It was hard to miss the hot pink kitten that a woman brought to the DoveLewis Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital earlier this month.
A veterinarian found the kitten hypothermic, in shock and barely responsive, not to mention dyed hot pink.
The owner told the hospital that the kitten had diarrhea so she tried cleaning the animal with a mixture of rubbing alcohol, Windex and Spic and Span household cleaner, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
When the kitten arrived at the animal hospital, it was still soaked with the cleaning solution. The rubbing alcohol caused the kitten’s body temperature to plummet and become hypothermic, according to the veterinarian’s report to police.
The woman who brought the kitten in arrived with a Windex spray bottle and “did not seem to understand that the chemicals were toxic,” to the animal, Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Austin G. Buhl wrote in the affidavit.
Christopher J. Allori, an Oregon Humane Society law enforcement agent, followed up, saying the owner, Elizabeth Ann Zurcher-Wood, admitted to using the chemical to try to clean the kitten.
Zurcher-Wood, 39, was arrested last Thursday, after the manager of the Deluxe Inn Motel on Southeast Powell Boulevard alerted police that the motel was asking to have her evicted.
Allori, along with a Portland police officer, met the woman at the motel and took her into custody.
Inside her motel room, they found the pink kitten inside a stroller. The kitten also appeared to have burn marks on its head, according to the affidavit. The Humane Society took the kitten into custody as well. The kitten’s current condition wasn’t clear from court documents.
Zurcher-Wood is accused of second-degree animal abuse. She entered a not guilty plea to the charge on Friday and remains in custody at Multnomah County Detention Center.
Zurcher-Wood was on probation at the time of last week’s arrest following her conviction and sentencing in June 2022 for a first-degree bias crime and attempted second-degree assault. That case stemmed from her attempt to kidnap a 6-year-old boy and threaten the boy’s parents with a machete in downtown Portland on Aug. 22, 2021.
When arrested, she was carrying a machete and an ax, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The boy had been in line with his parents for pizza on Southwest Third Avenue, when Zurcher-Wood claimed the parents “stole my son,” and lunged toward the child to grab him, the affidavit said. The boy’s mother threw her piece of pizza at the stranger and told her to leave her son alone, according to the affidavit. Zurcher-Wood then pulled out a machete and threatened to cut the mother and yelled a racist slur at her, the affidavit said. A witness confirmed the mother’s account and told police that Zurcher-Wood was swinging the machete toward many people.
Zurcher-Wood had been declared unfit to assist in her defense for several months last year and was sent to the Oregon State Hospital for care. She was returned to court in May 2022 and found fit to proceed while taking psychotropic medication, according to court records. She entered no contest pleas to attempted second-degree assault, first-degree bias crime and menacing and was sentenced in June 2022 to three years of probation.
On Friday, Multnomah County officials ordered Zurcher-Wood to remain in custody on the latest animal abuse allegation, finding she had violated the terms of her probation with the new charge and had failed to report to her probation officer in October.
