A Spartanburg man has been charged in what officers say is one of the worst cases of animal cruelty they've ever seen.
Thirty-one year old Marcus Lynch was charged with five counts of animal cruelty after an environmental officer went to Adger Street in Spartanburg to check out a complaint Thursday afternoon. The officer says he found one dead pit bull puppy and several other starving dogs that were just "skin and bones". One adult dog and two puppies were rescued.
"Personally it aggravates me to come across a scene like this," said Lt. Jamie Nelson, of Spartanburg Environmental Enforcement. "We actually had to remove it (adult dog) by using a gurney. The dog didn't even have enough strength to carry itself."
When News Channel 7's Elizabeth Owens went to try and talk with Lynch, he told her that he simply could not afford to feed his five dogs anymore.
"Yeah, they haven't ate in about seven days," Lynch said. "I'm not going to lie about that. They hadn't ate in about seven days. I was on a slump with my financial stables. I get a monthly check. I'm on disability."
Lynch admitted that he bought a new pit bull just a few weeks ago for sixty dollars and said that the dogs had not ate in about a week. When asked if that sixty dollars could have gone to feed the dogs, Lynch said, "I already had dog food for them before I bought the dog."
Lynch told us over and over again that he loves his dogs. He was so adamant about being a good owner, he wanted to show us to show these pictures of his pets when they were healthy. But this picture of him popped up as he was showing us the dogs. It's him flashing a couple of hundred dollars to the camera. When asked about the money he just slammed the door in our faces.
"The biggest victim to our concern is the animals themselves," said Nelson. "They have no one to to stand up for them."
The dogs who were alive were taken to the Spartanburg County Humane Society. The conditions were so bad that the dogs' ribs were showing amd the dogs could not even fend itself off from the flies all around it.
He was released from the Spartanburg County Detention Center on $20,000 bond.
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