Area Resident Shares Experience Adopting from Jessica Yazmer

Last October, April Rogers began the search for adoptable dogs.

After some unsuccessful experience with online sites and a rescue group, she found RT or Roxy and Ty’s Rescue on facebook.

On Jan. 26, Jessica Yazmer brought her the two hound mixes she had seen online and fallen in love with. 

A cat owner, Rogers said she Yazmer from her work as a vet tech at her veterinarian’s office.

Rogers said Yazmer, who had received the dogs just two days earlier, came to her Unionville home, spent an hour and a half with her, showed her some paperwork with some medical records for the dogs, which had come up from down south. They also came micro chipped and neutered. She paid $450 for both animals. Normally, she was told it was $300 for one.

The animals did have medical issues, such as worms and needed some shots again. One, Dante, was “skin and bones” she said.

But Rogers said Yazmer had just received the dogs and didn't cause any of those problems. And she was thankful to Yazmer for bringing her the dogs and saving them from a likely death.

In July, when Yazmer was charged with cruelty to animals and 40 dogs taken from her Collinsville apartment, Rogers was surprised at the number of dogs and the fact that they were in a small apartment.

Soon pictures of the apartment were released, with feces on the floor, a disheveled home, and multiple puppies per cage.

Comments on Patch and elsewhere quickly got heated and Rogers felt many were too quick to judge. She admits the conditions were bad but said Yazmer has saved the lives of many dogs.

“I don’t know what could posses a person to go that far but I’m not going to judge her,” Rogers said. "I don't defend the way they were living at the moment but I will defend her to the end."

And Rogers said pictures on Facebook, some clearly taken at the apartment, showed vastly different circumstances.

She said she doesn’t think Yazmer was cruel and was adopting the animals as quickly as possible.

Rogers said she thinks Yazmer wanted to save every animal she could and took on too much. She also said something may have happened in Yazmer’s life to make her struggle.

Some close to the situation, including some officials, have said that there were other issues that came into play.

Police and others, however, have decline to comment on the nature of those circumstances. Yazmer has not returned messages left on Facebook and the RT Rescue e-mail.

Whether more details come out in Hartford Community Court, where Yazmer is due to appear today, remains to be seen.

What does seem clear is that the situation indeed spun out of control, officials said.

While many who adopted – or nearly did – in more recent months declined to speak on the record, animal control officer Beverly LaPlume said the stories indicate that Yazmer became more “desperate” to adopt the animals as time went on.

She would meet people at places like near the path in Collinsville or the Wal-Mart parking lot and attempt to hand over the animals with no paperwork or application.

And LaPlume said conditions at the apartment were the worst she has seen in six years as animal control officer.

“The conditions were horrendous,” LaPlume said. “The apartment not being fit for occupancy says it all.”

But LaPlume has also said she believes Yazmer’s heart was in the right place.

“She wasn’t realistically seeing the whole picture and it got away from her.”