Man Searching for Food Finds Dogs in Freezer

A man looking for food found a freezer full of frozen dogs at a garage rented by his ex-girlfriend, Glendale police said.

Virginia Van Deipen, who is on probation for cruelty to animals and was convicted of operating an unlicensed kennel, is being sought by police for questioning.

Police say the 55-year-old woman forced her boyfriend out of their Van Nuys residential van at gunpoint after a heated argument Monday night. He told police he drove to the rented garage in Glendale about 9:30 p.m. to look for food. Instead he found a dozen frozen Lhasa apso, Maltese and mongrel dogs.

Police initially reported that the male dogs had been castrated.

“At this point we’re not sure” the dogs were castrated, said Sgt. Rick Young, a Glendale Police Department spokesman. “We are waiting for the dogs to thaw.”

Glendale Humane Society authorities say they will perform necropsies on the carcasses to determine the causes of death.

“It looks like the adults expired of old age,” said Humane Society Director Michael Peatrowsky. He said the dogs seemed to be fairly well-preserved.

“It’s kind of a strange thing to do,” he said.

Van Deipen pleaded no contest in June to charges that she operated an illegal kennel in Burbank, according to an official at the Burbank city attorney’s office. Three months later she was in court again after she drove a truck loaded with 47 caged dogs to a public park in Burbank. When residents near the park complained, police pulled her truck over and found the animals panting with heat exhaustion because of the lack of ventilation, said Fred Delany, superintendent of the Burbank Animal Control Department.

According to Delany, those dogs were spayed, neutered, groomed and placed with new owners.