A northwest suburban woman faces up to five years in prison after she being convicted Thursday of felony animal torture and aggravated cruelty to animals, among other charges.
48-year-old Diane Eldrup formerly operated a shelter called Muddy Paws Dog Rescue in the town of Kildeer, the Daily Herald reports. When police were called to her shelter and home, located on the 24000 block of Rand Road, last December, they discovered some 30 dogs, three birds and an opossum which had all starved to death, stacked one atop another amongst waste, empty food and water dishes. A description of the graphic scene caused one audience member to leave the room vomiting during the trial's first day, Wednesday.
Barrington Patch reports that Eldrup had been feeding the animals throughout the fall of 2010, but when her business went into foreclosure and her marriage began to fail, she "shut down emotionally" and was no longer able to take adequate care of the animals. When asked if she noticed that some of the animals were dying when she went to feed them, Eldrup tearfully added, "Everyday I would look for eyes. If I didn’t see eyes, I would walk right through. I couldn’t handle it. I just shut it out."
"I don’t know. I don’t handle these kinds of things very well," Eldrup added, according to the Chicago Tribune, when asked by her attorney, John Curnyn, why she did not remove the dead dogs.
Eldrup had, according to the Tribune, cared for animals dating back to 1984. She started the Muddy Paws business in 1996 with the goal of providing a no-kill haven for rescue dogs, many of which were underweight, sick or feral. She said business began to slow down in 2008 as the economic downturn began.
Eldrup, who is British and not a U.S. citizen, now faces a sentence ranging from probation to five years in prison after her conviction on 18 counts of animal torture, 18 counts of aggravated animal cruelty and 18 counts of cruel treatment to animals. She is due to be sentenced Oct. 18.
Dog advocates applauded the Thursday ruling, which came in at 10 p.m. Thursday, after a two-day trial, while many in the courtroom shed silent tears, according to Barrington Patch.
"Justice was served by the verdict. We don’t know yet if justice will be served by the sentencing," said Janice Robinson, who had driven from southwest Minnesota to attend Eldrup's trial, told Patch.