News Two animal cruelty cases linked to same woman, officials say By CHARLES HAND The Valley Chronicle In Kern County, she is known as Anita Gilbert. In Riverside County, she is known as Barbara Ryan. She is known for animal cruelty in both counties. Gilbert was arrested in Tehachapi last week after authorities said they found about 60 live cats and dogs and another dozen dead on her property. Ryan was arrested in 2006 in Riverside County on animal cruelty charges when authorities allegedly discovered 50 and cats and dogs living at her Hemet home. “(Kern County officials) found the same thing we found here,” said Rita Guttierrez, an investigator with Riverside County Animal Control. Ryan disappeared before she could be prosecuted in Riverside County and was not found until she turned up as Gilbert in Tehachapi. Guttierrez said another woman known to Riverside County authorities as Susan Marlowe may have also become a part of the Ryan case. Animals removed from Ryan’s Hemet home and left in Marlowe’s care were among those removed from Gilbert’s Tehachapi property, Guttierrez said. If Marlowe is found to have returned the animals to Ryan, she could face contempt-of-court charges because she never got permission to return the animals to Ryan, Guttierrez said. Also found in Tehachapi were animal transport boxes bearing Riverside County Animal Control identification, she said. The woman known as Gilbert bailed out of Kern County jail on a $105,000 bond – $100,000 of it in Kern County and $5,000 in Riverside County. The 10 cruelty charges lodged in Kern County were added to the five already on the books in the 2006 Riverside case, Guttierrez said. All of the counts are felonies. Guttierrez said she went to Kern County to see whether the woman known there as Gilbert was the one known here as Ryan. “I talked with her at the jail,” Guttierrez said. “It was the same woman.” What her real name may be, though, is anybody’s guess, Guttierrez said. In addition living under two names in the two counties, she used a third name on the lease of her Hemet home, she said. Kern County officials called Riverside County when they found the boxes with the Riverside County markings. Guttierrez said the Hemet case started with a neighbor’s report of a heavy *censored*roach population. Animal control officers found dogs and cats living in filth in Ryan’s house, many of them were tied to cabinets and left to stand and lie in their own urine and feces. The house was roach infested, she said. Their paw pads had been burned by the urine, Guttierrez said, because they could not escape it. The conditions in Tehachapi were much the same, Guttierrez said, except that most of the animals were in a workshop adjacent to the house. Inside the house, trash had been allowed to accumulate, she said. A pre-preliminary hearing has been set for July 29 in Kern County, where a judge refused Gilbert’s request to represent herself because of her courtroom behavior. A public defender was appointed.