‘Trail of blood’: Report says woman dragged horse on ATV

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DEKALB COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) — A Crossville woman is facing criminal charges after court records say she tied a horse to an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and dragged it for nearly half a mile.

Carla Bohanon, 40, was arrested on August 14 for animal cruelty following an incident that allegedly happened on August 5 involving a horse named Whiskey Glasses.

According to an arrest report, a deputy with the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) was dispatched to County Road 391 after someone called to say a person was dragging a horse with an ATV. A Geraldine Police Officer was already on the scene with the injured horse when the deputy arrived.

After contacting a local veterinarian, the deputy described the horse as having “visible injuries to its left side and appeared to be favoring its right rear hoof.” The report continued, saying, “There was blood on the roadway in front of the residence at that location. There was one large area containing gobs of blood.”

While authorities were surveying the scene, Bohanon drove up on an ATV and told them it was her horse, court records say. Once the deputy told Bohanon that a vet was en route, she “immediately became verbally belligerent,” the report said, saying she started asking “how much it would cost her and aggressively stating she could not afford to pay for a veterinarian.”

Bohanon denied dragging the horse, as the deputy reported her statements were “rather confusing and contradictive,” saying she later told them she “stopped dragging the horse once it fell into the roadway.”

According to Bohanon, she was trying to teach the horse, Whiskey Glasses, to ride as she led with the ATV.

While the veterinarian and his assistant started caring for the horse’s wounds, the report said Bohanon began asking how much the care would cost. The assistant then offered to buy the horse for $200 on the spot, to which Bohanon agreed, according to the report.

Below are the injuries to Whiskey Glasses as described in court records:

“The hooves of the horse appeared to be injured as they were also bleeding…bright red blood and that a large part of both rear hooves were missing…major abrasions and bruising on the left shoulder, left front leg and knee, left elbow, rib cage on left side, left flank and hip, and left upper thigh and hocks…abrasions on left and right jar near throat area, abrasions under chin, abrasions on both sides of pull behind ears and across the top of poll in her mane…all 4 feet had soles and frogs worn off and the bleeding corium was exposed. The back of the foot was worn off past the hairline as the skin and hair was rolled up on the back of the hoof. Rear feet were the worst of the 4 with the right rear being the most painful as she did not want to weight that hoof.”

As the vet and assistant were on their way to the clinic with Whiskey Glasses after buying her from Bohanon, the deputy stated that the assistant called to alert him of “the blood trail” leading farther down the road, a distance of 0.4 miles, explaining that “the horse would have had to have been dragged prior to that before the hooves were worn down to bleed.

Following a warrant issued for her arrest, Bohanon was charged with animal cruelty, a Class A misdemeanor. She was booked into the DeKalb County Jail on a $3,500 bond and has since been released.