BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Erie County District Attorney's Office announced a Hamburg resident has pleaded guilty to an animal cruelty charge after killing two kittens in January 2024.
According to the DA, 39-year-old Joshua Taylor, also known as Moriah Taylor, pleaded guilty in Erie County Court to one count of attempted aggravated cruelty to animals. The DA said Taylor entered a guilty plea to the reduced charge in full satisfaction of the indictment.
Investigators said on January 17, 2024, Town of Hamburg Police responded to an apartment on the 4500 block of Southwestern Boulevard for a welfare check after receiving a call from the legal occupant, who was unable to reach Taylor, her ex-partner, for several hours. The caller expressed concern for the Taylor, two adult cats and three kittens in the apartment.
According to the DA, responding police officers received consent from the caller to conduct the welfare check and search the residence. They found two cats inside the apartment, but did not locate Taylor or the kittens. The DA said police found Taylor in a nearby parking lot and the three kittens were found inside a pillowcase that was buried in the snow on the balcony of the apartment. The kittens were taken to the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, where a veterinarian found two of the kittens were dead and one kitten was in critical condition inside a zipped bag inside the pillowcase.
The two kittens were sent to Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a necropsy determined that the kittens died from asphyxiation and/or hypothermia. The other kitten was suffering from hypothermia and/or asphyxiation upon arrival at the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, but has since recovered and was adopted by the veterinarian.
The DA said Taylor was sentenced to a conditional discharge, and the judge issued a three-year “no animal order.”
