HOUSTON -- Police have arrested two people in connection with the theft of a 12-year-old Beagle and are trying to determine if the suspects were involved in numerous thefts where household pets were held for ransom.
"Boo" the beagle disappeared from her front yard in the Northgate Forest neighborhood in Spring on January 19.
Her owners, Rosie and Tim Derryberry, placed a lost-and-found ad on Craigslist.
Then they received a call from a man who wanted to know how much of a reward was being offered. He told the Derryberrys he had their dog and that they’d need to drive to an apartment complex in southwest Houston 25 miles away and bring $500 cash.
"I can tell you that our lives are on hold. I mean we’ve literally spent our days, every day every night, on this since she disappeared," said Rosie Derryberry.
The apartment managers at a complex in the 3300 block of Alice St. had alerted Houston Police. Several apartment residents said they had seen a dog matching Boo’s description.
So when the Derryberrys arrived and began talking with a teenage boy who claimed he knew where the dog was, police arrested the juvenile and 27-year-old James Williams. Williams has been charged with misdemeanor theft of a dog.
But so far, the Beagle still hasn’t been found.
"Frankly I think she’s dead," said Rosie Derryberry. "I think they’ve probably killed her by now."
"We feel like we’ve lost one of our family members," added Tim Derryberry. "And she’s precious to us and so we’ve been chasing this with all the effort we can muster to try and find her."
Now police are trying to match the suspicions of the Derryberry family with the reports of other Houston-area families who say they, too, were contacted by similar suspects demanding up to $2,000 in cash for the safe return of their pets.
"It’s like every two weeks they’re stealing a dog and ransoming it," said Derryberry of the anecdotal reports from her friends and neighbors.
So while dog owners continue their desperate searches, police search for just how big an organized pet ransom ring this might really be.
