A veterinary student is accused of deceiving horse owners by offering their aging horses a new home at her pasture but selling the horses to slaughterhouses in Mexico.
Fallon Blackwood, 23, a third-year Tuskegee University veterinary student is accused of offering owners to re-home older and ailing horses, and instead of selling them to slaughterhouses in Mexico for meat.
A grand jury indicted Blackwood on 13 counts of bringing into the state property obtained by false pretense elsewhere.
The charges involve a collection of typically older horses victims admit they voluntarily gave Blackwood with the understanding she would take them to live out their lives on her farm near Boaz, Alabama. But when Blackwood could not account for the horses, the original owners filed complaints with authorities, accusing her of theft.
“She was getting the horses and telling the owners they were going to nice pasture land and would happily live their days out. What she was doing was taking the horses to slaughter,” Macon County Sheriff Andre Brunson said. "Slaughtered to potentially be made into dog food is what is believed to have happened to some of the horses that landed in Blackwood’s possession."
Stolen Horse International said this is the largest case of missing and stolen horses it has dealt with in the organization’s 20-year history.
Blackwood has been released from the Blount County Jail after posting $15,000 bond. court records do not yet list an attorney for her.
