ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Christine Edgar will serve 31 days in jail – one day for each dead animal found in her abandoned house.

Edgar, of 3641 Ohio 152, Dillonvale, appeared Friday before Belmont County Northern Division Judge Chris Berhalter onn Friday. She had pleaded no contest to abandoning animals and prohibitions concerning companion animals.

The charges stem from a discovery at Edgar’s former home. A cleaning crew sent to work at the house at 70629 Main St., Barton after it was reclaimed by a bank found the remains of numerous cats and rabbits inside. The animals would have been abandoned around 2015.

Julie Larish, humane officer with the humane agency Belmont County Hoof & Paw, said because the remains were skeletal, the causes of death could not definitively be determined and Edgar could not be charged with deliberately abandoning the animals to starvation and dehydration.

Larish testified prior to the sentencing. Belmont County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Gagin questioned her. Larish said her organization had researched court records and found that no one but Edgar had owned the property.

Larish spoke about the scene she found when investigating the house in November 2022.

“A cleaning company called us because the house was taken over,” she said. “They reported that they found containers or cages with a lot of dead rabbits in them.”

She said there were 22 rabbit corpses in the house, eight cat corpses and one dead chicken.

“When we walked in, there was feces everywhere. You could not step without stepping on something,” she said. “We found in one room, the room was lined with rabbit cages, and in those cages we found multiple dead rabbits everywhere. … We found a cat on the couch that had basically laid and died. We found another cat in amongst the feces on the floor. … It was like finding Waldo at that time because it blended in because it was all bones.

Edgar’s defense attorney, Richard Myser, asked the court to consider Edgar’s mental and emotional situation at the time. He added that she has been law-abiding otherwise and there have been no issues with the two dogs at her current residence.

“Ms. Edgar was in a very bad relationship at the time. A relationship that culminated to involving law enforcement,” he said. “Ms. Edgar is and was a huge animal lover.”

Berhalter sentenced Edgar to 90 days in jail, all but 41 suspended and 10 of those days spent in community service with Hoof & Paw. She will be on probation for two years and will have no additional animals other than the two dogs. He spoke about the suffering the animals would have undergone.

“Thirty-one animals counted on you to survive. You walked away from 31 animals who I assume every day in that cage kept waiting on you to come back to feed and water them, and you didn’t. They died. They died of dehydration, they died of hunger, waiting for you. I can’t think of a more horrifying scenario,” Berhalter said.