Witness describes Eastern Shore dognapping; 1 arrested
Dog's were taken from his home in Hopeton, Va.(Photo: Staff photo by Jay Diem)VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A Virginia Beach woman was arrested and two others are wanted in connection with a dognapping in Accomack County.Charlene S. Boyajian, 45, of Virginia Beach was arrested by the Virginia Beach Police Department on Thursday and charged with dog larceny after she, Bettina Rodriguez and Gorden Shell allegedly took a dog from the front yard of a Hopeton home.Rodriguez, 39, of Virginia Beach, and Shell, 45, of Utica, Mich., are each wanted on a dog larceny charge.The Accomack County Sheriff's Office received a report a dog had been stolen from outside a home on Matthews Road in Hopeton at about 2:12 p.m. Sunday, according to Accomack County Sheriff Todd Godwin.When deputies arrived, they heard from a passer-by who had observed the three loading the dog into a rental truck parked by the side of the road, the sheriff said.Sonny Hall of Hopeton, Va., said he witnessed the alleged dognapping. He was driving down Matthews Road on his way to deliver an item to his son's house when he saw the incident."I saw two girls in the front and I watched the guy that helped them get in the back. I slowed down to 10, maybe 15 miles per hour as I watched them do the whole thing," Hall said.The three, in a rental truck, had been driving ahead of Hall.After delivering the item to his son, Hall about five minutes later retraced his way on the road. He noticed he was again following the same truck, now traveling in the opposite direction.The truck then pulled off the road and parked in front of a mobile home.Hall decided to see what was going on.What he saw gave him pause. The truck's occupants took a dog from the home's front yard and loaded it into the rear of the truck."I saw other cages in the back of that truck. ... I cannot say I saw animals in there," he said.Hall said he does not know the dog's owner.Hall decided he could not let the incident pass without taking action. He stopped at the stop sign at the intersection of Matthews Road and Route 316, not far from the mobile home, and got out of his vehicle. The truck was directly behind him."I deliberately made eye contact" with the two women in the truck's cab and asked if they had permission to take the dog, Hall said, adding, "They would not answer me."What happened next was telling."They leaned over and started locking the doors," Hall said.He could hear the man, who was in the back of the truck, banging on the wall and saying 'Let's go, let's go.' "Then perhaps the most astonishing thing of all happened.The truck's driver "looked me in the eyes and she gunned it," Hall said.He was standing about six to eight feet away from the truck "when they looked at me. They turned the wheel directly toward me and just floored it," he said, adding, "I jumped just as fast as a 54 year-old man can. They ran over my foot."Hall called both the Accomack County Sheriff's Office and the Virginia State Police after that, and said he had "two deputies and a state trooper at my house within five minutes."Law enforcement agencies throughout the Eastern Shore of Virginia were alerted and the truck was stopped about an hour south of Hopeton at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where the three were questioned by police.The dog was not in the vehicle when police stopped it.After his encounter, Hall started looking around on the Internet and found a site that appeared to be about rescuing animals on the Eastern Shore of Virginia."I saw pictures of people's houses, people's dogs, where they kept them and where they worked," he said. One recent post he saw, made by Bettina Cuse Rodriguez, said large cages were needed for a mission on the Eastern Shore.The online page has since been changed, Hall said.Hall noted area residents "don't take too kindly to vigilantes" and said, "They shouldn't have taken it into their own hands. ...They think we're all stupid over here."Reporters who went to the scene of the alleged dognapping Monday saw a large doghouse with pine shatters lining its floor under a shade tree, a blanket outside, and a large water pot and a plastic bowl full of dog food nearby.Investigation into the incident is continuing and more arrests could be made, according to the sheriff's office.Europe anti-terrorism raids lead to dozens of arrestsJan 16, 2015
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