Cops: Stolen horses sported vet paint

Daily Southtwon ^ | 3-4-2003 | Carrie Wolfe

[Cagey]

Woman allegedly tried to disguise the animals with black spraypaint

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

By Carrie Wolfe
Staff writer

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A Palos Park veterinarian, whose license has expired, stole three show horses — two from the southwest suburbs — and tried to disguise at least two of them using a toxic black paint, authorities said.

Cathy Crighton, 44, of Palos Park, was charged Saturday in Wellington, Fla., with two counts of grand theft and one count of dealing in stolen property, Palm Beach County authorities said. She was being held Monday at Palm Beach County Jail on $5,000 bail.

Crighton allegedly stole one of the horses, Keller, in October from an unlocked stable at Top Brass Horse Farm in unincorporated Palos Township.

Keller, a Swedish Warmblood, was found at a stable in Wellington, about 13 miles west of West Palm Beach, authorities said.

A Florida resident reportedly bought Keller from Crighton for $15,000. The horse was valued at $50,000.

Palm Beach County deputies arrested Crighton Saturday at another Wellington stable where they found San Diego, a dark gray gelding who had disappeared from a local paddock Jan. 22. His white legs and the white stripe on his face had been spray-painted with black Rustoleum paint.

Someone apparently saw Crighton spraying a horse and contacted authorities.

The paint caused blisters near the horse's nose and he could be permanently scarred, deputies said.

The horse reportedly was worth $100,000.

Scooby Doo, a 3-year-old Dutch Warmblood stolen Sept. 21 from Bordon Farms in Wilmington, was found in a stall next to San Diego. The horse also had paint on his legs and feet.

Crighton's veterinarian license, which she received in Illinois in 1996, expired Jan. 31, and she should not have been practicing, said Jeff Irwin, a technical assistant for the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations.

To renew her license, Crighton would have had to complete 20 hours of courses, Irwin said.

Kathy Fitzpatrick, owner of Fitzjoy Farm in Palos Park, said she worked with Crighton occasionally for about a year, and Crighton provided in-house vet services for horses at Fitzjoy.

Crighton had been argumentative with some of the boarders at Fitzjoy and seemed unhappy, Fitzpatrick said.

But Fitzpatrick was surprised by the charges.

"It didn't seem like she needed the money," she said. "It didn't seem like she needed the notoriety.

"I can't imagine she thought she'd get away with something like that," Fitzpatrick said. "No one could look at a horse and not know that it was painted."

Lea Ann Koch, president of the Illinois Quarter Horse Association, was alarmed by the news.

"It's astonishing to me that somebody would do that; plus (she's) a veterinarian," Koch said. "I have never really heard of anyone going into somebody's barn and taking a horse.

"I guess I've never seen someone gutsy enough, or stupid (enough) — whatever you want to call it."

Allen Hoger, owner of Top Brass Horse Farm, said Crighton was contracted by some boarders who rent space at the stables.

No one answered the door Monday at Crighton's home, 11099 McCarthy Road. Her driveways were blocked with chains.

She is scheduled to appear in court March 31, Palm Beach County authorities said.

Keller and Scooby Doo reportedly are being shipped home this week.

Hoger said he was happy Keller's owner, Jolene Novak-Racevicius of New Lenox, would be reunited with her horse.

Novak-Racevicius couldn't be reached for comment Monday, but trainers and horse owners at Top Brass said Novak-Racevicius was happy her horse was found. They said she recently returned from a trip to Germany to buy a new horse.

[Cagey]

His white legs and the white stripe on his face had been spray-painted with black Rustoleum paint.

[TADSLOS]

She should have stolen a paint.

[HairOfTheDog]

Bizarre behavior! From a vet?! Double bizarre!

Glad the horses were found safe. People fear the worst when horses are stolen.

[livius]

A paint! LOL!

Seriously, though, how could anybody not have noticed that the horse they were thinking of buying had been painted? I mean, she could at least have used Grecian Formula or something. And there actually are safe dyes for touching up irregularities in your horse's coat, although of course you're not supposed to use them when selling the horse!

Wierd story. But that's Palm Beach in a nutshell.

[martin_fierro]

There's another Cathy Crighton in west Scotland who paints animals ... but in the normal way. <|:)~

[martin_fierro]

More stories about this truly bonkers woman.

[martin_fierro]

[Cagey]

You should change your screen name to Inspector Fierro. LOL

Good find, and it's very interesting how this story has put her back in the light of that unsolved murder in Illinois.

[dighton]

Wow. Bonkers indeed, and possibly a murderess.

[martin_fierro]

Shake hands with my minky. <|:)~ Just don't paint it.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Correction: FORMER vet. She does not now, and never will again, have a license to practice veterinary medicine in any civilized country. That profession is very well self-policed, and I expect it's no coincidence that her license had expired and not been renewed.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah - I knew the distinction.... You just don't expect people with the 'stuff' to get through vet school having a pretty major screw loose. Truth is stranger than fiction!

[1rudeboy]

I wonder what the penalty for horse-thievery is in Illinois. The noose?

[GovernmentShrinker]

That's probably where she got the name when she changed hers.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Actually, there's quite a bit of data showing a correlation between loose screws in the human interaction department, and high intelligence in quantitative-spatial areas -- the areas emphasized by the physical science courses which comprise most of vet school and pre-vet requirements. Also, a significant correlation between high intelligence in general and various forms of mental illness. My guess is that this woman has some sort of progressive mental illness that started becoming apparent during vet school, and has continued to progress since then. And due to all our insane "anti-discrimination" laws, without either a criminal conviction or documented malpractice, it would be virtually impossible for a vet school to expel her, or for a state veterinary board to yank her license, even when they very much wanted to.

I'm still curious about the expired license thing. I have no idea how long vet licenses are good for, but it seems she had on euntil some time in 1996. Was she too crazy to remember to apply for renewal? Or had one or more state boards made clear to her that they would launch an in-depth investigation of her if she applied?

The Michigan vet school administration must be cringing REALLY hard right now -- they accepted her as a transfer, after she'd shown some clear signs of instability, and they didn't have to do that, since as with many graduate professional programs, transferring during vet school is considered an pretty exceptional thing which is only allowed for exceptionally good reasons (and one wouldn't think that "my classmate was murdered, and it's making me crazy that the cops think I did it" would qualify).

[Cagey]

Aren't horses, especially horses this valuable, sold with some type of registration papers?

[vetvetdoug]

Unfortunately we got one of these screw loose veterinarians in my town. This lady broke into another veterinary clinic to steal controlled drugs after she lost her DEA license. She beat herself up and claimed her husband did it, even stuck a needle into her chest to give herself a pneumothorax. The woman has been in and out of drug rehabilitation centers more times than one can count and the state licensing board still gives her a license. Why? Because they are afraid of a sex discrimination suit. Recently she cut a bladder open on a cat during a routine spay and did a poor job of suturing her error it resulted in the cat's demise. She has lost her DEA license again and has the drugs to anesthetize animals(duh!) yet the state board still lets her practice. I have little faith in the state boards when it comes to regulating minorities that are incompetant or are known to have serious drug dependency problems.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Yikes! When you say "sex discrimination" and "minorities", are you saying she's female and a racial minority? Seems like it would be hard to make out a sex discrimination case re a female vet, since the profession is skewing further and further towards being predominantly female (about 75% of vet students are now female IIRC). And does this woman have any actual convictions, or do the courts keep letting her off?

[HairOfTheDog]

Sometimes, and sometimes not. The horses were described as "Swedish Warmblood" and "Dutch Warmblood" which is more of a 'type' than a 'breed'. Simply defined, a Warmblood is a cross between a "hot blood" (thoroughbred or Arabian) and some other breed, often of the large performance horse types used in jumping and dressage. They are not 'purebreds' with 'papers' so much as they are 'types', sometimes with a 'registry'. Not hard to fake really, I suppose.

[HairOfTheDog]

I will say this, what makes those horses that valuable is their winnings and experience competively. Without their true identity known, she would have to sell them as very nice prospects with no history, and would get perhaps a quarter of that.