Woman charged with harming animals in Indianapolis after prior cruelty conviction

This story includes graphic depictions of animal abuse.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department arrested Krystal Scott on June 27 after finding recent evidence of animal cruelty and an open federal warrant for her arrest. She’s in custody after she may have violated the terms of her supervised release for previous animal cruelty.

Scott was convicted of animal crushing under federal law in 2021 after killing five dogs, five cats, and 11 unborn kittens in 2020 and posting videos to social media. Animal crushing is a legal term that covers many forms of intentional killing or serious injury of an animal, including crushing, suffocation, and drowning. The court sentenced her to 30 months for each of two counts and recommended mental health treatment, noting that she had a history of unaddressed mental health concerns.

Over the course of three incidents last month, IMPD officers found evidence that despite being on supervised release from her prison sentence, Scott allegedly had again been acquiring animals on social media and harming them.

Officers first responded to a call and found Scott, a second woman and a man with animals in a U-Haul van outside a Hardees on the Near East Side. One woman, Crystal Bunch, seemed asleep in the driver’s seat with the windows up. Scott was sitting in the passenger seat and the man was on the floor of the van. After the officer knocked several times, Bunch rolled down the window.

It smelled of animal waste, according to an affidavit for probable cause. After a series of questions about the animals, IMPD officer David Shimp asked the three to exit the vehicle but leave it running for the animals.

After law enforcement asked about animal ownership, Bunch requested to speak to the officers away from Scott. She said that some of the dogs belonged to Scott.

The affidavit stated Scott had told Bunch “to lie and say they were all hers because she isn’t allowed to be around dogs. When asked about the smell, Crystal [Bunch] stated that it was just Musty, hot, and sweaty.”

An Animal Care Services Officer, Heidi Vohs, arrived and asked questions before inspecting the vehicle and the animals.

Scott consented to a search of the van. Vohs smelled an odor of decomposing bodies, according to the affidavit. She found three kittens and ten dogs inside but no food or water. The three people surrendered several animals at that time.

Indianapolis Animal Care Services later evaluated them and found that they were all “extremely dehydrated.”

In a second incident, the group surrendered several more animals to IACS.

Scott appeared to have been living at a homeless camp where she allegedly kept animals unattended for days – tied up, in cages and in her tent, the affidavit stated. Those animals did not have access to regular food and water.

One man who lives at the camp nearby told Vohs that Scott and another woman had recently tried to kill a dog by injecting it with insulin. When the dog didn’t die, according to the affidavit, the two strangled it with ropes and buried it. The man said that he entered a mental hospital for treatment because of the incident.

On June 27, IMPD responded to a third call saying that Scott was headed to a U-Haul distribution location to pick up some belongings from the rented van. A responding officer learned that a warrant had been issued for violating the terms of her supervised release in the 2020 case and arrested her shortly after.

Officers obtained a search warrant later that morning and found animal body parts in the van.

After the encounters with Scott, officers had transported a total of 11 dogs and 3 cats to IACS.

Scott is now in federal custody. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office filed charges for two counts of animal neglect on July 2.

“This is an open investigation, and we do not have any further comment,” said Colleen LaFollette, a public information officer for IACS. “However, I can say … the animals that were surrendered by or confiscated from Krystal Scott are in our care and doing well.”

Contact WFYI reporter Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org.