Man facing 56 charges related to pet cremation scam

BALTIMORE COUNTY — Rodney Ward, the owner of Loving Care Pet in Baltimore County, has been arrested and charged related to a pet cremation scam.

Rodney faces 56 charges including "willfully and maliciously destroying, injuring and defacing the pet remains of a dog."

Charging documents say Rodney conspired with Yalanda Ward, to allegedly steal, destroy and deface the remains of multiple pets.

This comes after owners say they dropped their pets off to be cremated with Rodney's business only to be left with something other than their pet's ashes.

Nikki Pickens told WMAR 2 News she learned of the charges early Wednesday morning.

"My heart just burst out of my chest. There's many emotions that come with that. As crazy as it may seem, there's a happiness and then there's those emotions that bring you back to what brought us here in the first place," Pickens said.

Gail Cook also entrusted Ward with her dog Raven, later learning her pet's dead body was discared on the side of the road.

"It made me feel sick to my stomach to know that she was treated that way because she was treated with nothing but love by us," Cook told WMAR 2 News.

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Eight animals total, which turned out of be five dogs, a cat and a rabbit, had all been dumped near the intersection of Frederick Avenue and Boswell Road.

Since Cook's pet was dumped on the side of the road, the ashes she received obviously did not belong to his pet.

At the time, Rodney says he paid a man from the crematorium who was down on his luck to do the work trying to help him out.

Just two weeks later, 38 more dead pets were added to the investigation, found decaying in a hearse on Ward's property.

That included Joy Schoonover's cat Garfield.

"At first it was relief because I get to get Garfield back but then it was anger because he was stuffed in that hearse and he wasn't just stuffed, he was at the bottom because his box was smashed," she said.

But many pets haven't been recovered, preventing Nikki from having full closure.

"And then you've got Norby and Oliver and all these other pets that we have no idea where they are," she said.

Whether it's the comfort of remaining pets or of other affected pets owners, they don't feel alone.

"It has brought a massive group of people together in a very unfortunate situation which I think for most of us has been very helpful. We can lean on one another and we're not in this alone."

While she wants to see Ward serve time for the alleged charges, there's more to what justice would look like for her.

"All of us receiving our pets back home would be the ultimate outcome of this."

Baltimore County Assistant State's Attorney Adam Lippe told WMAR 2 News that Yalanda has posted bail.

Rodney will have a bail hearing on Thursday.

Each individual animal yields a felony amount between $1,500 and $25,000 charging documents say.