MOUNTAIN HOME — A former Baxter County man convicted in one of the largest animal-abuse cases in the nation was arrested Tuesday on a warrant accusing him of failing to show up for sentencing in Arkansas.
William Hanson was apprehended in Johnson County, Mo., on an outstanding Baxter County warrant saying hefailed to appear in an almost 4-year-old animal cruelty case, Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said.
Hanson has a court appearance in Johnson County today.
Hanson and his wife, Tammy Christine Hanson, were each convicted in January 2006 in Baxter County District Court of 20 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty after authorities discoveredabout 500 neglected dogs on their property in Gamaliel in October 2005.
Officials said the couple skipped their sentencing date, setting off a four-year,multistate pursuit led by Baxter County authorities. The Hansons were finally located in Caledonia County, Vt., in July, and Tammy Hanson was taken into custody on charges related to the theft of dogs in Lawrence County, Mo.
Tammy Hanson has fought extradition to Arkansas ever since.
"I am confident that she will be extradited," Montgomery said Tuesday. "It's just a matter of her exhausting the appeal process in Vermont."
Montgomery said authorities in Baxter County and Vermont had received tips that William Hanson was in Missouri. He said the Johnson County sheriff 's office located him Tuesday morning in a rural area near Holden, Mo., and he was arrested without incident.
The Baxter County case - still among the nation's largest animal-cruelty cases, according to the Humane Society of the United States - was one impetus behind the Arkansas Legislature passing the state's first felony animal-cruelty law earlier this year.
Authorities had found dozens of dogs in dirty pens and cages at the couple's self-styled animal shelter in northeastern Baxter County. A few dogs were dead, and many more were sick or injured. The dogs included about 60 pit bulls and pit-bull mixes from the Gulf Coast that had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
This July, Baxter County authorities got wind that the Hansons were in Sutton, Vt. Authorities said Tammy Hanson, her dark brown hair died platinum blonde, was living in a rented farmhouse with her husband under the names of Christine and Henry Miller.
She was arrested July 18 on the felony dog-theft warrants out of Lawrence County, Mo.
Days afterward, Gov. Mike Beebe took the unusual step of signing an extradition warrant for a misdemeanor fugitive to return Tammy Hanson to Baxter County.
On Sept. 16, a district court judge in Caledonia County ruled that two of Tammy Hanson's petitions relating to the extradition effort were improperly filed. The judge gave her permission to re-file the petitions but set no time limit, Montgomery said.
William Hanson also faces a misdemeanor animalcruelty charge in Caledonia County, where authorities found four dogs in "deplorable, unsanitary conditions" at his residence last month. Authorities say he failed to appear for a Sept. 14 court date on the Vermont charges.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13, 18 on 09/23/2009