Woman accused of mailing puppies back in custody

By Lethbridge Herald on January 31, 2023.

Delon Shurtz
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
dshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A southern Alberta woman for whom a warrant was issued after she was released from a B.C. jail last month, is back in custody.

Jill Heather Marshall is currently in custody at the Lethbridge Correctional Centre, from where she was expected to make a CCTV appearance in court on Monday. Duty counsel lawyer Jeremy Debow told the judge, however, the accused was too ill to attend court, and the matter was adjourned until Wednesday.

The warrant was issued Dec. 9, only three days after Marshall was released from Alouette Correctional Centre For Women in Maple Ridge, B.C. where she was in custody on charges out of that province.

Lethbridge lawyer Justin Dean said during the court hearing last month he had not heard from Marshall since her release and didn’t have any instructions on how she wants to proceed with her charges. Dean added he had regular contact with Marshall while she was in custody in B.C., but he didn’t know she had been released and she never told him beforehand.

Marshall faces numerous charges, the oldest of which is a charge under the Animal Protection Act of causing an animal to be in distress, which stems from an investigation in the summer of 2019.

Vulcan County Enforcement Services reported that a post office employee in the Village of Milo, about 130 kilometres north of Lethbridge, discovered a puppy and kitten inside a cardboard box. The box had postage, a destination address, and the animals had stamps stuck to their heads. The following week, another box with a puppy inside was dropped off at the mail outlet.

The animals were unharmed and taken to the Calgary Humane Society.

According to Canada Post’s website, live animals cannot be mailed unless there is an agreement with Canada Post before mailing. Bees, day-old chicks and hatching eggs, parasites, leeches and some other small cold-blooded animals can be mailed under certain conditions.

After several court appearances in Lethbridge, Marshall pleaded not guilty in October 2019, and a trial was set for May 28, 2020. The trial was adjourned, however, because of the COVID pandemic and subsequent court restrictions. On March 9, 2021 a new trial was set for the following December, but Marshall never showed up for the trial and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

In addition to her charge of causing an animal to be in distress, Marshall also faces numerous charges from last year, including flight from police, mischief causing damage, assault, assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, failure to stop after an accident, dangerous driving and attempted theft of a motor vehicle.

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