An elderly woman’s suspicious hunch about her ‘no kill’ animal shelter neighbor wound up in a remarkable 20-year fight to bring him to justice after she uncovered a grim dark secret, the Daily Mail has learned.
To the outside world, Shannon Miranda appeared to be the model animal lover: taking thousands of dogs and cats into his rescue shelter in Northern California and finding them new homes.
But the 55-year-old’s world may have come crashing down late last month when his Fortuna rescue was raided by a squad of cops from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and FBI agents.
Central to his potential downfall is his neighbor Jennifer Raymond, 75, who has doggedly pursued Miranda for two decades after handing over a stray cat to his shelter – only for the animal to disappear.
Instead of rehoming the animals as he had claimed to be doing, cops now say Miranda was shooting the animals, burying the bodies in mass graves on his land and pocketing as much as $500,000 a year in donations and fees which he had been given to pay for their upkeep, according to a police warrant to search his premises.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Miranda for comment.
During the June 23 raid, the remains of 138 dead dogs were recovered – most with bullet wounds – along with hundreds of bones and six loose microchips.
In a nearby barn, cops discovered blood spatter on the wall, 600 collars and spent .22 caliber shell casings, as well as a rifle.
Jennifer Raymond, 75, has waged a decades-long crusade against Shannon Miranda, the owner of Miranda’s Rescue shelter in Northern California, after suspecting he was killing animals instead of rehoming them
Miranda’s world came crashing down in late June when his Fortuna animal rescue site (above) was raided by authorities
Raymond claims she uncovered a number of dead dogs buried on the property when she snuck in under the cover of darkness back in April after witnessing Miranda make repeat visits to one of the pits
Gruesome photos obtained by the Daily Mail show some of the lifeless animals inside a pit in a field behind the shelter with bullet holes clearly visible, while a video, taken on a trail camera, shows Miranda on a tractor next to the pit and dumping a suspicious load inside.
And, in a police affidavit seen by the Daily Mail, investigator Shane Steele wrote: ‘It appears as if Shannon, who is intaking at a very bare minimum $250,000 a year for dogs from private citizens and out of the area shelters, is obtaining this money under false pretenses and killing them to allow him to keep the dogs coming in and the cash flowing.’
Now the Daily Mail can tell the full story of how ‘pillar of the community’ Miranda’s world appears to have come crashing down as prosecutors consider fraud and animal cruelty charges.
Raymond, who is the founder of the Humboldt County Spay and Neuter Network, said she first became wary of Miranda after turning the cat over to him and believing he was more interested in pocketing the $50 surrender fee than the pet itself.
‘I wasn’t feeling good about it,’ Raymond told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview of the initial interaction. ‘So, the next day I called to find out how the cat was.
‘And he said: “Oh, it’s already been adopted”. This is less than 24 hours later. This is an adult black cat. No way.
‘I have worked in animal rescue long enough to know that that wasn’t the truth.’
She added: ‘I said, ‘Well, could I have the information about the adopters?’ He said: “Oh no, they want complete confidentiality”.
Raymond said she set up a trail camera and caught Miranda on video allegedly using a tractor to dump dog’s bodies in the pit before backfilling it with dirt
Raymond ended up purchasing the home next door to the shelter in an expensive bid to start gathering potential evidence on Miranda and the dogs housed there
When the Daily Mail visited, some of the dilapidated kennels were empty but many were occupied – with some of the pets seen poking their heads through holes in the fence
‘And I knew then that cat had either been just turned out or killed.’
That episode marked the beginning of a battle to get the shelter shut down that culminated in Raymond using a $500,000 inheritance to purchase the Victorian fixer-upper directly next door in an expensive bid to gather enough evidence to bury Miranda.
Raymond said she had long heard rumors about Miranda’s poor treatment of the animals in his care and was told by volunteers at another rescue that he would routinely dump cats left in his care at a remote ranch where they proved easy pickings for the area’s large coyote population.
But the real breakthrough didn’t come until last year when she got the keys to the home – and a direct view of Miranda’s activities.
Directly next door to her home is an area of the rescue that she calls ‘Death Row’ where most of the dogs are kept.
Raymond told the Daily Mail that in the 18 months since she bought the property, she has seen at least 900 dogs arrive – 635 from public shelters – with the majority vanishing shortly after their arrival.
Of those dogs, 731 remain unaccounted for while the remains of 138 were discovered in the pits during a raid late last month, according to the police report.
The numbers alone were enough to rouse suspicion – by comparison, the nearby Sequoia Humane Society reported adopting out 197 dogs in the same time frame with zero instances of euthanasia.
When the Daily Mail visited, some of the dilapidated kennels were empty but many were occupied – with some of the pets seen poking their heads through holes into Raymond’s garden, desperate to be petted.
Some were in an area where Miranda claims to keep dangerous dogs, although the animals in those pens appeared friendly – wiggling with joy at getting some attention.
‘Nobody’s allowed in there,’ Raymond explained. ‘If people ask about these dogs, they’re told that they’re vicious.
‘They are never photographed and put up on his website, his Facebook page, an adoption platform online. They get put in here.
Raymond said she had long heard rumors about Miranda’s poor treatment of the animals in his care and opted to take action
Miranda is said to have admitted to shooting dogs found on the animal shelter’s property
Raymond shared with the Daily Mail what she has observed: ‘Once a day, somebody walks through with a wagon with a bag of dry kibble and they dump a scoop into each kennel.
‘So, they’re getting no affection or walks or anything like that. That is all the human contact they get.
‘Nobody goes in and plays ball with them, takes them for a walk. Nobody does anything. They just sit there.’
Along with raking in surrender fees, Miranda also had lucrative contracts with local police departments and county shelters from as far away as Palm Springs who paid his shelter thousands of dollars to take in animals they were unable to rehome.
Miranda had for years presented himself as a pillar of the community, according to Raymond, and regularly took in dogs seized by local cops as well as being a fixture at community events.
Photos he posted to his now-deleted Facebook profile show the 55-year-old and his husband Jim Oxboro living the high life with some of the shots depicting them partying in Las Vegas where they own a luxury $1.1million five-bedroom home.
Meanwhile, according to Raymond, the animals housed at his rescue live in rickety kennels that aren’t heated – leaving the dogs to the mercy of Humboldt County’s freezing winter cold.
Despite noting a high turnover and pits that she said kept being dug out and filled in in a field of Miranda’s that borders her orchard, Raymond’s attempts to get the police involved repeatedly ended in frustration with cops saying there wasn’t enough evidence to investigate.
In April, she finally decided to take matters into her own hands and hatched an audacious plan with the help of Jenna Moore – a Solano County shelter volunteer who had also become suspicious of Miranda after delivering a dog to his rescue that promptly vanished.
After watching Miranda make repeat visits to one of the pits, she cut a hole in her own hedge and snuck through to his field in the dead of night to see what was inside.
‘I waited until dark, put on my headlamp and gloves, cut a hole in the fence and crawled out into the pit,’ Raymond told the Daily Mail.
‘About five feet down, there was dirt and I started digging and I dug until I hit fur. And then I dug until I uncovered a leg and then an ear and then a muzzle.
Raymond, an animal advocate, alleges Miranda’s Rescue advertises itself as a ‘no kill’ shelter she has witnes
Raymond told the Daily Mail that in the 18 months since she bought the neighboring property, she has seen at least 900 dogs arrive with the majority vanishing shortly after their arrival
Raymond bought this property nright ext door to the animal shelter so she could document what was unfolding there
‘And the muzzle was covered with dried blood. And I took pictures the whole time.’
Despite Raymond and Moore taking the photographs to police, cops said there still wasn’t enough evidence.
So the two women set up a trail camera at the spot and caught Miranda on video two weeks later using a tractor to dump dog’s bodies in the pit before backfilling it with dirt.
That night, the pair again crept through the hole in Raymond’s fence and say they soon discovered another load of canine corpses – again with bullet holes in their heads.
This time, they decided photos weren’t enough. They say they ended up retrieving eight of the bodies, which Moore stored in her freezer until cops could come to collect them.
Raymond said that one was a brindle Cane corso mix named Zora who had been previously advertised for adoption and who, Miranda admitted in a police interview, he had lied about, telling the manager of Oakland Animal Services, which sent the dog to him, that she had been adopted when she had actually been shot and buried in a pit.
He also claimed in a police interview to have shot her because she was vicious – only for staffers at the Oakland facility to tell cops that the four-year-old pup was in fact ‘timid and non-aggressive’.
‘It took them a couple of days to get up their courage to come get those dogs, but they did,’ Raymond said.
‘And that night they raided him for the first time. Everybody was pretty surprised because they raided his office, they raided his house, but they didn’t go out in the field.’
Zora, a a brindle Cane corso mix that had previously been advertised for adoption was recognized as one of the carcasses that Jennifer Raymond says she found in a pit on Miranda’s land
The animals housed at the rescue are forced to live in rickety kennels that aren’t heated, Raymond alleged
An anxious two-month wait ensued, with cops giving little away about the status of the investigation – even as more dogs and cats cycled through the rescue.
Finally, on June 25, police again descended on the rescue – this time digging up the pits and retrieving the bodies of 138 dogs.
Although Miranda has been interviewed by cops several times – and has admitted to shooting dogs – he has not been arrested and the shelter continues to take surrenders.
Raymond says she is now hoping for further progress – and for Miranda’s Rescue to be shut down and its owner arrested.
‘It is puzzling to us why he is still allowed to have these animals,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I mean, if I ran a daycare center and there were allegations of child abuse, it’d be shut down.
‘Would I be allowed to continue running that daycare? No. I mean, I understand they’re not humans and unfortunately animals are considered property in the United States.
‘But he’s admitted to shooting dogs. Why he is allowed to continue to be in control of them is really a mystery.’