22 Dead Cats in Morgan City
On March 18, 2025, Morgan City police entered the home of Sheri Hite, 71, on McDermott Drive after neighbors reported perishable items piling up at her front door and a smell of decomposition strong enough to notice from the street.
Inside, officers found 22 dead cats. Fourteen were stuffed in the freezer. Eight were in various locations throughout the house. Hite told police she had been picking up stray cats from Baton Rouge — over 90 miles away — "to care for them."
She was charged with 23 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals.
KLFY: Morgan City Woman Arrested After 14 Dead Cats Found in Freezer
What "Caring For Them" Looked Like
Twenty-two dead cats. No veterinary records. No functioning animal care infrastructure. A 71-year-old woman driving 90 miles each way to Baton Rouge to collect more animals she could not maintain.
Neighbors noticed because the smell got through the walls. The mail carrier noticed because packages were stacking up at the door. Hite was apparently unable or unwilling to leave the house, but she had been able to leave it to collect more cats.
This is the hoarding cycle: acquisition never stops, even when the animals already acquired are dying.
Louisiana Radio Network: 22 Dead Cats Including 14 in Freezer
The Law's Response
Twenty-three counts of aggravated cruelty. In Louisiana, aggravated cruelty to animals can carry fines of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for one to ten years per count. Whether Hite, at 71, will see meaningful consequences is an open question. Courts tend to go easy on elderly defendants, even when the evidence is 22 dead animals.
The larger issue is that nobody intervened earlier. A woman was driving 90 miles to collect cats and bringing them home to die. This did not happen overnight. This was a pattern that played out over weeks or months while 22 animals slowly starved, sickened, and died.
The Freezer Again
Bohemia, New York: 28 dead cats in a freezer. Morgan City, Louisiana: 14 dead cats in a freezer. Marco Island, Florida: dead cats in a freezer. Tacoma, Washington: dead cats in a U-Haul.
The freezer is the common thread. When a hoarder puts a dead animal in the freezer instead of disposing of it, they are telling you that the next animal they collect will end up the same way. And yet every single one of these hoarders was described by someone who knew them as a person who "loved animals."
Love does not fill freezers with corpses.