An out-of-state father and son facing animal cruelty charges pleaded not guilty in Ravalli County Justice Court.

Craig Heydon, 71, and Curtis Heydon, 37, were each charged with four misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty for allegedly mistreating four horses during a two-month-long pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges and were released on $10,000 bail.

  (File photo of the horse that came to be known as "Able as he was about to be rescued)

The two, both from Georgia, are charged with neglecting and mistreating four horses by overworking them in a cruel manner, failing to provide them with sufficient food or water and failing to provide appropriate medical care.

The court ordered the horses to be placed in the custody of the Bitter Root Humane Association and that Heydon's are not allowed contact with them. Both Heydon's refused to provide financial aid for the horses, court documents showed.

The first horse was discovered by hikers up Big Creek Trail on Friday, Aug. 1. The emaciated horse was left lying beside the trail with a leg tied to a nearby log.

After further investigation, three more horses were seized by the sheriff’s department from a makeshift pen in Stevensville.

An initial court date is set for Thursday, Oct. 9 at 3:30 p.m. in Justice of the Peace Jim Bailey’s court.

The horses are getting progressively better, said Vicki Dawson, operations manager for the Bitter Root Humane Association. The horse found on the trail is still in veterinary care on guarded condition. Because the horses have yet to be released by the court, the humane association isn’t able to put them up for adoption, Dawson said.

The humane association is treating the horses for sore feet, ulcerated eyes and pain in their legs and feet, Dawson said. They require a lot of extra hard work and attention, which has been hard for the BHA’s small staff. Workers have been coming in around 5 a.m. to give the horses treatment for their ulcerated eyes, Dawson said.

The community has pitched in to help the horses regain their health. One woman donated five bales of hay to the Bitterroot Humane Association.

“The community is stepping up to help and we greatly appreciate it,” Dawson said.

To make a monetary donation to help care for the horses, please send it to the Bitter Root Humane Association, 232 Fairgrounds Rd. Hamilton, MT 59840

Update 10/14/08:  Badly neglected, he was still willing and able to follow his rescuers out. Thus, his nickname - Able.

One of four horses confiscated from a pair of Georgia men returning from a pack trip in the mountains, Able inspired Theresa Manzella and others in the community to take action.

In honor of Able and his fellow equine friends, Diamond, Casino and Preacher, Manzella organized an auction called “Able Days” at the Ravalli County Fairground’s Arts Building.

The goal was to show the community’s support for the horses, the Bitter Root Humane Association and the Pet Protection program.

Manzella said between 80 and 100 people attended the auction to bid on a variety of items, from porcelain dolls and light fixtures to chords of wood, professional computer services and saddles.

“I was hoping for more buyers,” Manzella said. “We had so many people that donated so graciously. I think with the economy, people couldn’t donate money but instead donated possessions. And we had a lot of wonderful donations … The people that were there got some great deals.”

Bidders had the option to write checks over to the Bitter Root Humane Association, Pet Protection program or Manzella’s new organization, Willing Servants.

“We gave people the opportunity to support whatever organization they felt strongly about,” Manzella said.

Inspired by a poem called “The Horse,” Willing Servants’ goal is to create a network within the equestrian community, Manzella said, to care for horses that are relinquished or abandoned.

“We can create a network that can allow us to get in touch with one another with the horses’ information, breed, picture and that he needs a home,” Manzella said. “We’ll try to match the horses breed and discipline with the appropriate person in our network.”

With the help of the Montana Companion Animal Network at www.mtcan.org, the group can promote the horses as they gain knowledge of them, Manzella said she hopes the organization will be able to set up a sanctuary and become a nonprofit.

Through the auction, Willing Servants raised nearly $6,000, the Bitter Root Humane Association received $1,955 and $1,657 was raised for Pet Protection, a program directly linked to the dog licensing program.

The fundraiser also gave residents a chance to vaccinate and license their dogs with the proceeds directed toward hiring a county animal control officer.

“We desperately need an animal control officer in the valley,” Manzella said. “Nobody’s asking to raise our taxes or pass a bill levy. They’re just asking us to license our dogs.”

Manzella said she was happy with the support from the community and everyone who volunteered.  “And I continue to be pleased with people who send money and notes of encouragement,” she said “People are just impassioned and angry about the way these horses have been treated.”

Curtis Heydon, 37, and Craig Heydon, 71, of Woodstock, Ga., have pled not guilty to charges of misdemeanor cruelty to animals.

The Heydon's are accused of abandoning some of their horses in the Bitterroot National Forest in August as they returned from a months long pack trip.

Two women found Able, who was emaciated, covered in gaping sores and tied to a tree.

Today, the horse “is in really good shape,” Manzella said. “He’s fat and he’s healed up from eye surgery.”

Update 12/17/08:  A father and son from Georgia face additional animal cruelty charges for allegedly mistreating four horses during a two-month-long pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness last summer.

Ravalli County prosecutors added up to seven additional misdemeanor animal cruelty charges against the two men in a case that has attracted national attention.

Craig Heydon, 71, and Curtis Heydon, 37, were originally charged with four misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty this summer.

Those original charges were amended this week.

Craig Heydon is now charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty. His son, Curtis, faces 11 counts.

The amended citation says the men overworked, beat, tormented, tortured or injured three different horses last summer. It also alleges the men failed to provide adequate food and water, appropriate veterinary care and that Curtis Heydon abandoned a bay gelding now known as Able along the Big Creek Trail.

Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges earlier last summer and were released on a $10,000 bond. A trial date is set for Jan. 27.

The horses were confiscated by the Ravalli County sheriff’s office and are now in foster care.

According to an affidavit filed in the case, the case started when Curtis Heydon met Dawn Merrill of Missoula and Charmain “Q” DeHart of Victor on the Big Creek Trail in the Bitterroot Mountains on Aug. 1.

Heydon allegedly told the women his pack horse had “for no apparent reason” refused to keep going, the affidavit said. Heydon told the women he kicked the horse to move, “but she was lazy so he tied the horse to a log.”  He told the women he planned to come back the next day to get the horse.

The women later found the horse lying flat in hot sun.  “The horse was still saddled, terribly thin and had sores covering his body,” the affidavit says. “Some sores were open all the way to the cartilage and bone; and the feet were shoeless.”

After it was given painkillers, food and water, the horse was led out to the trailhead the next day, the affidavit says.

A Ravalli County sheriff’s deputy contacted the Heydon's at their camp at the storage units just north of the Super One Store near the Stevensville Wye. The deputy, who owns horses and was a professional packer, noted the three horses at the Heydon camp appeared “extremely malnourished,” the affidavit says.

One horse had open sores, its feet were sore and it could barely walk. The Heydon's told the officer the horses had lacked sufficient grazing, the affidavit says.

A Missoula veterinarian estimated that the horse later named Diamond was 150 to 200 pounds underweight. Another veterinarian said the horse named Able was “very, very, very thin.”

Update 1/28/09:  As bad as the emaciated horse looked lying there on the trail covered with stinging bees and open sores, Dawn Merrill told a packed courtroom it was the smell she’d never forget.  “It smelled like death,” Merrill said. “It was an awful smell.”

Merrill was the first witness called in the trial of a father and son from Georgia accused of mistreating three horses during a two-month long pack trip last summer into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

The younger Heydon is also charged with abandoning the 13-year-old bay horse that Merrill and her riding partner, Charmain “Q” DeHart found along the trail on Aug. 1. In total, Heydon faces 11 misdemeanor animal cruelty charges. His father is charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.

The men started their wilderness adventure after purchasing four horses from auctions in Georgia during the last two weeks of May. Two of the horses were at least 20 years old.

The trip apparently started around the first of June. According to the men’s attorney, Mathew Stevenson of Missoula, the younger Heydon wanted to scatter the ashes of his late wife on top the Continental Divide sometime during the journey.

During his opening remarks, Stevenson told the jury the men bought lots of supplies, including feed, medicine and shoes for their horses. Over the course of the first couple of months, they came out of the wilderness a couple of times to buy additional supplies, Stevenson said.  He said the men did their best to take care of the horses.

Stevenson said the first veterinarian who saw the horse allegedly abandoned by the younger Heydon will testify it wasn’t starved and that its sores were actually something else.

In his opening, County Prosecutor John Bell told the jury that other veterinarians, law enforcement officers and several people who helped rescue the bay horse allegedly abandoned by Heydon would testify that the horses were in terrible physical condition and appeared to have been mistreated.

Merrill testified that she and DeHart met Curtis Heydon during a trail ride on Big Creek Trail on Aug. 1. He told the women he had a horse “go down on him” earlier in the day … he said the horse was lazy and stubborn and it didn’t want to go any more.”

The women found the horse two miles further up the trail.  “It was lying flat out right in the middle of the trail where it literally dropped,” Merrill said.

The horse was tied to a nearby downed tree and was covered with “biting bees” and saddle sores, Merrill said.  “It was very, very thin and it had cuts all over its body,” she said.  A note was shoved under the fender of the saddle that said the horse had gone down for no apparent reason and the person would be back to get it in 24 hours.  “There was no name, date or time on the note,” Merrill said.

The women worked to get the saddle off the animal and get it some water from a nearby creek. After about an hour and a half, they attempted unsuccessfully to get it to stand, Merrill said.   They left to get help.

The women met Heydon at the trailhead and talked to him briefly.  Merrill said she told him that his horse was going to   be dead soon if he didn’t get it out of there.  “I really felt like he needed to be destroyed that night,” Merrill testified. “I was afraid that a cougar would eat him alive.”

DeHart’s husband hiked back into the wilderness that night, but was unable to locate the horse. He returned home at 4 a.m., his wife said at the trial.

After learning that no one had retrieved the horse by the end of the next day, Merrill said she decided to go back and try to rescue it. Her neighbor, Mike Svoboda, went with her.

Svoboda testified that he took his .45 caliber pistol along because he thought the horse probably wouldn’t be able to make its way to the trailhead after he’d looked at the photographs Merrill had taken.  “I really expected that if he was still there, I was going to have to put him down,” Svoboda said. “There was no point in just letting him suffer.”

The pair found the horse and after feeding it a mixture of molasses and water and some painkillers, were able to coax it out of the hills over the next 10 hours. 

Svoboda testified that he’d never seen an animal in such bad condition.  “The horse smelled bad. It was filled with infection,” Svoboda said. “The only thing I have to compare the smell to is the times I’ve worked to pull a dead calf out of the inside of a cow … it stinks because it’s so rotten.”

Merrill and Svoboda took the horse to the Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital in Missoula.

Ravalli County sheriff’s deputies met with the Heydon's at their camp near the Stevensville Wye.

Deputy Travis McEldery testified the first thing he noticed after contacting the Heydon's was their three remaining horses were “very skinny.” He called for a second deputy with more experience with horses.

The jury listened to a taped conversation between the deputies and Heydon's  The elder Heydon told the deputies he was born and raised around horses and rode them as a kid. The younger man admitted he was a novice.

Craig Heydon told the officers that there was nothing wrong with the horses. He said the horse his son had left was stubborn and should probably have been called a mule.

The younger Heydon told McEldery that he had planned on going to the other side of the mountains in Idaho to pick up his father who was exiting the wilderness there. Heydon said he knew he’d need his father’s help to retrieve the horse that was down on the Big Creek Trail.  Heydon told the officers he had no plans of abandoning the horse.

The second deputy on the scene - Jon Moles - didn’t mince words with the pair.  “I know horses. I have five horses of my own,” Moles is heard saying on the tape. “It really pisses me off to see what you have done to these horses … In my opinion, you don’t know what the heck you are doing.”

Moles is slated to testify next. The trial is expected to continue for 3 days.

Update 1/29/09:  The Missoula veterinarian who first treated a horse allegedly abandoned by a Georgia man last summer in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness said he couldn’t say with medical certainty the horse was starving when it was brought into his clinic.

Missoula veterinarian Dick Richardson also testified that the diet offered by the Bitter Root Humane Association may have actually slowed its recovery.

Richardson was one of four veterinarians who testified.

Called as the Heydon's’ first witness, Richardson told the jury he wasn’t being paid for his testimony and had not had contact with the Heydon's  “I’ve never met them. I’ve never talked to them and before I walked into the courtroom, I’d never seen them before,” Richardson said.

Richardson was on call the night that Dawn Merrill brought the 13-year-old bay gelding that was later named Able to the Blue Mountain Veterinary Clinic. He told the three man-three woman jury that Merrill was upset when she dropped off the horse.

Richardson said the horse was actually in better condition than what he’d expected. He also didn’t see signs of starvation as he began treating the animal.

Those signs, Richardson said would have included mental depression, but when he put the horse into a stall, it urinated, walked over and smelled the hay and water and then looked out “onto its external environment … the horse did not exhibit any medical signs of depression.”

Richardson said the horse was very thin, but there could be explanations for that including adjusting to a higher elevation or other underlying medical issues. Richardson started the horse on a careful diet to ensure that it didn’t have a reaction called refeeding syndrome that can create electrolyte disorders and even death.

Able’s recovery may have been slowed because the Bitter Root Humane Association changed the horse’s diet when they took over its care, Richardson said.  “There were a lot of problems that occurred with these horses after they were taken to the humane society,” Richardson said.

County Prosecutor John Bell asked in cross examination if he had any bias toward the Humane Association.  The veterinarian said “absolutely not.”  Bell asked him if he’d left a voice mail on his phone that stated, in part, “These guys from Georgia don’t rate felony charges. The humane society people are worked up in a frenzy for nothing. They need to have their wings clipped.”  Richardson said he’d left the message, but he didn’t get a chance to say why before the second day of the trial concluded.

Bell called three other veterinarians to testify earlier in the day.

Andy Cross, a veterinarian from the Missoula Veterinarian Clinic, said he was called by the Heydon's to evaluate a horse on Aug. 4.  The palomino horse - later named Diamond - had a large 6-inch sore over its withers where the skin had been completely rubbed off.  “It was about the size of a coffee plate saucer,” Cross said.

In his report, Cross said the horse “was literally skin and bones.” It was probably somewhere between 150 and 200 pounds underweight and had a number of other sores on its body. It also had a voracious appetite for green grass, Cross noted.

Cross said the Heydon's told him the horse had not been saddled for the last 30 days, but he later found that to be untrue after the friend who referred the men to his business said he’d seen the horse saddled just a few days before.  A saddle placed over the large sore would have caused the horse a great deal of pain and discomfort, Cross said.  In his opinion, Cross said the men had been neglectful in providing proper nutrition and care to the animal.

Corvallis veterinarian Shawn Gleason treated the horses at both his clinic and at the Bitter Root Humane Association.  Gleason testified that when the horse named Able was brought to the humane association shelter, it was emaciated, had corneal ulcers and it was “very, very lame.”

Using a body scoring system - where a one is “as skinny as they get” and nine is obese - Gleason said he rated Able at a one-plus to a two. He rated the palomino named Diamond as a two.  “I reserve one for a horse so emaciated that he can’t stand up,” Gleason said. “Two is a horse that is extremely thin.”

Gleason said all of the horses responded to basic care that included food, water and some general medical treatment.

“I honestly believe the problems these horses faced could have been handled simply … to help these horses out was just basic care. There was no magic involved,” Gleason said.  “These animals became thin because they were not presented feed,” Gleason said. “Once they were presented feed, they did just fine. There was no problem stimulating their appetite under my care.”

Robert Brophy - a veterinarian for 42 years who served a six year term on the state Board of Veterinary Medicine - testified that after reviewing photographs and medical records in the case that the horses were malnourished and overworked.

Two Forest Service employees testified the horses appeared thin in late June and early July when they’d met the Heydon's during the first part of their backcountry pack trip.

Bitterroot National Forest Wilderness Ranger Bill Goslin said he met with the Heydon's on June 25 and July 7. Both times he noted that their stock was in poor shape.  Goslin said the men used a modified riding saddle on their pack animals. Sacks were tied on by strings to dowels screwed into the saddles. The sacks hung low to the ground and swung back and forth as the horse walked.

Goslin attempted to show the men how to tie a basket hitch to secure their loads and make it easier on the horses.  “They pack funny,” Goslin wrote in an e-mail introduced in court.

Ravalli County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Moles has spent years packing horses into the wilderness and cowboying the Big Hole.  He said he knew something was wrong with Heydon's’ three horses as soon as he walked up the pen next to the storage units near the Stevensville Wye. Moles testified that he could see the large sore on the palomino’s back. The horse looked extremely thin - “starved down,” he called it.  “They all had trouble walking,” Moles said. “Their feet were extremely sore. They didn’t want to take a step … there were a lot of injuries, a lot of sores.”

When he looked at the photographs of the horse allegedly abandoned by the younger Heydon, Moles said “the reason this horse went down was that his feet were so sore that he’d rather lay down and die than walk anymore. It was just too painful for him to go on.”

Moles said the large sore on the palomino’s back didn’t happen overnight.  “This is something that happens when something rubs wrong day after day after day,” he said. “By not taking care of this horse, the only thing you’re doing is torturing this animal …it should have been taken out of the mountains and not used.”  Horse owners bear responsibility to take care of their stock, Moles said.  “It’s your choice to make this trip and if an animal needs attention, you have to do whatever you need to do to make it right,” Moles said.

Update 1/30/09:  After weathering months of bad publicity, the two Georgia men accused of mistreating four horses during a two-month-long pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness told their story publicly for the first time.

The Heydon's testified in Ravalli County Justice Court before Justice Jim Bailey on the last day of a three-day-long trial.

The case - with its photos of emaciated looking horses - circulated around the country on a variety of websites.  The publicity has been devastating, Curtis Heydon testified.  “My professional career in management has been destroyed … we’ve received death threats,” he said. “My mother is beside herself. It hasn’t made any sense.”

The younger Heydon is soft-spoken and polite. He answers questions with the word “sir.”  He told the jury that his dogs and cats are like his children. That he’s never in his life hit a human being, much less a “defenseless animal.”

His attorney asked him about the impact of this case on his life.  His voice quivered as he replied: “Like you don’t know. Besides just the accusations, how it’s affected me personally is to know that somebody would think I would be capable of doing such a thing.”

Curtis Heydon had never been on a horse before this summer.  His father was raised on a farm in Nebraska around horses. He said his grandfather had given him some good insight into what makes a horse. He was still in college the last time he rode horseback.  But Craig Heydon had always dreamed about riding over the Continental Divide.

When his son came and asked him if he was still interested in doing something like that a couple of years ago, he said yes. The elder Heydon started reading up on the mountains and horses.  “We started planning for this trip in 2007,” Craig Heydon said. “How much reading I did, I couldn’t even begin to estimate. My son and I had done a lot of backpacking. We were a little short on the horse end of it.”

Their plan called for using the horses to get their gear into the backcountry setting where they’d set up a camp and stay for a week or more before moving to the next camp. They figured there would be plenty of forage for the horses at the meadows they saw on the maps.  Unfortunately, they figured wrong.

The elder Heydon reached back into his childhood to remember advice passed down by his grandfather when the pair began looking for the four horses they’d use to make the trip. Two would be for riding. The others were packers.  Heydon knew he’d need fit horses to make the trip into the mountains. He went looking for horses that were on the thin side and in good condition. Heydon told the jury he could see the ribs on his horses before they even got to Montana.

The Heydon's bought their first two horses in Georgia. After that they went looking for the other two through contacts they’d made on the Internet. They found the third horse in Oklahoma and the last one in Nebraska.  They stopped in the Dakotas to have Fred the Farrier tack on some shoes.

They arrived at the Big Creek Trailhead on June 5 to begin their planned 90-day-long excursion. Their first day in the wilderness was June 9 and the plan was already experiencing a few wrinkles.  The pack saddles the men used were riding saddles with a couple of dowels screwed into the sides that were designed by the elder Heydon. At the trailhead, they’d discovered the camping equipment they’d purchased was bulky and difficult to pack on the back of a horse.  “I’ll be the first to admit that I never packed a horse before,” Craig Heydon said.

It was raining the day they left. It didn’t stop for almost a week. That was just the beginning of the troubles that would follow.  It took them time to learn they needed to wait to load up their packhorse named Preacher. He’d lay down if they put on his load first. The same horse lost all of his shoes within the first 2½ miles of the trail. The meadows they expected to find along the way were disappointingly short on forage. And the Pack Box Pass over into Idaho - where they’d been told had better grazing - was blocked by up to 12 feet of hard pack snow and fallen trees across the trail.

After nearly two weeks, they turned around and went back to Stevensville. After restocking some supplies, they drove into Idaho to come in from the backside.

That’s where the real trouble began.  After the elder Heydon caught wind of a terrible smell, he started looking closer at a wound that had scabbed over on the palomino horse’s back. He discovered a large sore that covered almost the entire top of the horse’s withers. By the time he cleaned out the dead skin and the maggots, the wound that was left was gaping and deep.“We had a situation,” the younger Heydon testified.

A rider from Idaho happened by and told the pair he had some medicine in his camp at Elk Summit about five miles up the trail. It was close to 12 miles back to the trailhead and the men’s vehicle was on the other side of the divide.   They went to Elk Summit.

They found good grass and the medicine they needed to doctor their horse at the man’s camp. They stayed several days to let the horses recover. The elder Heydon cut out a large hole in a saddle blanket to put over the gaping wound on the palomino’s back.

While there, a bay horse they called Bay Baby (which people now call Able) lost all four shoes while grazing on the soft ground. They’d already used up all their spare shoes and nails.

They made the decision they needed to move. The plan called for slowly making their way over Pack Box Pass and getting the palomino to a vet. With another trail blocked by downed trees, they were forced to ride 15 to 16 miles on a gravel road to their next campsite.

By this time, they were running out of medicine donated to them. They decided the younger Heydon would ride a younger bay horse named Pickles and lead Bay Baby over the pass down into Montana to get more feed and medicine.

Their trip was coming to an end.

On the morning of Aug. 1, Curtis Heydon left his father and started off toward Montana. It was to be a long ride and he let Pickles set the pace. At the top of the pass, he took a 45-minute break to spread the ashes of his wife.  “It was a moment of peace,” he said.

On the other side of the divide, just after stopping at a stream crossing to let the horses drink, Heydon said he felt the lead rope jerk in his hand.  He looked back just in time to see Bay Baby fall.  “For whatever reason - I don’t know - he would just not get up,” Heydon said.   Heydon said he tried everything he could think of to try to get the horse to stand.

“He had a history of getting to the point where he would just lay down on us,” Heydon said. “I spent a half hour trying to get the horse to stand up and then 10 to 15 minutes thinking about the tough decision I had to make. I didn’t want to leave that horse.  “I didn’t know if there was something medically wrong with it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if it was just tired.”  After thinking it over, Heydon wrote a note saying he planned to come back for the horse and tied the horse to downed log and left.

The horse was later discovered by two women riding on the same trail that day. Two days later - after a great deal of effort - the horse was led out of the wilderness.  It was renamed Able and the photographs of it lying helpless on the trail would be spread far and wide.

The Heydon’s other three horses were confiscated that same week and the men were charged with animal abuse.  “I was flabbergasted and dismayed when they told me that I was being charged with cruelty to animals,” Curtis Heydon said. “I’ve never hit a thing in my life. It was hard for me to understand.”

Update 2/1/09:  The Heydon's were convicted, fined and sentenced to jail.

Ravalli County Justice Court Judge Jim Bailey denounced the men before imposing the harsh sentences, saying they had displayed a gross lack of common sense and humanity by ignoring the horses’ suffering.  “Neither of you has taken any responsibility for your actions,” Bailey said. “It’s unbelievable that you can blame the horses, law enforcement and the Bitter Root Humane Association for what’s happened.”

The Heydon's were convicted of all 21 counts of misdemeanor animal abuse that they faced.

The elder Heydon was sentenced to 10 months in jail and fined $5,850. His son was sentenced to 11 months in jail and fined $6,435.

The judge also ordered them to forfeit ownership of the horses to the humane association and to pay all restitution for food, medicine, boarding and other care given the horses after they were seized by authorities.

The Heydon's’ attorney filed an immediate notice of appeal. They remain free on bond pending a new trial in Ravalli County District Court.

Horse advocates, who packed the courtroom, wept quietly over the verdict and sentencing, saying it sent a strong message against animal abuse.  “I’m thrilled,” Theresa Manzella said. “Justice has been done in a big way.”

Update 2/2/09:  The Sorrell ‘Casino’ has open sores on both cheeks that appear to be from a halter that was too tight or just on for too long. He can barely walk. His legs are very stiff legs and his feet are sore feet, hip bones are protruding, his chest has areas that rubbed raw. Many scars on legs, hobble sores, back either side of spine very sunk in, area above eyes very sunk in.

The Palomino ‘Diamond’ has an ulcer in left eye, ribs very prominent, hip bones protruding, very stiff legs and sore feet, chest area rubbed raw, cut just above the right front hoof, an open wound (8.5x6.5) on withers (raw to the bone) and upper rump, back either side of spine very sunk in, area just above eyes very sunk in.  - Bitter Root Humane Association report

he verdict and sentence brought a mixed reaction from the two women who rescued the horse abandoned on the Big Creek Trail last summer that set the case in motion.  “It’s a victory, but not a victory,” Dawn Merrill of Missoula said. “It’s bittersweet for both of us … if they’d just done the right thing; taken responsibility, said they were sorry or acknowledged they needed help…“They are still people and I can’t relish in their pain,” she said. “They are people who made a mistake.”

The six-person jury deliberated about nine hours before convicting the Heydon's of all 21 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty that they faced.

Misdemeanor animal abuse charges in Montana carry a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for each count.

That meant the Heydon's could have received a total of 21 years behind bars and a $21,000 fine, although the typical penalties don’t come close to that.

Deputy County Attorney John Bell asked for a harsh sentence.  “I want to send a message to the community and to these individuals” that animal abuse won’t be tolerated in Ravalli County, Bell said.

The Heydon's’ attorney, Mathew Stevenson of Missoula, said his clients had been negligent but hadn’t intentionally inflicted cruelty on the horses.   He said the Heydon's didn’t deserve to be punished because they had “suffered” enough from media coverage about the case and from death threats they had received.

After a brief recess, Bailey ignored the Heydon's’ request for leniency and sentenced the elder Heydon to 10 months in jail and fined him $5,850. The younger Heydon was sentenced to 11 months in jail and fined $6,435.

The horses have since recovered, although some of their scars are permanent.

The Heydon's stood stone-faced when the conviction and sentencing were announced.  “This is a sham,” Curtis Heydon muttered as a deputy escorted him and his father from the courthouse.

Bell said that his office would evaluate the charges and sentence to determine the potential of developing a plea bargain agreement in the case.  “This was a very conscientious jury,” Bell said. “They spent more than eight hours deliberating before they came back with their verdict. They gave this case their full attention and I appreciate that.”

Merrill agreed.  “Every single juror looked me straight in the eye,” she said. “They paid attention to what I had to say. I appreciate that … I think they did a good job.”

When the Heydon's left the courtroom, they went silently past dozens of horse advocates, who packed the small courtroom and an adjoining room where the proceedings were shown on close-circuit television during the three-day trial.

Since last summer, they have circulated photos of the abused horses on the Internet and are using the case to push for harsher penalties against animal abuse in Montana.

Before the verdict and sentencing, the horse enthusiasts were warned they would be arrested for any emotional outburst in the courtroom, so they cried quietly, held hands and sighed in relief when the court clerk intoned “guilty” 21 times and the judge meted out the punishment.

Once outside the courthouse, though, the horse lovers wept, hugged and cheered, saying the case sent a clear message to the public.

Vicki Dawson, operations manager at the humane association, which has overseen the horses’ recovery, said the case highlights the need for stiffer penalties for animal abuse.  The state Legislature is considering nearly a dozen animal protection bills.  “One abused animal should be a felony if the case has merit,” Dawson said.

Merrill and Dehart are happy that this part of the case is behind them.  “The most important thing for Dawn and I was the horses wouldn’t go back to them,” Dehart said. “That’s really been our number one concern … we’re relieved, happy and exhausted from the whole ordeal.”

Prosecutor John Bell and the sheriff’s deputies “did a phenomenal job,” Dehart said. “The horses are going to stay here and live out their lives in some good homes.”

“From the very beginning, we both just wanted to do the right thing,” Merrill said. “I can sleep again because I know I did the right thing. And when I was done, I left it all in the hands of the judge, jury and God to make the right decision about the Heydon's”

Neither of the two women attended the sentencing hearing for the Heydon's

Update 1/28/10: A high profile horse abuse case will be tried for a second time in Ravalli County district court in February.

The Heydon's appealed their conviction to district court.  The new trial was originally set for late last year, but was delayed over legal issues.

Attorneys told Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton to expect at least four days of testimony in the trial set to begin on Feb. 22.

“I don’t see any reasonable prospect of this case not going to trial,” said the Heydon's’ lawyer, Mathew Stevenson of Missoula.

Ravalli County Prosecutor John Bell said he expects to present about 20 witnesses.

Stevenson said he plans to challenge the credentials of some of the state’s witnesses.  “At the last trial, anyone who wanted to be an expert on horses, got to be,” Stevenson said.  Stevenson said he will ask for the court to limit some testimony.  “A lot of evidence came in that probably shouldn’t have,” Stevenson said.

Update 2/23/10:  The Heydon's were back in Hamilton hoping a second Ravalli County jury will be more sympathetic.

Attorneys from both sides offered a summation of their cases to the brand new four-woman, two-man jury in Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton’s courtroom.  Not surprisingly, their arguments sounded very much the same as those offered a year ago.

There was a caveat.  The Heydon’s attorney, Mat Stevenson of Missoula, said the horse named Able - which set this whole case in motion after it was discovered incapacitated in the middle of Big Creek Trail on a hot August day - tested positive for the strongyle parasite earlier this month.  Stevenson said that particular parasite was more common in warmer climates like Georgia, where the horse was purchased and it may have be a pre-existing condition.  “It could explain how Able got into that condition,” Stevenson told the jury as photographs of the gaunt horse flashed onto a nearby screen.

Update 2/27/10:  The Heydon's have been convicted again of abusing their horses during an extended pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in western Montana.

This time, the elder Heydon was found guilty of nine counts of animal cruelty to three different horses. His son was convicted of 10 counts — the additional charge coming for abandoning a dying horse tied up without water on a trail.

Sentencing is set for March 3.

Update 3/1/10:  The Missoula man who helped rescue the horse hopes the men will finally take responsibility for what they put their horses through.  It’s been a year and a half since the hot August afternoon when Michael Svoboda was almost certain he was going to shoot the bay horse abandoned two days earlier on Big Creek Trail by the younger Heydon.

His knees hurt and body spent, the Missoula man sent Dawn Merrill down Big Creek Trail to go for help after hours of pushing the gaunt horse toward the trailhead.

At that last stop, they’d argued about whether Merrill should take the boots off her horse to put on the bay as a last resort. Svoboda would tell her later he didn’t want to have to take them back off after the horse was dead.  “I didn’t think he would make it down the mountain,” Svoboda said over the weekend. “I’d already decided that either he was going to walk down the hill or I was going to put him down. I wasn’t going to leave him up there to be eaten alive.”

A few hours later, the horse that would come to be known as Able - because he was able to walk on out of there - reached the trail head. The next day, the Heydon's would have their other three horses confiscated and be cited for misdemeanor animal abuse.

In his closing statement, Deputy County Attorney John Bell urged jurors to take a hard look at photographs of the emaciated and injured horses, as well as veterinarian records, Forest Service e-mails and the animal shelter’s report on the horses’ condition after they were rescued by sheriff’s deputies.  Those documents, Bell said, painted a clear picture of the poor condition of the four horses owned by the Heydon's

Bell said the Heydon's were trying to hide behind smokescreens and excuses to avoid accepting responsibility for the horses’ condition - which veterinarians told jurors was the worst they’d ever seen in pack animals.

The elder Heydon maintained right up through last week’s trial that there was nothing wrong with the horses, except for a gaping sore on the withers of one and sore feet on another, Bell said.  “The horses were thin, but there was nothing wrong with them,” Craig Heydon said from the witness stand.And the younger Heydon said he planned to return for the horse left behind and near death on Big Creek Trail.

Not so, said the prosecutor.  “Three days later, he didn’t even know it had been rescued,” Bell said. “He left the horse tied to a log, with its saddle still on. His note had no cell number and no name. There was no way to contact anyone.”

The Heydon's’ attorney, Mathew Stevenson of Missoula, said the case did not have the “typical standard of proof … there was no smoking gun.”  For his clients to be guilty, he insisted, the state had to prove there was a “gross deviation” of the standard code of conduct.

Stevenson challenged jurors to find a moment in time during the men’s two-month trek into the mountains where they showed a deviation of conduct in the way they cared for their horses. It’s not there, he said.

And Stevenson had his own photographs, showing the elder Heydon feeding the animals, and the horses - presumably healthy - at different places on the journey.  “I do know that these gentlemen made their best effort every step of the way to take care of the horses,” Stevenson said. “If you find them guilty, then you must find that moment in time when they deviated from that standard of conduct under the circumstances they faced.  “If you cannot find that moment they deviated, then Mr. Bell cannot prove negligence.”

Stevenson choose not to offer a comment following the verdict.

Bell said he had felt confident the jury would return a number of guilty verdicts after the trial concluded, but he was surprised at how quickly the deliberations went.  “There were a lot of counts and two different defendants,” Bell said. “I think they heard it all in the five days of the trial and apparently it didn’t take them that long to come to their conclusion.”

While the photographs of the case were compelling - especially the disturbing well-publicized photo of Able laying across the trail - Bell said the witnesses in the case were impossible to discount.

“I think Dawn Merrill and Mike Svoboda’s testimony about the challenges of bring Able to the trailhead was hard to discount,” Bell said. “Nobody could have thought they were lying about that.”

Bell said the case was followed far and wide.  “This was more high profile than most felonies,” he said.

Now comes the second guilty verdict, rendered by the District Court jury of two men and four women.  “The facts really didn’t change at all between the two cases,” Svoboda said. “There’s obviously no excuse for putting those horses through all of that … the sad thing about all of it is that I don’t feel like they’ve taken responsibility for what happened. I sure hope to see that happen yet.”

Update 3/4/10:  The two Heydon's were sentenced to six months in jail and thousands of dollars in restitution and fines.

Craig Heydon, 72, and his son, Curtis, 38, were taken into custody immediately following the sentencing hearing before Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton.

At sentencing, Langton said the men didn’t bring enough supplemental feed, used ill-fitting saddles and over-packed the horses they purchased just weeks before setting off on a summer-long journey into the rugged wilderness.

The judge told the men he was taken aback by the fact that neither one had yet to accept responsibility for the abuse the horses suffered.

The elder Heydon was convicted of nine counts of animal cruelty to three different horses. His son was found guilty of 10 counts, the additional charge coming after he abandoned an emaciated horse - tied to a log in the summer sun without water - on Big Creek Trail.

Both men will each be required to pay $11,544 in restitution for care of the horses. The judge also ordered them to pay almost $10,000 each for the cost of their confinement and close to $3,000 each for the cost of the trial and prosecution. 

Langton gave each man five months to pay the total bill.  “I expect every penny to be paid in the next five months,” the judge said.

Three of the four horses - Able, Casino and Diamond - were turned over to the county by Langton. The jury acquitted the men on charges surrounding the fourth horse. Langton said its future will need to be negotiated between the state and the Heydon's

Ravalli County Prosecutor John Bell urged Langton to sentence the men to jail or at the very least require them to spend hundreds of hours working at an animal shelter.  “My concern is that over the last 19 months, I’ve never once heard them take personal responsibility for their actions,” Bell told the judge.

Langton sentenced the elder Heydon to 180 days in the county jail on each of the nine counts. He then suspended all but 20 days on each count.

The younger Heydon was sentenced to 180 days in jail on each of the 10 counts he faced. Langton suspended all but 18 days on each count.

As a result, the men will spend 180 days in the Ravalli County Detention Center.   During the suspended portion of their sentence, Langton said neither can own a horse.

In a statement to the court, Curtis Heydon said his father raised him follow the Golden Rule and never sacrifice his character - “in the end that’s all that’s left.” Heydon said he put his 18-year career on hold to take the trip with his father after he had lost his wife following a two year fight with cancer.

The younger Heydon said he looked forward to the new opportunity to be around horses and he figured what he didn’t know, he’d learn along the way. He said he was sorry if there was any undo suffering of the horses under their care.

Heydon said the men had hoped for a fair trial, but their case ended up being tried “in the court of public opinion and we were crucified by the media.”

The Heydon's’ attorney, Matthew Stevenson, said the Heydon's have suffered from the publicity this case generated.

“Curtis’ life has been destroyed,” Stevenson said. “He can’t get a job. The family has suffered death threats.”

The elder Heydon had never been convicted of a crime in his life, Stevenson said.

Langton said this case was not the typical animal abuse case that comes through his court.  “Ordinarily, in cases like this, when we have animals in this bad of shape, we’re dealing with owners who are senile or suffering a mental disorder or from poverty,” Langton said.

In this case, the Heydon's were both highly educated men who knew how to perform research and had supposedly planned this trip for months, even years, Langton said. Yet, they asked the jury to believe they didn’t understand the basic nutritional requirements for a horse.  “They obviously provided for their own requirements,” Langton said. “The requirements for those horses were either known or ignored or simply no thought given.”

The judge took the elder Heydon to task for presenting the court with a copy of a veterinarian manual that he claimed to have purchased before the trip as part of his research. Langton said a search on a popular book selling website showed the manual wasn’t available to the public until July 2008.  By that time, the men were halfway through their trip.

Langton said the men were told in Georgia by a woman running a horse rescue operation that horses used for an extended trip into the most rugged and remote wilderness area in the lower 48 states would need to trained and conditioned.

All of the horses were purchased just a few weeks before the trip was set to begin from owners in the Midwest. None of them had ever been shod before.  The elder Heydon’s saddle horse was 26 years old - “far too old for a trip like this,” said the judge.

The sores the horses exhibited after being confiscated were a result of ill-fitting tack and saddles.  “The pack saddle itself was some bizarre homemade device not like any pack saddle that I have ever seen,” Langton said. “The horses were massively over-packed with ill fitting loads.”

Langton said there appeared to be “a deliberate indifference to the health and welfare of these horses.”  The horses were already on the downward slide when the men came out of Big Creek about halfway through their trip. Langton said if they had decided to stop there and get help for the horses then, this case would have never happened.

“The decision was made regardless of the state of decline of the horses to go back into the mountains,” Langton said.  From receipts presented to the court for horse feed, Langton said it appeared the men had purchased enough for about one week.

Langton said he appreciated Bell’s request that the Heydon's do community service at an animal shelter, but “would you want them looking after your animal? I would not. It is a good sounding idea, but it would not be very fair to those animals.”

Ravalli County Attorney George Corn said he thought the sentence “was fair and appropriate.”

Stevenson said he wasn’t sure if his clients would appeal their conviction and sentence.

By the time an appeal could make its way to the Montana Supreme Court, Stevenson said the Heydon's will have already served their jail time and paid their fines.  “With all due respect for Judge Langton, I’m discouraged in this result,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson asked Langton for a stay pending appeal, which would have allowed his clients some more time before going to jail.  Langton denied that request.  “It’s time for them to start serving their time,” Langton said.

The men took off their belts and emptied their pockets on the courtroom table before deputies led them to the door to the detention center.

Update 3/18/10:  Ravalli County commissioners may re-hear proposals from two local animal welfare groups concerning the fate of Able, Casino and Diamond - three horses at the center of a highly publicized animal abuse case.

Commissioners J.R. Iman and Kathleen Driscoll said they'd support a second meeting to consider the future of the horses. If so, the meeting would likely be the next week.

The commission voted 3-0 to transfer interest in the three horses to Willing Servants, a nonprofit horse assistance group. That decision sparked a turf battle between Willing Servants and the Bitter Root Humane Association, whose volunteers have provided care for the horses since they were rescued from a backpacking trip gone horribly awry in the summer of 2008.

Willing Servants went to fetch the horses after the decision was made but were unable to reach Humane Association members and have yet to take custody of the animals. Furious Humane Association members, meanwhile, peppered the county commission with complaints.

As part of the March 3 judgment against the Heydon's - Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton transferred custody of the horses to the county.

Commissioners said that while both groups were upstanding, Willing Servants - which focuses on horses - was better equipped to find permanent care for the animals.

While Willing Servants brought more than a dozen supporters and volunteers to the meeting, no one was present from the Humane Association. A county official placed calls to three Humane Association members during the meeting but was unable to reach anyone.

The meeting was not included in the original weeklong commission calendar, which was released Thursday, March 11. It was, however, included on a revised calendar released Friday, March 12, after Ravalli County Attorney George Corn requested it be added.

Willing Servants was created by Theresa Manzella, a horse trainer who has worked in the south Hamilton area since 1992 and was moved to tears when she saw newspaper photos of Able starving and abandoned alongside Big Creek Trail in the Bitterroot Mountains.

The commission’s decision outraged members of the Bitter Root Humane Association, who had cared for the horses since they were recovered by authorities. Humane association members said they were not made aware of the meeting and none were there. Members called commissioners afterwards to complain loudly about the judgment. Willing Servants members who went to collect the horses came away empty handed.  “They were hysterical - they were extremely angry,” said Commissioner Carlotta Grandstaff.

The three horses were handed to the county as part of a March 3 settlement in the misdemeanor charges case the Heydon's

Deputy County Attorney John Bell, who handled both trials against the Heydon's, drafted a resolution last week transferring the horses to the humane association.  “A week ago I was asked (by the commission) to draft a resolution,” Bell said. “I drafted one that would give the horses to the humane society based on my working on that case for 20 months and seeing the time and money and energy they took with the horses. I was clear in the resolution I drafted that was our opinion.”

Bell said commissioners talked to him about possibly transferring the horses to Willing Servants but Bell said he reaffirmed his opinion that the horses belong with the humane association.

Ravalli County Attorney George Corn said that he had not been asked to take any further action.  “If some civil action needs to be done they could ask us to do it,” he said. “But I have not heard from the commission that they want to take any action.”

Since 2008 the horses had been in the protective care of the Bitter Root Humane Association. The Heydon's had been ordered to pay $11,544 in restitution for care of the horses.

After heartfelt testimony from Manzella and others, commissioners gave the horses to Willing Servants.  “Can you believe it?” Manzella shouted, raising her arms and hugging those around her. “Where are the horses? Let’s go get them.”

Since 2008 Willing Servants has found new homes for 200 horses - an act which in many cases kept the owners out of criminal situations, Manzella said. The group also has a hay bank for needy horse owners and if necessary helps pay the $200 cost to euthanize a horse. The group also works with the sheriff’s office to educate deputies about horses and horse care and what is appropriate and what is not.

Manzella said the photos of Able were not the first pictures she’s seen of horse abuse, but something about them resonated with her.  “When I saw the pictures, I was disturbed,” she told commissioners. “I had seen a lot like that before, but this hit hard. I thought, someone ought to do something. And then I realized I was that person.”

This case brought national attention to the county and the issue of horse abuse, said Willing Servants member Laurie Riley. It’s only fitting then that Able, who is still a young horse, serve as a role model. While the older horses, said Stu Dobbins, should probably be put out to pasture, Able could be a sort of goodwill ambassador at public events and for school groups.

Rosemary Arbuckle told commissioners she once adopted a 25-year old horse with medical and socialization issues. She put the horse alone in its own pasture, but after a while the horse wanted to play with the younger horses in the next pasture.  “I think Able would be the same way,” she said.

Update 3/19/10:  Ravalli County commissioners may rehear proposals from two local animal welfare groups concerning the fate of Able, Casino and Diamond.

Commissioners J.R. Iman and Kathleen Driscoll said they’d support a second meeting to consider the future of the horses.

Iman, who made the motion to transfer the horses to Willing Servants, said he stood by his decision but was willing to rehear arguments.

Ravalli County Attorney George Corn requested a meeting be placed on a revised calendar which then placed Resolution No. 2473 on the agenda for commissioners to consider. The resolution noted the Bitter Root Humane Association’s concern and care for the horses since 2008 and transferred ownership to the group.

After hearing about an hour of testimony from Willing Servants, however, the commission amended the resolution, deleting a paragraph noting the humane association’s history with the animals and substituting “Willing Servants” with “Bitterroot Humane Society” in the transfer language.

Driscoll, who was at a regional transportation meeting and missed the controversy, said she’d looked into the matter and said the meeting was properly and legally noticed. However, she said she would also support a second meeting. Any substantive change to a resolution, she said, should be given 48 hours notice.

“We had a resolution from the attorney’s office that was changed, and I would have thought it was a significant enough event that we should have given 48 hours’ notice,” Driscoll said.

Driscoll said she spent much of the day handling calls and e-mails from concerned parties and that alone shows high interest in the matter and a compelling reason to hold a second meeting and make sure all sides are represented.

Iman said he felt the meeting was noticed properly despite assertions to the contrary from the humane association, but it was worth re-noticing the meeting and hosting a second in order for both sides to feel they got a fair hearing.

“If there is a perception that we tried to circumvent anything to give the horses to one person or another, that is not true,” he said. “I made the motion and I still stand by that, because I felt that Willing Servants is better qualified to take care of the final disposition of these horses than anybody else at this time.”

Iman said also to be settled was the county’s contract with the humane association to handle animal issues. It’s unclear if that contract includes large animals like horses or if it is still in effect.

Vicki Dawson, the Bitter Root Humane Associations operations manager, said in a letter to commissioners that the commission needs to relook at the issue.  “When the sheriff calls us into such an urgent case, it is our resources that are on the line not knowing if we will ever win the case for the sake of the animals or gain resolution of our resources,” she wrote. “We wish to have closure on this long-term case and find the homes that these horses deserve. Bitter Root Humane Association has responded to the county’s needs for over 35 years. Please consider this a formal request to revisit this disposition and conduct another hearing.”

Willing Servants’ president Theresa Manzella said she unsuccessfully tried to contact the humane association, she did not know where the horses were.  “Unfortunately no one from the BRHA will return our calls,” she said. “This is not about what is best for the horses. It is about a power struggle for money and egos and is a turf war.”

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