Published Tuesday, June 23, 2020 | 3:08 p.m.
Updated Tuesday, June 23, 2020 | 8:40 p.m.
Blanca Perez
Esmeralda Martinez
Before their owners left them unattended in a Las Vegas apartment for 20 days, the pitbull puppies were placed under a blanket, in a latched cage with one bowl of food and one bowl of water, and a pee pad.
The starvation deaths of 8-month-old “Ace” and “Athena” likely caused more suffering than if they’d died by violent acts, Metro Police wrote in an arrest report.
Esmeralda Martinez, 22, and Blanca Perez, 21, were booked Friday at the Clark County Detention Center one two counts each of willful, malicious torture of a dog, court logs show.
They were ordered released with electronic monitoring and on the condition they have no contact with animals, Las Vegas Justice Court records show.
Interviewed by detectives following a three-week trip to Florida, the women initially tried to claim that they’d paid someone to watch the dogs in their apartment in the 4300 block of Terrace Hills Road, while they were gone. Martinez later retracted the account and said it wasn’t true, adding that she didn’t want to bother family members.
Neighbors of the women reported a foul smell Friday, later saying they hadn’t seen the women for weeks or heard the dogs bark, which they were known for, police said. Officers conducting a welfare check discovered the grim, “rotten”-smelling scene, in which the two puppies lay in a cage too small for comfort, police said.
The women said their return from Florida, initially supposed to be three days after they left, kept getting delayed, according to police. Perez insisted that they’d arranged for someone to watch the dogs.
