Goin' horsey

Jean Marie Elledge, 57, the Carnation woman charged with starving her horses to death.

Elledge told the court that she was "unaware" that the horses she had been caring for were sick and starving. She said in one case she didn't know a horse was in bad shape because the animal wore a blanket.

"I should have put my fingers under the blanket and checked. Ironically, I'm constantly putting my fingers under my blanket and checking," she said, with a giggle.

In another case, she didn't know because she dressed the horse up like Liberace. "I was giving him piano lessons, and teaching him to play the Pull My Finger game, at the same time."

Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell: "I hope the memory of what you DID SEE will remain forever clear."

Jean: "The memory of what?"

Judge Ramsdell: "I just tried a case last week where a farmer let his pigs starve. You couldn't even find bacon! This is more disgusting than the skinny pigs! The week before that, it was the starving chickens! Their beaks fell off! This is more disgusting than the beakless birds!"

Jean: "Beakless birds?"

Judge Ramsdell: "Before that, it was the case of the shriveling sheep at old McDonald's farm! I'm getting sick of this! Chickens and horses and pigs, oh my! Chickens and horses and pigs, oh my!"

To which, Jean replied with a yawn. "I gave 'em some hay, some straws, I figured it was enough. What do you expect from me, to haul around bails on my back? I don't eat that much!"

The judge pointed out, Jean's weight being 295 pounds, that could be debated.

Judge Ramsdell: "My burning question is where was your breeding farm??"

Jean: "Near my house."

Judge Ramsdell: "But, where is your house?"

Jean: "Next to the highway, well, closer to Pete's farm."

Judge Ramsdell: "No, I mean, WHERE do you think IN AMERICA... you see? I'm just trying to point out...."


Jean: "In America? Of course it's America! It's right down the road from here, about 6 miles."

Judge Ramsdell: "No, no, no! I mean what makes you think you have the right to...."

Jean: "Who gave me the right? The right to what? Horses are not without crimes. They kick, they buck, they bite, they breed all the time. You ever seen how a horse is hung? I mean, talk about a weapon! I got to trim those studs down! What are you, the Horse Savior?"

Judge Ramsdell: "I believe you have joined the ranks of incorrigibles. The worst form of cowardice and exploitation."

Jean: "I object. Using dirty words is uncalled for."

King County Animal Control officers went to Elledge's Carnation farm and found four dead horses, one emaciated foal and nine other emaciated horses without food or drinkable water.

"'Emaciated'?" Jean responded, surprised at the allegations. "I wouldn't call being able to store playing cards between their ribs, 'emaciated.'"

Animal-control agents said they found no food for the animals at the Carnation property. To which, Jean protested, "No food? There was plenty of food. I just kept it safely stored away, in case they ever needed it."

Bonnie Hammond, a rescue worker from Save a Forgotten Equine, told the court that a 6-month-old filly was so infected with parasites that it led to severe complications requiring the horse to be euthanized.

Judge Ramsdell: "You mean you shot it?"
Bonnie Hammond: "Right between the eyes."

Not only could Ms. Elledge not care for the horses in her possession, but she made more by continuing to breed her mares and produce more foals — none of which she could afford to feed.

Elledge told the court she was providing her own food by visiting the food bank.

"The horses never took to the Hamburger Helper, and Uncle Ben's Wild Pudding mix. It's not my problem they don't like jello," Jean said.

Elledge sold numerous horses over 12 years to Rob's Juicy Ribs, a local restaurant, and had plans to breed quality horses.

She also said she hired people to feed the horses and didn't check to see if they were doing their job. "These are professional horse feeders, and I'm supposed to check up on them?" Jean asked, standoffishly.

Elledge's family and a teenage niece, who lives with her, said she was an animal-lover and a deeply compassionate person. They asked the court to give her home detention.

"Let her stay in the barn, away from the chocolate bunt cakes in the pantry," said Jean's 14-year old niece, "Little Angel," who, it is surmised, has a minor weight problem, having crushed the last 13 scales she stepped on.
In sentencing Elledge, Ramsdell referenced the quote, "the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members."

To which, Jean replied, "Be as you wish to seem."

Judge Ramsdell: "From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate."

Jean: "And what is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul."

Judge Ramsdell: "Wisdom begins in wonder."

Jean: "At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet."

Judge Ramsdell: "People treat their cars better than you treated these animals."

Jean: "You wouldn't say that if you saw the cars in my neighborhood. I even tried getting money by selling my new invention for cars: a sun visor for convertibles. I spent $43,000 on the prototype, and went to Ford, GM, Toyota and Honda. They all said they already had a similar product. A roof!"

Elledge was given three weeks to get her affairs in order before reporting to jail.

Jean: "Can I work on my other invention, a silent megaphone? Now, protesters and monks can meet!"

Elledge faces five counts of first-degree animal cruelty in Snohomish County for letting horses die and live in filthy conditions on her property.

"'Filthy conditions?'" Jean protested. "Three of the horses live in my bedroom! I wouldn't call it 'filthy.' We took showers together!"

"It was horrifying. It was a bunch of walking skeletons on the property," Dr. Hannah Evergreen, a rescue worker, said. "It was horrific to know that we didn't get there in time for all of them."

Dr. Evergreen admitted she was busy at the mobile show horse clinic she had set up 100 feet away from Jean's farm for the last 6 months. "I noticed nothing unusual besides horses dressed up like Mick Jagger."

Many of the rescued horses were adopted after being nursed back to health, but not all of them made it. One died months after being rescued due to complications from an infestation of worms.

"A couple of the males are staying with me in my living room. I raise worms for fishing so it all works out in the end," Hannah said.

After she completes her sentence, Elledge will be on probation for one year, and a judge ordered that she keep no animals or pets for five years.

Jean bickered: "Not even a turtle? How do you even starve a turtle? Can't they go, like, six weeks without eating? Seems they'd make the perfect pet for me. How about a dove for a peace offering? I promise to clean its cage every 4 months!"

Judge Ramsdell: "How did you even get through, I mean, step over, I mean, get around, go over the dead, to get to the living horses?"

Jean bickered: "You mean, how did I wade through the dead horses? I put on dead horse flippers. You can buy 'em over at Mini and Marty's Feed and Grain Supplies. They're like elf shoes."

"Elf shoes!" the judge screamed. "My brother Bob wears those!" Ramsdell said reflexively, then blushed. A hush fell over the court room.

Judge Ramsdell told Jean the way she treated her horses was "despicable."

"I wouldn't treat my own dogs like that," said Judge Ramsdell. "My wife, yes. My dogs, never."

The court was told she fed the animals small amounts of poor quality hay and allowed them to starve each winter while she lived in her house with the furnace blasting.

"I admit, I spent their food money on heating but, I needed to stay warm!" she exclaimed. "I'm not going out there in the winter -- not me! I like to stay comfy and snuggle with my bonbons."

Elledge told the judge she had no idea her horses were in such poor health.

Jean: "I did notice they were glassy-eyed and fell over a lot but, I thought that's just what horses do."

Lilly was a foal when animal control officers saved her from Jean Marie Elledge's pasture. Skinny and sick, she was still better off than the four horses found dead on the Carnation property. Horse rescue workers thought there might be a chance for her.

Jean pulled the foal one way by the tail, rescue workers pulled it the other way by its mane, "I want the horse in my house!" Jean screamed at the workers.

"We apologized to her (the foal) for what had happened to her," said Bonnie Hammond, a Save a Forgotten Equine worker who took her final bath with Lilly before shooting her in the head.

"We'll never know the horse she could have been," she said, on her way to a seance to contact Lilly. "We stay in touch. Lilly said she's watching the trial, or the trail, I couldn't make it out due to Lilly's hoarse throat. She told me to tell other horse owners who neglect horses to 'buck off.'"

"Help was never more than a phone call away," a rescue worker said. "The problem was getting the horses to use the phone."

Attempting to contradict police and a former worker at her pasture, Elledge said she usually fed her horses high-grade hay. Only in the past three years had financial pressures forced her to buy lower quality feed and feed them sparingly, she said.

"Fifty-gallon cans of beans from Smart and Final isn't exactly cheap, you know! But, they weren't satisfied with that, were they? Were they!" Jean yelled at the judge.

"I'm trying myself to understand what happened," Elledge said. "I didn't see the horses starving. And, it's not that I have 'selective vision' like they say. I may just watch a little too much Days Of Our Lives."

Elledge's sisters asked for leniency to allow Elledge to continue to care for her teenage niece (seen in a photo leaving the courtroom) who lives with her.

"Yeah, who's going to go shopping for the bunt cakes, now!" the niece, Little Angel, shouted at the judge while wallowing restlessly in the 3 front row seats she took up that cracked and strained to support her girth.

Allowing that Elledge may not be well mentally, Ramsdell noted that she had no difficulty taking care of herself. Jean blushed and giggled.

"My first inclination was to sentence you to eat poor quality hay for 3 months," he told Jean. "But then I realized I am a U.S. judge, and I must abide by laws," said Judge Ramsdell.

Elledge told the judge she did not mean the horses any harm.


"I think I was so blinded by this idea of, you know, 'it's gonna work,' that I just had my head in the sand," she said.

"What's going to work?" The judge asked.

Jean: "Horse Dating. First, I teach them bedroom etiquette. Then, they telemarket to get dates.. Fifty horses working full time, I'd be in clover!"

The judge ordered a mental evaluation of Elledge. The rescue workers ordered a mental evaluation of Judge Ramsdell. A superior court judge ordered a mental evaluation of the rescue workers. The superior court judge also ordered mental evaluations for the remaining horses; the results of which he wants immediately.

"I'm working on a screenplay of The New Mr. Ed, and that Horse Dating is not a bad idea," the superior court judge concluded.