An Indiana woman arrested for alleged child neglect and animal cruelty claimed that she could not smell the dead dogs that littered her home because of Covid.
Jennifer Lair, 32, is accused of keeping her home in such bad condition that her eight-year-old son “smelled of death” when he was picked up by his father.
And officials say that Ms Lair, whom they allege has a long history of animal cruelty, even drove her car around with a dead dog in the back of it.
Now she has been has been charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent, along with two counts of animal cruelty after Brownsburg police investigated the state of her home last month.
Police visited the home after a Department of Child Services worker found “deplorable” living conditions at the property.
Due to previous charges, Ms Lair was not allowed to have any animals at her home. But officials say that when police went to the home on 16 May they found a dead dog in a trash can and that the home was in “disarray” and “filthy.”
On 22 May, Morgan County Sheriff’s Deputies made contact with the suspect again and say they found a dead dog in a cage inside her car, that they could smell from “20 to 30 yards.”
When deputies asked the suspect why she had not removed the dead animal, she “blamed it on Covid” and said she “could not smell it.”
The suspect’s pretrial release was revoked and she was arrested and taken to Morgan County jail on 24 May.
