To say Mabel Wood was an animal lover is putting it modestly. In June 1985, after purchasing a one-hundred-ten-acre farm in rural southeast Missouri near Bonne Terre, an hour south of St. Louis, she co-founded Martha’s Animal Sanctuary, a haven for stray and abandoned animals, most of which were dogs. The sanctuary was home to countless canines whose lives probably would have been terminated if not for Mabel.
Mabel Wood dedicated her life to improving the lives of abandoned dogs, but in so doing her own well-being became endangered.
Mabel Wood
All of the dogs taken in by Mabel were offered for adoption. For those who did not find their forever homes, her sanctuary became their haven. Mabel believed her farm was in an ideal location for her kennel of love because her nearest neighbors were over a mile away and would not be disturbed by the noise. Someone, however, thought otherwise and took out his anger in a deadly cowardly manner.
On the morning of December 12, 1986, a-year-and-a-half after buying the farm, Mabel encountered a grizzly scene as she entered the kennel. Four of her dogs were lying in pools of blood. She initially thought they had been in a fight, but upon examination she was appalled to find they had been shot. Someone had broken into the kennel the evening before and fired at least four rounds from a .22 caliber rifle into the four dogs, killing two of them. The other two dogs survived and recovered.
The St. Francois Sheriff’s Office investigated the incident but developed no suspects.
Four Of Mabel’s Dogs Are Shot
After the shooting Mabel hired Charlie Jacobs to help her at the sanctuary. He moved into the farm guesthouse and doubled as a night watchman. All was well until the evening of February 10, 1987, when a second attack on the sanctuary was even more cowardly and devastating.
That evening, Charlie noticed a bright orange glow through the window. To his horror, the kennel was ablaze in fire.
Charlie Jacobs
When Charlie reached the kennel, it was engulfed in flames. The sixty dogs were trapped with no way to escape. Charlie was able to pull one dog from the flames but could do nothing to save the others.
By the time fireman suppressed the blaze, fifty-nine dogs had perished.
All But One Of The Dogs Are Killed
The fire was so intense that it set off smoke alarms in homes over a mile away.
An investigation by the local volunteer fire department found signs of ‘spalling,’ a telltale sign of arson. Spalling occurs when a flammable substance is ignited on concrete and produces extreme temperatures causing the concrete to crack or erode. The pattern is not normal in a naturally-occurring fire and showed that the kennel was intentionally burned.
Mabel In The Rubble
Of the Charred Kennel
One hundred yards from the kennel, deputies found a tire track in the mud from which they made a plaster mold. Hundreds of area vehicles were checked, but none were matched to the impression.
The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department investigated Mabel’s neighbors, all of whom lived over a mile away. They found nothing indicating any of them were responsible for the arson and had never received any complaints about the sanctuary from them or anyone else.
Sheriff Jack Cade said everyone he knew in the small community loved dogs, and he went so far to say he believed most of them would shoot their spouse before harming man’s best friend.
St. Francois County Sheriff Jack Cade
Mabel was undeterred by the attack. Ten months after the fire, she built a new kennel which was soon filled with her four-footed friends. The arsonist, however, soon resumed his awful ways. This time, though, there was no fire and the dogs were not the prey; instead, Mabel herself became the target.
On February 10, 1987, Mabel had nails spread across her driveway. Graffiti saying “Quiet or Die” was painted across the kennel’s entrance. In the following days, Mabel also received several phone calls threatening her life, and her house was shot at on two occasions. All of the incidents were investigated, but authorities could again find no suspects.
Despite the harassment, Mabel stood firm and refused the pleas of her family and friends to move. Her ordeal was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries in 1989. The broadcast generated an outpouring of publicity and she endured no further harassment or vandalism for five years. The perpetrator (s), however, were never identified.
In October 1994, one of Mabel’s dogs at the sanctuary was shot dead and another beaten. A third dog was missing and never found. The perpetrator(s) of these attacks were also never identified, and it is not known if they were the same people who committed the arson.
Mabel Is Targeted
Mabel continued to operate Martha’s Animal Sanctuary until her declining health forced her into a nursing home. She died in 2012 at age ninety-one.
To animal lovers, Mabel Wood was an angel to the abandoned canines. They have no doubt that the dogs killed in the shooting and the fire, along with the thousands of others she provided a home to, greeted her with an avalanche of wet, sloppy kisses, in the classic canine manner of saying thank you.
Reunited With Her Fur Babies
SOURCES:
- St. Louis Post Dispatch
- Unsolved Mysteries
- UPI
This is so sad. Someone must have known something, but may have been too afraid to talk.