{"id":306974,"date":"2026-10-15T05:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306974\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T05:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:02:18","slug":"man-charged-after-21-dead-cats-found-inside-pennsylvania-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306974\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged after 21 dead cats found inside Pennsylvania home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man is facing charges after police said 21 cats were found dead at a home in Westmoreland County.<\/p>\n<p>A woman called police after finding all of her cats dead and &#8220;in various stages of decomposition&#8221; at a home on North Second Street in West Newton, the Westmoreland County District Attorney&#8217;s Office said in a press release on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The homeowner told investigators that Jonathan Hodgetts of Jeannette was supposed to be caring for the cats while she was taking care of another sick cat, the district attorney&#8217;s office said. The woman said she had sent supplies to the home, and Hodgetts sent her photos and assured her the cats were fine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The district attorney&#8217;s office said a veterinarian performed a necropsy on the cats and determined they died of starvation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The woman told investigators that Hodgetts was rescuing the cats and getting them fixed, and the two of them had plans to turn a detached garage into a cat sanctuary. She had last seen the cats alive in July, the district attorney&#8217;s office said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hodgetts is facing charges of aggravated cruelty to animals, cruelty to animals and neglect.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man is facing charges after police said 21 cats were found dead at a home in Westmoreland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[694,28,30,29,5910],"class_list":["post-306974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-animal-cruelty","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-westmoreland-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}