Doug Spink's death

[CarreenMaloney]

Lately I’ve been receiving messages from people in the horse community inquiring about whether Doug Spink really died. Apparently there are rumors circulating that he is still alive and in hiding somewhere. It makes sense that people are contacting me about it because I’m the journalist who authored a book about him called Uniquely Dangerous. The book took eight years to complete. I interviewed a very long list of people Doug knew and came in contact with over his lifetime, including family members, friends, enemies, business associates, lawyers, and law enforcement.

Doug Spink’s passing doesn’t seem to have garnered public attention, which is not too surprising given the intense news cycle of the past year due to coronavirus, Trump, the BLM protests, etc. For this reason, I thought it might be helpful to post a message here for those who are wondering what happened to him, particularly given the fact that, at times, he was quite active on this forum.

Doug Spink died one year ago on January 23rd at his mother’s home in Pennsylvania. He was 48 years old. I was informed by his fiancé of his passing the day he died and spoke to him at length about the final days. He was expected to live a few weeks longer but succumbed to complications from cancer. He had been undergoing aggressive treatment upon his release from his final stint in prison. Doug told me prison authorities had refused to treat his cancer, and by the time he got out, it had spread too far to be contained.

If anyone has comments or information they would like to share, feel free to reach out via this post or private message. In the past year, I have been contacted by people from around the world who crossed paths with Doug in one way or another. I have not discovered a single shred of evidence that would indicate he is still alive.

• Carreen

[moonlitoaksranch]

I looked up the name…oh dear. Glad I didn’t know him. If someone is mourning for him, I hope they heal up soon. I also hope any animals abused are doing well. That’s about as polite as I can be.

[mommy_peanut]

I vaguely remember this…
Whatever happened to all his animals?

[Gesaffelstein]

I bought and read your book. May Doug Spink rot in hell.

[Texarkana]

While my thoughts are with his family and friends, the animals are finally at peace.

What a sad story all around.

[eclipse]

I was always taught “if you don’t have anything nice to say…”!!!

[Gesaffelstein]

Eh well, you’re a better person than I am, right? I don’t believe in heaven or hell- it’s just words.

Are you aware of the damage that man did? I believe that man was evil so he can rot-

[Libby2563]

Is it just me or does the original post seem like a covert ad for the book?

[hoopoe]

no not at all, simply following up on a subject that impacted some of us and a situation that was discussed for a quite long time. . ONe could not believe the twists and turns of this saga. glad to see most of it closed.

[CarreenMaloney]

@hoopoe: Thank you for understanding the intent of the original post. There was intense interest in this story from the horse community over many years. I felt it was time to share the information I have with the people here. I found many thousands of words in this forum written by Doug, or to him and about him from others, so I figured people would want to know.

[CarreenMaloney]

That is a difficult question to answer. Animals seized from zoophiles are often killed because they are viewed as an offense to human dignity. There are even some who believe the animals will go around raping human beings. That disturbing reality is one of the reasons I felt compelled to cover this story. It seemed incredibly unfair to punish them for something that wasn’t their fault. In this case, the animal shelter director and other authorities fought for two months for the legal right to do whatever they wanted with the animals. Death was on the table. Doug Spink waged a legal battle in civil court in an effort to prevent them from being killed. He refused a plea deal of one year in federal prison and was given three years instead due to his refusal to cooperate. In the end, the animal shelter said they would try to spare them from death but wouldn’t guarantee it. The four horses went to new homes. As for the seven dogs, the shelter director claimed they were adopted, but I suspect at least some of them didn’t make it out alive. I had written for the animal shelter for ten years prior to this case, so I had my own inside sources who gave me a lot of information. Despite exhaustive research, I still can’t prove indisputably what happened to Doug Spink’s dogs one way or another. It’s one of the only things I wasn’t able to prove. I gathered thousands of pieces of evidence, sat in on every court hearing, and conducted numerous lengthy interviews with many sources. I doubt we’ll ever know with certainty what happened to them.

[Rallycairn]

Sadly, many animals don’t make it out of shelters alive, speaking in general. Not just animals subjected to bestiality and seized from their sexual abusers.

Statements implying something positive about Spink because he wouldn’t take a plea can come across as justification for sexually abusive behavior, or at the very least as an attempt to take the focus away from the perpetrator of the abuse and reframe the discussion in a way that paints the perpetrator in a more positive light.

“Death was on the table.” If it was, it was because SPINK sexually abused animals and they were seized. That’s why death was on the table. Because of Spink, not in spite of him “waging battle.” He was the one who put the animals’ lives in danger through his abusive behavior. Cutting off mice’s tails and smothering them with Vaseline? Hardly loving, good care.

For me, Spink is the “disturbing reality” and the “offense to human dignity.” I just can’t see the positive picture you paint of him, Carreen Maloney. I don’t think he waged battle to save animals, I think he abused them, set up his farm for others to abuse them, and endangered their very lives via that abuse.

[CarreenMaloney]

@Rallycairn: I did not paint a positive picture of Doug Spink. I told the story objectively in detail according to the facts I discovered, and that was based on a massive pile of evidence. This evidence is documented painstakingly over 400 pages so readers can decide for themselves what they think. My role as a journalist who reported on this story was not to shade the evidence with my opinions, nor is it my job to hold back details of what happened in order to make people feel more comfortable with the narrative. That’s not what we are trained to do. This is the only story I’ve ever worked on where objectivity is considered a bad thing. If you think the facts “reframe the discussion,” there’s not much I can do about that. I’m not willing to censor what happened just to assuage feelings of discomfort.

Incidentally, the story about the mice being smothered in Vaseline and their tails being cut off by Spink was made up. It was a fiction that was fed to the media by the authorities because it made for shocking headlines. It wasn’t even mentioned in the civil court case in Whatcom County, which it surely would have been if it was true because the lawyers didn’t hold back. There were mice on the property — I obtained photos of them through legal requests using Freedom of Information — but they were not smothered in Vaseline, and nor did Spink cut their tails off. When I interviewed Spink in detail about this issue, he told me the mice were frequently caught by his dogs, especially by one German Shepherd named Whisky. After Whisky caught them, Spink said he would take them down to the fields to release them so they wouldn’t get into the dog food. The other man who was on the property at the time of the raid underwent a polygraph conducted by the police in which he was asked questions about the mice. I obtained the detailed notes from that polygraph. The man stated nothing nefarious was done with the mice, and his polygraph showed no deception.

Whatever you choose to think about Doug Spink is your prerogative. He was a controversial character who made many enemies during his lifetime. But I think it’s important that we stick with the facts to make this discussion as productive and accurate as possible. And it is an important discussion. It was shocking to me that so many people considered the continued existence of animals in these cases to be an offense to human dignity. I heard this repeatedly during the course of my research over many years. I believe that dark truth is more important than any one man or one story. Most people who were offended or disturbed by Doug Spink’s actions did not seem to care what happened to his animals, and I found that unsettling. If people aren’t concerned about that, then is it really about the welfare of the animals, or something else entirely?

[Rallycairn]

I’m referring to the positive picture you paint right here in this thread, as I quoted. Casting his actions as “waging battle” for his animals – as if. No way. Your wording IN THIS THREAD is very biased in a pro-Spink way. As is your discussion of your book on the homepage of your website about it.

[Gesaffelstein]

Thank you-well said

[Gesaffelstein]

Honestly the mice were the least of my worries.

[CarreenMaloney]

I have never presented myself as pro-Spink. I think it’s interesting that you clearly avoided addressing the erroneous facts you presented in your comment, but instead chose to focus on who took which side of the story.
I think it’s telling what you said:
“Sadly, many animals don’t make it out of shelters alive, speaking in general. Not just animals subjected to bestiality and seized from their sexual abusers.”

So there it is, just as I described. You gave a nonchalant off-handed pass for killing the animals without asking questions as to why they would be killed. You aren’t concerned about whether the animals were exterminated because of terminal illness, or behavior issues, or an inability to adopt them out to suitable homes. None of which was true, by the way. There were suitable homes available for each of them. You gloss over those important facts. What happened to those animals matters, whether you care to address it or not. Your hatred and contempt for Doug Spink shouldn’t overshadow the fact that those beings were separate from him and deserved the right to live if that was logistically possible. I met those animals, I spent time with them, I videotaped them for the record. My tapes show they were acting like regular animals. They had quality of life left in them and they didn’t deserve to be snuffed out because people are disgusted by what happened to them. You say they were sexually abused. So here’s an ethical question to consider: would you dismiss the killings of human rape victims so carelessly?

I’m sad to say that you are a prime example of someone who lets your disgust with what happened in this case blind your concern for the fate of the animals. Why aren’t you concerned about what happened to them? I continue to ask you this question but it isn’t really being answered.

[Rallycairn]

Because it’s a red herring in the context of the thread as you started and formulated it. You started a thread about Doug Spink’s death. Then, when asked what happened to his animals, instead of a factual answer, you introduced the red herring of your opinion of how others respond to abused animals, and after paragraphs of trying to pull focus off Spink, the topic of the thread, you said we may never know. Those last few sentences would have answered mommy peanut’s question, but you very, very, very far from answer the question, you took the chance to push your pro-Spink view. You also act like I’m avoiding questions – I’m not. You are the one continuing to try to turn the focus of the thread from what you started with. Which again very clearly and strongly shows YOUR bias. This thread was never about Spink’s death, was it? You’ve taken every chance to railroad the discussion into defending his behavior regarding his animals. You keep doing that in your responses to me.

You claim the facts are erroneous, but they are what is out there with multiple citations, if you mean the mice. Red herring, red herring, red herring. Is this thread about Doug Spink or not? If you want to make a thread about HIS animals, please do so. If you want to make a thread about animals who are/were sexually abused, please do so. But take your obvious efforts to whitewash Spink’s behavior elsewhere. Waiting for you to throw out your “but he waged battle” and “oh, those mean, bad shelter people” arguments in 3.2, 1…

[CarreenMaloney]

Your response doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I don’t find your arguments convincing and you don’t seem to be very knowledgeable about the facts and evidence presented in this case. And you continue to show no concern for what happened to Doug Spink’s animals.
I’m going to leave it at that with you.

[Rallycairn]

Argument ad hominem. Attack me (figuratively, of course) all you want, but I’m not arguing any facts or evidence, except your repeated and obvious pro-Spink bias, again, as evidenced in this thread.

Your posts fail to succinctly answer questions; rather, instead of giving facts, you offer sentence after sentence of editorializing, injecting your personal opinions, and trying to steer the discussion the way you want it to, away from Spink.

You started a thread about Spink, supposedly, but when I respond about SPINK, the topic of the thread, you accuse me of allegedly (your ASSUMPTION) not caring enough about the animals. No, I’m refusing to follow your red herring, and going back to the supposed topic of the thread – Spink.

Put your money where your mouth is, as the saying goes – start a thread about what happens to the animal victims of bestiality. Because what you are doing here looks blatantly like trying to whitewash Spink’s behavior by refusing to address his behavior and browbeating anyone else who talks about Spink rather than the animals.

Remember, no animals would have been in jeopardy if it weren’t for Spink’s behavior in the first place. Any time someone brings that up, you introduce a tangential argument that they aren’t exhibiting concern for the animals. Wanting to address the root cause (bestiality) and the supposed topic of the thread is NOT failing to care about the animals.