Oh, Jeff. I'm just really bad. Bad person.
No, no, not at all. I think it's good enough. That's worse than a body, dude. A woman in Cedar City, Utah calls 911 for help in the middle of what seems to be a mental and emotional breakdown.
Police are sent to check on her, but their concerns turn to horror when they see what's really going on at the property. It's a little past 8 in the morning on July 1st, 2023, when 911 dispatchers in Iron County, Utah, receive a call from a distraught woman in the grips of a crisis. 911, what's the address of your emergency? What's going on?
I'm... I think it's awesome. Let me get this in for them, and we'll get it started. And how old are you?
I'm 50. And are you feeling violent at all? Yes, just one die. Alright, and do you have access to any weapons?
No. Okay. Oh, I'm unprepared to go to the hospital.
Okay, that's good. We're going to get them headed that way. They just have these questions I have to ask, but you're all good, okay. Have you done anything to injure yourself? No.
And do you have a history of mental health conditions? Yeah, yeah, many, many, many years. Too many.
The woman's name is Sarah, and while the operator establishes that she's unharmed, the despair in her voice is unmistakable. My baby sister's got terminal cancer. And then a lot of other things went wrong.
I lost a dog. And I just kept thinking if I got puppies, I'd make me feel better. I just got this way over my head.
I'm just really a bad, bad person. No, no, not at all. The operator, who can only go by what she's told over the phone, gives Sarah the benefit of the doubt. As they arrive, however, deputies slowly begin to suspect that a dire scene awaits them inside the house.
You got family coming to look after your dog? No, they need to be seized. They need to be seized? Yes.
They're not going to take care of it. How many dogs do you have? Nineteen. Nineteen? Yes, sir.
I got a guy coming down from Wyoming. Three of them are his, and he's coming to get them. Okay.
So I told him to go by the sheriff's office to figure out where they were. Cedar City law prohibits individuals from owning more than two dogs at a time. But there's a vast gulf between a minor ordinance violation and the veritable zoo she claims to have inside the house.
But the number of dogs may not be the biggest problem here, as the EMTs help Sarah into the ambulance. The reportedly says she should go to jail rather than the hospital because, quote, she hurt her sweet babies. Can I have your permission to go inside your home and see what you got going on?
Oh, my God. Okay. It's really bad, man.
You're not going to breathe in there. There's turds and trash. It's awful, man.
It's awful. Okay. Humans don't live like that.
That's what I'm saying. I've known it, and I'm not stupid. Sarah is clearly ashamed about the conditions of her home.
but it turns out that the deputies already have strong reasons to dread going inside she gave us permission to go inside the house she says she's got 19 dogs she can't care more we're under animal cruelty she thinks she's going to go to jail for that she wants to go to jail for that But I can smell it. I can fairly sit in the animal shelter. The smells so bad.
And I imagine that if I can smell it and I'm not even in the house, coming from within the house, the house is horrible. And depending on what happens with her, she's got 19 dogs in the house that has no AC in it and no one to care for the dogs. So we're kind of in a pit-digger.
The temperature in Cedar City that day would reach a high of 89 degrees. The lack of air conditioning only raises more concern about what kind of environment Sarah's dogs have been living in. The neighbors say that sometimes she opens windows to try to vent it out, but that doesn't do much.
Yeah. Well, peace your head, then, and soon you got. And let's start working on the resources to take care of the rest of it.
You ready? I almost want to get alcohol pads first. Hey, pups!
I think that's good enough. Nope, you gotta eat a bask. Oh my god.
I'm friggin'SEPA. I'm going to sweat the most. The air inside the home is unbreathable.
and it takes the deputies a few minutes to recover from even brief exposure. That's worse than a body, dude. I was getting whizzes of it through my gloves.
Oh my god, dude, it's in my lungs. Well, let's get Caleb out here. He's going to have to walk us through this, dude, because I honestly don't know what to do. Just, it's unhabitable, dude.
It's absolutely unhabitable. It's perhaps the best word to describe the appalling conditions of the house, and the deputy uses it again when his sergeant arrives on scene. I don't know what to do. Is she already gone? The's gone.
This is inhabitable, dude. I've never even smelled a dead body as bad as this. Really?
Just open the door. You have to know what we're dealing with. We can't let her come back to this. We've got a chain with a fence in the backyard. I wonder if we can open the back.
I didn't smell it for a while. What's going on the other side of the house? They're friendly. Back. You did better than I did.
I started losing it right there. The uniform I'm worried about. The overpowering effects of the smell inside makes it difficult to imagine how any creature, human or animal, is able to live in that environment. It's imperative to get the dogs out of the home as soon as possible. There's an owner to the Great Danes.
He's coming from Salt Lake to pick the Great Danes up. Them all, all those puppies in them cages are Great Danes. Not all of them. Most of those that I just looked at were. Were they?
I thought there was like... Because there's this little, this little guy. Yeah, this little, but you look back in the back.
Great danger for that husky back there. Easy. Stop it.
As the cops try to find a way into the fenced backyard, they begin to wonder exactly how and why Sarah has amassed this outrageous number of dogs. Well, I think she's advertising that she trained them. It'll take further investigation to turn speculation into fact.
In the meantime, the cops have problems that require more immediate solutions. You got a doggy door in my bed here? Sam, do you got a saw?
A saw? Yeah. And she does have AC in the bedroom.
It's turned off. There's a plastic cover for it. That's good.
The overgrowth blocking the fence is substantial, but fortunately the deputy has come prepared. I got an axe. Come on, come on, pups.
Hey, come on out. Come on, puppy. Come on!
Come on! Come on, pops! The dogs'reluctance to leave the house is only matched by the deputies'reluctance to go back in.
This time at least, they'll have protection. I'm gonna lie down! I'm gonna get it!
Meet me inside! Woof! Woof!
Woof! Go outside! Come on! Come on! Come on, Big Dog!
Come on! Come on, buddy. The dog doesn't quite trust this masked stranger, but his lack of aggression leaves the deputy free to take in the full horror of the scene around him.
It's okay, boy. It's okay. That animal severely starved. Skinny!
Hi Laura! That's okay. Looks like a bedroom.
The does have dog food in one bag. Two bags of dog food. The food in the pantry hasn't prevented the dogs from reaching a malnourished state.
The deputy's partner is next to take a good look at the living room. As he comes to terms with what he's seeing, his partner dismantles a fortress of wire and cardboard blocking access to the hallway. Hey Sam, if you can find a window, let's start opening windows. Meanwhile, the other deputy searches what appeared to be an abandoned wing of the house. More dogs.
Three dogs. All mountaineering. 15. One under here. The home must be seen to be believed, which is exactly what the sergeant has in mind.
Take some cell phone video. Are you willing to sacrifice your cell phone? Yeah, it's fine, but have you touched anything?
Yeah. Yeah. Look, the air.
Hey. This is bad. I'll go get mine.
This one right here was a bad one. We have 19. It just went die in there. I'm pretty sure that was a dog in there. It's a dog.
It's alive. There's 19 dogs. There's a live dog in here?
There's 19 dogs in here, Taylor. They're all malnourished. A local animal sanctuary called Best Friends will help relocate most of the dogs.
But that's not the end of police involvement. They talked to Sarah that afternoon in the hospital and tried to determine how exactly things at her house deteriorated to this extreme. Okay, so... And this part might freak you out a little bit, but I'm going to read you your rights. It's only because in order to ask you questions about what's going on, I have to read you these first.
I've kind of got a little background of your training that you do with the animals. Not anymore, but yeah, I was doing it. Yeah, maybe not anymore.
This is a repetitive problem with me when things get really bad. And my parents and I don't talk, that sort of thing, so I got really... lonely and I got that same dumb feeling that this would somehow fix it. And I can't, you know, nobody could do that. Sure.
Sarah may be puzzled by her own choices, but the fact is that many innocent animals suffered as a result. It soon becomes clear that this is not the first time this has happened. Have you ever had a police case about this kind of thing before in Tennessee?
I have had, yeah, the Ray County Theriff. They didn't do anything because... Once again, I was extremely mentally ill.
I said, would you please take them? I can't care for them anymore. So they did take them and things. So yes, there has been some police involvement.
As regrettable as it is that Sarah hasn't learned from her previous failures, There is an even more frightening truth about how she acquired some of the dogs. Have you come across the three that you did have that were with someone else? I saw he had a great-dame puppy for sale, and I said, oh, she's cute, but I don't have a female age.
And then he said, I told him I was a dog trainer, so two of them were theoretically mine, and the male was always his that I was going to train to pay for the two girls. In an interview with the local news, Ryan, the owner of those Great Danes, said it had been months since he'd heard anything about the training progress of his puppies. Indeed, it was only when he told Sarah that morning that he was on his way to pick up the dogs that she turned herself in to the police. I'm straight up with everybody, but I was in hiding behind the camera or whatever. Yeah.
I just stayed. Sadly, this is who I am. I hope it's not all I am, but it's, uh, yeah. Ryan's imminent arrival may have inspired Sarah's honesty more than her own breakthrough, but it's worth noting that she didn't just tell him in passing that she was an animal trainer.
The advertised her business, Pet Pros Behavior Services, on Facebook and elsewhere, offering in-home and remote training sessions for a premium price. The police report states that Sarah's house and even the inside of her car was covered in feces. Ironically, the only part of the property relatively free of feces was the yard.
Sarah tells the deputies that she hasn't been able to properly feed and care for the dogs for at least three or four weeks. An admission that at least partially explains the condition of her animals and the disaster that is her home. I can say that I have no idea how you lived, how you lived. Because when I opened the door of your house, I could not even go inside. Every day.
Were you living in the house? I was. Or were you living in your car? In the house. Where did you sleep?
I slept on the couch. But yeah, no, it burns my eyes when I get home. I hate it, but I'm like, you know what?
You freaking did it. You deserve to deal with it, you know? So, I do.
If Sarah is saying she deserves the consequences of her actions, it's something that she and the deputy can agree on. I'll be honest with you. I'm going to press criminal charges with you. Okay. From what I can observe within dogs, no dog should have to go through what then dogs would.
For sure. Then dogs would probably be... better off and some of them might not make it.
They're in such conditions as so. In addition to the horrific injuries already mentioned, the police report goes into much more detail, noting that all 19 dogs appeared to be skinny with all skeletal bones showing under the skin. It goes on to say that most of the dogs could not stand or move properly because of the tight living conditions, which brought about body deformities.
A few dogs, the report states, were close to death. Sarah Mills pled guilty to nine counts of cruelty in October of 2023, roughly four months after her call to 911. The was ordered to pay a fine of $690, serve 60 days in jail, and spend 12 months on probation. Sarah was given the option to serve her jail sentence in increments of five days per month. In February 2024, however, Sarah's jail sentence was converted to 60 days of home confinement.