Sad that one died!
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Nine dogs were safely returned to their Bloomington owner on Thursday, a day after police arrested four people wanted in connection with demanding ransom for 10 Yorkshire terriers stolen the day after Christmas.
"I'm thankful I got these back," dog breeder Eileen Sparks, 80, said Thursday. "I didn't think we would even see them again until we got a call asking for $3,000."
Officials from the Los Angeles police and San Bernardino County sheriff's departments cooperated Wednesday in tracing calls and tracking the suspected dognappers to a phone booth in the Glassell Park area of Los Angeles.
Though 10 Yorkshire terriers had been stolen, nine were returned. One of the eight puppies stolen had died.
Police said Jose Isabel Suarez, 23; Jorge Dominguez, 36; and Victorino Arzate, 24, all of Mexico, were arrested on suspicion of home-invasion robbery. A male juvenile was arrested and released to his guardians in Los Angeles County.
Officials had no information on the disposition of two other suspects in the dognappings.
Sparks said police returned two mothers and seven puppies, worth about $22,000, to her at about 5 a.m. Thursday. She said one puppy had died, most likely from not getting milk from a mother stressed by being removed from her surroundings.
Sparks said the group found her by answering an advertisement. She said the six people involved in the dognapping had appeared on her doorstep in different groups and times before Christmas.
At 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Sparks said, four people - including a woman and her baby - arrived at her home wanting to see the puppies. She said two young men she had sent away 30 minutes earlier suddenly barged into her home.
"They shoved a gun in my face, pushed me toward the kitchen and shoved me to the floor," Sparks said. "You think they would get a job and make money instead of doing that."
They took the dogs and fled, Sparks said. She received seven calls and a ransom demand within three hours on Wednesday. She said she kept them on the phone as long as she could while police traced and tracked the dognappers.
Police said the suspects could be involved in other thefts of small dogs in Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties.
Mary Elizabeth Dugmore, a spokeswoman for the 700-member Yorkshire Terrier National Rescue, said from her home in Tennessee that dognappings are uncommon. She said she had learned of Sparks' ordeal via the Internet on Thursday, when police released the information.
"This is the first time I've ever heard of this," Dugmore said about dognappers using guns. "It's scary."
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/s...p31.57c22.html