BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A devastated dog owner is searching for answers after she says State Highway officials lied about dumping her pet’s remains on the side of a busy street.
“She was literally one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever met,” Hereford resident April Beall said. “I’m super disappointed in their heartlessness.”
On Oct. 8, Beall said her one-year-old German Shepard, Ollie, somehow escaped an electric fence and was missing from their eight-acre property. After spending the morning frantically searching her neighborhood, Beall learned through social media that her cherished dog had been tragically struck by a car on I-83.
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“I got on the Hereford community group and saw the post about the dog being hit between Belfast and Shawan Rd.,” she said. “I ended up driving, getting all three of my kids together, and driving up the highway to see if I could find her. Which, I didn’t. Somebody had already moved her body.”
That someone was a crew from the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), the agency in charge of removing dead animals from state roads and highways.
When a friend mentioned they saw an MDOT truck in the area, Beall called their local office and confirmed they had picked up Ollie. However, when asked if Beall could retrieve her, they advised against it. According to Beall, MDOT said the dog was badly mangled and offered to bury Ollie themselves.
“I didn’t want to have to go up there if she was not in the physical shape for me to even get the body,” Beall said. “Me thinking that’s a weigh off my shoulders, I thanked the guy.”
She assumed the burial had been taken care of, until her neighbors made a disturbing discovery on Oct. 13.
“It was just crazy. Like, I can’t believe it,” Beall said.
Ollie’s body had been found along Thornton Mill Rd., seemingly thrown off the overpass near where she was hit. Images of the body show her laying just feet from the well-traveled street, left exposed for six days.
“All week long, everybody was basically walking their dogs, walking past my dog,” Beall said. “I was angry. I felt betrayed, because these people told me that, basically they had picked up my dog and they had her in their possession. My only thought was like, so what dog were they going to give me? Like, what dog were they going to hand over to me that was badly mangled if I did go up there to pick her up?”
In a statement to FOX45, MDOT defended their actions and accused Beall of misunderstanding the protocols explained to her by a State Highway personnel:
When an incident occurs on a State Highway Administration owned and maintained roadway involving a domestic animal, our maintenance staff attempts to locate the owner through ways of pet tags, IDs, and/or collars. If an owner cannot be located, our procedure is to respectfully relocate the remains to wooded and unpopulated area on the state highway right-of-way. For this incident, SHA attempted to identify the owner but was unsuccessful. Once SHA was contacted by the owner, the procedure described above was explained. State Highway Administration representatives have apologized to the owner for any misunderstandings of the procedure.
However, Beall claimed MDOT has yet to contact her. She also said her dog was wearing a collar and was chipped, making it easy to identify its owner. Furthermore, the initial conversation she had with the MDOT worker took place just hours after her dog went missing, raising questions about whether the state’s protocols were truly followed.
FOX45 quickly followed up with MDOT, asking if they had issued the apology detailed in their previous statement. Understanding the protocol is to place remains in a “wooded and unpopulated area,” FOX45 also sent pictures of where Ollie was found and asked if they still considered it an appropriate location to have left the dog.
In a second statement, MDOT admitted the dog’s body was discarded before speaking with Beall and that no apology had been given:
Upon further investigation, it appears that the initial conversation between the State Highway Administration employee and the owner took place not long after the deceased animal was discovered but did occur after the remains were relocated from the roadway. The owner was informed of the location of the remains. The State Highway Administration acknowledges that a follow up conversation and apology did not immediately occur. State Highway personnel will be reaching out to the owner to explain the procedure and further explain the circumstances of this specific incident.
MDOT did not directly address if they thought the body was placed in an appropriate location.
“If they would have just told me the truth, I wouldn’t have been upset. I would have went and got her,” Beall said.
Beall has since brought Ollie back home and buried her peacefully on their property. Although, Beall remains restless, wondering why her beloved pet wasn’t handled with more care or compassion.
“It’s unbelievable for me because these are like our family members. You know what I mean?” she said. “I get it if it’s a deer or, you know, wild animal, but it’s an animal that has a collar on that has a home, and it’s crazy to me that they, like anybody, can even do that.”
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