Two dogs stabbed, one killed while defending historic L.A.-area cemetery, heartbroken owner says

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It happened as it had many times before at the Woodlawn Celestial Gardens in Compton.An intruder entered the graveyard in an attempt to steal headstones for their bronze and copper plaques, the owner said.But guarding the cemetery were three Cane Corso dogs — RoRo, Ghost and Zeus.

The intruder fled, but not before stabbing the three dogs, killing RoRo, said Celestina Bishop, owner of the cemetery and the dogs.Bishop believes the break-in occurred in the early hours of April 10.She and her husband did not learn of the stabbings until that night when her husband showed up to feed the dogs.After seeing the injuries to the dogs, they took them to an animal hospital, she said.

“My freaking dog died trying to protect a place that some families don’t even give a f— about! How many L’s do I gotta take,” she wrote on a Facebook post that same evening.California Animal activists have raised $50,000 as a reward for information that leads to the arrest of those responsible for attacking donkeys in the Inland Empire.She said her other two dogs are recovering and are expected to survive.The incident marks a violent escalation in a series of break-ins that have occurred at the cemetery, which has faced years of financial hardship.Bishop said she’s poured her own time and money into maintaining the cemetery with little to no outside support.

She said the death of her dog was the last straw and she is now considering selling the property.“The story is not about selling the property,” she said in the interview.“It’s about me reaching my hand out for six years and getting shot down.”The exhaustion was already setting in last year when thieves broke into the property, taking and damaging more than a dozen headstones from the graveyard, which is the final resting place for hundreds of veterans, including several Union soldiers from the Civil War.Bishop’s mother and sister...