Accused horse abuser denies charges

Standing in a field Thursday, Terry Lynn Sullivan looked out over her empty farm.

She pointed southeast, indicating multiple circles where horses used to nibble at bales of hay. Behind her, only the trees made noises as the wind ran through them.

Tough in attitude and exterior, Sullivan melts at the mention of her horses. They’re an irreplaceable part of her past, but also a piece of her life she plans to forsake.

Walking away with a muddied name and a soft heart, Sullivan, 61, said she’s finished raising her favorite animals.

Augusta County authorities visited her farm on Shaner Lane in Staunton in February, took a herd of 30 horses and eventually charged her with 27 animal cruelty charges.

The visit was sparked by an animal control officer who saw a group of horses foraging for food and a dead horse in a barn. The event was a repeat of a situation from more than a decade earlier, Sullivan said.

In 1996, authorities seized several horses and convicted Sullivan of animal cruelty. A year later, she lost more animals when a judge found her to be in violation of probation. She is also battling a 2008 animal cruelty conviction.

“I was guilty until proven innocent,” she said. “And they wanted to keep me that way.”

‘I took the rejects’

Even in her youth, Sullivan said her fascination with horses started like so many other little girls’.

“From the time since I was 4 years old, I saw a picture and I fell in love,” she said.

She pleaded for a pony so much her parents hid the pictures for years until she calmed down, she said.

“By the time I was 12, my father took me to a friend’s where I saw an ex-racehorse,” she said.

That’s when riding lessons started, and so, too, her faint hopes to become an Olympic rider.

Sullivan said she possessed potential but needed more training to reach such a lofty goal.

“There was a far dream there,” she said. “But I never thought it would come to fruition.”

It never did, but it didn’t stop Sullivan from learning about horses. The way they move, the way they think, the way they respond to kindness.

“I took the reject horses and turned them into something,” she said. “I always give them a chance, anybody will tell you that.”

She trained “Leprecaun” and “Firecloud” and “Irish Maid.” She said she showed horses at the Washington, D.C., International Horseshow and fairs. She won awards, she said.

Isolated and vilified

Sullivan said she suffered injuries to her right arm and knees in recent years, but that didn’t keep her from the horses.

During a blizzard this winter, Sullivan said she kept her eye on her herd’s health.

“I had the blankets, but no one was shivering,” she said. “Of course, you only have my word for that. I could be lying through my teeth.”

She said her horses had access to hay, grain and water. Sullivan admitted some of them showed bony backs, but argued it’s expected in a tough winter.

She said Augusta County Animal Control officers and the Augusta Regional Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals jumped the gun when they most recently took her herd. Many of the animals were in fine condition, she said.

And while she remains dubious of the SPCA’s reasoning and veterinarians, Sullivan’s small tears showed signs of defeat.

“They’ve destroyed my reputation,” she said. “Some of my own friends doubted me. I didn’t do anything to anybody. Why are they doing this to me?”

Sullivan also scolded local media over the coverage of her charges.

“By now I’ve been vilified in the papers and I’m afraid to stick my head out the door,” she said.

Repeated misguidance

SPCA Executive Director Debbie Caywood said Sullivan’s most recent mistreatment of horses isn’t new.

Caywood said Sullivan’s record is distinctly different from Tory Garrett’s, a man convicted Monday in Waynesboro Circuit Court for horse abuse.

In that case, attorneys and Caywood agreed, Garrett’s herd got away from him. It was too much to manage, they said.

“It’s been a reoccurring situation and [Terry’s] had a lot of guidance,” Caywood said. “It keeps happening over and over. So no, I do not think it’s the same situation that Mr. Garrett got into.”

Assistant County Administrator John McGehee said animal control officers were charged with making routine visits to Sullivan’s farm to check on the horses’ health. McGehee said officers reported the horses had access to hay before the February seizure.

McGehee refused to release records of animal control visits to Sullivan’s property despite a Freedom of Information Act request by The News Virginian.

Ready to wash her hands of the SPCA and a record spotted with disputes and misunderstandings, Sullivan described in a cracked voice her future without horses.

“I’ll raise flowers and work on computers, I guess,” she said. “It’s hard to have to replace the horses with that.”