prosecutor Bill McDermott called the scene the face of torture.
“If this isn’t torture there is no other word for it,” he told the judge.
The photograph was among dozens presented during closing arguments at the trial of Barbara Pilchard, 75, of Hebron - the defendant in one of the largest and most horrific equine cruelty cases the mid-Atlantic region has seen.
Prosecutors were seeking felony animal torture charges against Pilchard, for the suffering endured by her herd of 103 horses from lack of food and veterinary care.
“She didn’t go out in the field and cruelly beat the animals,” said McDermott, assistant state’s attorney for Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “This case rests on omission and neglect. The defendant inflicted unnecessary suffering and pain on a horse, by failing to provide nutritious food and vet care.”
In the end, the state failed to convince the Wicomico County Circuit Court Judge Leah Jane Seaton of the felony aggravated cruelty charges, but Pilchard was convicted on dozens of misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty relating to the failure to care for 13 of the horses.
The trial came just over a year after law enforcement officers raided her farm following the release of aerial video shot by a TV news crew that showed a pasture littered with horse carcasses.
Officers arriving at the farm on March 16, 2018, found a horrific scene of death and misery. Scores of horses stood in a muddy field amid skeletal remains; some were walking skeletons themselves. Parts of the siding of Pilchard’s house had been chewed off by the alpha horses in the herd, desperate to reach the few buckets of feed she threw out on the patio. The majority of the horses could reach only soggy hay. The only water source, a pond, contained the body of a decaying horse.
After two days of testimony and a final day of closing arguments Judge Seaton found Pilchard guilty of 39 of 56 counts of neglect for insufficient food and insufficient veterinary care.
From the bench, Seaton called the testimony “powerful and heartbreaking.”
“The defendant clearly neglected the horses based on the credible evidence of veterinarians,” she said. “I cannot find she intentionally tortured them, but she did inflict unnecessary pain and suffering on horses.”
Then Seaton read through a list of the 13 horses in the worst shape who were the subject of the charges, seven of which were euthanized because of the severity of their conditions: “White mare, chestnut mare, mini horse, Darby, Evelyn, Finnegan, Greta, Ivy, Josie, Jerry, Lawrence, Maple and Netti.”
McDermott said after the proceedings that while he thought the state’s evidence proved torture, he believed Seaton had ”held Ms. Pilchard accountable, which is exactly what needed to happen today."
Each of the guilty counts carries a maximum 90-day jail sentence, McDermott said. If Pilchard received the full sentence she could spend nine years in jail.
Seaton agreed to delay the sentencing in order that a pre-sentencing investigation could take place. The sentencing is now scheduled for May 13.
Seaton told Pilchard she must surrender all animals and ordered the removal of an unknown number of cats on the property. Pilchard was charged but never convicted in a hoarding case more than two decades ago involving 200 cats.
Over the course of the trial the prosecution summoned several veterinarians to the stand who had examined the horses’ remains.
They testified that some horses were so emaciated they scored as low as a one on the Henneke body scale. They said horses were dehydrated, suffering from colic, lice, rain rot, eye infections, infected wounds, bone injuries, overgrown hooves and parasites so severe the fecal eggs-per-gram count was off the charts.
Their hunger was so severe that their bodies were “robbing the bones of fat content,” said McDermott. “A normal horse has 80 percent bone marrow fat,” he said. “A yearling mare named Netti was so debilitated, so weak she could not stand. Her bone marrow fat measured only .9 percent.” She was among those euthanized.
Pilchard’s attorney, Arch McFadden, said she did provide food, dropping sweet feed on her patio because muddy conditions prevented her from accessing her fields.
It was clear that only the herd leaders could get to the food, countered McDermott.
“You would have us believe that all 103 horses lined up to get sweet feed. A picture showed about 10,” he said. “There were 10 times the number of horses there.”
Stallions and mares were kept in the same field leading to indiscriminate breeding, with the youngest and weakest horses succumbing from lack of food.
“It was survival of the fittest,” said McDermott. “It was unnecessary, unjustified pain.”
When Pilchard took the stand earlier in the trial, she testified that "nobody could have done a better job than what I did" caring for the horses. She said she spent $11,000 on hay between January and March 2018 and that the horses died because they were old and succumbed to the severe winter weather.
However, McDermott said veterinarians determined that none of those that died was older than 12 and most of those that had to be euthanized were yearlings.
Pilchard claimed she bought worming medicine for her horses, but could only produce a receipt for two tubes of medicine.
One was given to a horse Pilchard was trying to sell. In his closing argument McDermott recounted that Pilchard testified: “’I wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell an emaciated horse.’”
“That gives insight into her soul,” he said. “Horses suffered unimaginable pain and horrific deaths, because they weren’t worth enough.”
A log provided by the Wicomico County sheriff’s office showed 80 complaint calls about the farm dating to 2010, mostly about escaped horses. Complaints about conditions of the horses began in 2014.
The rescue of the 96 surviving horses was a herculean undertaking, involving Maryland and three neighboring states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Virtually all the horses were feral from lack of human handling. All the male horses were stallions, which brought additional handling issues and the need for separate, well-contained housing.
Among the rescuers was Christine Whaley, volunteer at Rescue Equine Adoptions, Caring Training (REACT) of Bridgeville, DE. “I was present at the trial and was quite happy with the verdict. Pilchard being found guilty is better than no justice served at all. I'm sorry that the felonies didn't stick, but it is due to the way the Maryland Code is written and I do feel the state did their best to try and get that conviction.”
McDermott said as a prosecutor he sees abhorrent things, but he can put human victims on the stand. “These horses can’t speak,” he said. “None of these horses have voices. The veterinary experts were their voices.”
Asked if the prosecution will be asking the judge to impose a lifetime animal ownership ban on Pilchard, McDermott said, “Absolutely. However long we can keep her from owning animals we will.“
You Can Help
The rescues that provide care to the rescued horses are focused on getting them healthy, accustomed to humans and trained so they can eventually be adopted as useful riding horses. Visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/211998046051314/ to follow their progress. Tax deductible donations are accepted via Paypal using the email address de.react@yahoo.com.