A Layton man was accused of animal cruelty, after three cats were reported to have been left for hours in a hot van that was littered with feces.
A witness reported seeing the cats in the van on Oct. 2 near 1780 Woodland Drive, and that the cats appeared to be thin and sick. Officers arrived and found the van parked in direct sunlight; the inside temperature of the van was 93 degrees, prosecutors wrote in charges filed this week.
An officer went into a nearby cafe to ask if anyone there owned the van; the owner, who was identified later, had been in the cafe but denied owning the van, prosecutors wrote. The owner, a 78-year-old man, later admitted to leaving the cats in the car for about two and a half hours, prosecutors wrote.
The man was charged with three misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.
Erin is a reporter who has previously been an outdoor columnist and worked the crime beat. She was the lead reporter on The Tribune's Pulitzer-winning coverage of campus sexual assault. She has worked at newspapers in Michigan and Iowa and taught English for two years at teacher-training colleges in China.