'Mass grave' investigated at NorCal rescue; officials say hundreds of animals are unaccounted for

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Set us as preferred For nearly 20 years, animal advocate Jennifer Raymond was convinced something suspicious was going on at Miranda’s Rescue, but her repeated cries for authorities to investigate the Northern California animal sanctuary fell on deaf ears, she said.She could see they were getting paid handsomely to take in hundreds of shelter dogs annually, based on public records requests she filed.But she couldn’t understand where all these dogs were then going, given how tough it can be to find foster homes for rescue dogs in this rural area of Humboldt County, she said.

But after moving in next door to the Fortuna rescue, she claimed she saw large objects being dumped into a deep hole on the property, and had a sinking feeling she had figured it out.On the night of April 26, Raymond and a fellow animal advocate Jenna Moore decided to take matters into their own hands, trespassing onto her neighbor’s property in pursuit of answers, she said.“We waited until dark and had our headlamps and shovels and gloves and phones and headed out to the hole and jumped in and started digging,” she said.An investigation into allegations of fraud and animal abuse at the rescue are ongoing, according to authorities.

No charges have been filed against its owner, Shannon Miranda, who did not respond to The Times’ request for comment on Thursday.In an earlier statement on his organization’s website, he urged that there not be a rush to judgment.As Raymond and Moore started to dig, they systematically uncovered blood-soaked furry bodies, several of which had bullet holes in their head, Raymond said.“Each time we uncovered a dog, we uncovered part of another dog, and so we just kept following the dog trail,” she said.

“We knew by the time we were to our fifth or sixth dog that we weren’t leaving them there in this mass gra...