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Despairing woman & most of 30 pets saved after death note tips off cops

Linda Muchnick sent suicide notes last week to two veterinarians' offices and a medical spa, saying that she could no longer afford to keep up her Harleysville house or care for her dog and 29 cats, prosecutors said.

Linda Muchnick sent suicide notes last week to two veterinarians' offices and a medical spa, saying that she could no longer afford to keep up her Harleysville house or care for her dog and 29 cats, prosecutors said.

"Basically, the note stated it was best if she killed them along with herself so they could all be in heaven together," Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Abigail Silverman said yesterday.

Towamencin Township police, who responded to Muchnick's home on Thursday, the day her vet received one of the letters, had no idea what to expect when they were forced to knock out an air conditioner and climb in a front window of the house, Chief Paul Dickinson said.

"The home was in disrepair and not in good sanitary condition," he said.

Upstairs, police found 29 cats in a locked bedroom that had no open windows, no ventilation and smelled of feces and urine, prosecutors said.

But what they found in the cat- food dishes in the room was even worse.

"At first, they thought the cat food had molded, but then they found open bottles of D-Con," Silverman said.

Muchnick, 56, had mixed in D-Con rat poisoning with cat food and left it in dishes for her pets, authorities said.

One cat was dead and the others were in various states of "distress," Silverman said.

In another locked bedroom, which was also poorly ventilated, police said they found Muchnick with her sick-looking pit bull.

"She was conscious, but incoherent," Dickinson said.

Authorities said it was unclear whether the dog or Muchnick had ingested any poison or how long the animals and Muchnick had been locked in the rooms.

Muchnick was taken to Lansdale Hospital, where she has remained since Thursday. One count of animal cruelty by killing and 29 counts of attempted animal cruelty by poisoning have been filed against Muchnick, though she will not be formally arrested until she's discharged from the hospital, Dickinson said.

The pit bull was treated with vitamin K to counteract any possible rat poisoning and is doing better, Silverman said.

All the animals are being housed at the Montgomery County SPCA. Authorities said that Muchnick had never been reported for hoarding animals and that she regularly sought veterinarian treatment for her pets.