A North Reading dog allegedly died in the care of a trainer. Police suspect the trainer is a scammer who has neglected dogs before.

A Connecticut woman is facing felony charges stemming from the discovery that a North Reading family’s dog allegedly died in her care. And Charlie, the 3-year-old French Bulldog, is allegedly far from the first dog to have been mistreated in Josephine “Josie” Ragland’s care.

Police in California have been investigating the 27-year-old Haddam resident since the beginning of this year after a German Shepherd allegedly went missing in her care. They say a number of her other former clients’ statements indicate that their dogs were neglected and abused, though no charges have been filed at this time.

How Ragland was hired to train Charlie

Charlie’s owner, 43-year-old North Reading resident Bart Hanson, said his family hired a dog trainer named “Lily” on the home services website Thumbtack in late August to take Charlie for two weeks for basic obedience training. 

“I’m actually in the gambling industry where scams are quite common, so I am always diligent about this stuff,” he recently told Boston.com. “ … When I spoke with her on the phone and she came to my house, she seemed perfectly normal.” 

Lily picked up Charlie from the Hansons’ home on Sept. 1. She refused to give her address, citing safety issues regarding an ex-boyfriend, Hanson said. 

During the two weeks Charlie was gone, everything seemed normal, he said. Lily sent them daily updates and pictures of Charlie. But on Sept. 15 when Charlie was to be returned, Lily texted to say that her car had broken down and she would be late, according to Hanson.

The next day, according to the criminal complaint against Ragland, Lily texted that after her car broke down, she left her car with the windows down and walked down the road, only to return and find Charlie gone. She said she thought someone had stolen him from the car. 

Now, the Hansons were suspicious and contacted North Reading police.

Police in New England investigate Ragland

Soon, Lily’s story began to crumble. According to the complaint, North Reading police found that no disabled vehicle had been reported to police in the area where Lily said her car had broken down. 

Additionally, online research led North Reading police to suspect that “Lily” might actually be Josephine Ragland. Their suspicions were strengthened after they confirmed that a Facebook profile with the name “Josie Fenn Ragland” had profile pictures and many others showing the person Hanson knew as Lily.

According to the complaint, when North Reading police first spoke with Ragland on Sept. 16, she identified herself as “Lily” and told a story similar to what she’d told Hanson. When the officer tried to get Ragland to give him her full name, she allegedly refused out of concern for her safety. The officer soon stopped the interview after Ragland became upset and he was unable to calm her, but they planned to speak again soon, the complaint says. 

After finding out about the missing German Shepherd incident in California, North Reading police interviewed Ragland several more times over the course of the next few days, according to the complaint. During these interviews, she allegedly admitted her true identity and said she went by a false name because she was a victim of domestic violence. She also allegedly admitted that Charlie had died, saying it happened on Sept. 14 and that he was in her mother’s care at the time.

The complaint says that over the course of the interviews, Ragland gave police various and often conflicting statements about how and when Charlie died, what she had been doing the past weekend, and where Charlie was buried. She later allegedly admitted to lying about many parts of her previous statements. 

Charlie’s body is found

According to the complaint, Ragland eventually told North Reading police that Charlie had died on Sept. 4 or 5. After he died, she sent the Hansons pictures she’d taken while he was alive, she allegedly told police. 

A Connecticut officer was called in to recover Charlie’s body. After initially providing a false account of what had been done with the body, Ragland’s mother eventually took the officer to the side of a road in Norwich Town, about 37 minutes from where Ragland was living with her parents, according to the complaint. The officer located Charlie’s remains. 

Concerned for the safety of the other dogs in Ragland’s care, Connecticut officers then went to Ragland’s parents’ home and recovered four dogs. According to the complaint, the dogs were being kept in a 10- to 12-foot-long room and were malnourished. They were reunited with their owners across New England.

A University of Connecticut necropsy of Charlie’s body found that he was emaciated when he died and might have died of heat stroke, according to the complaint. French Bulldogs are known to be at risk of dying from heat stroke because they commonly suffer from respiratory issues. Hanson said Charlie had no known medical issues.

The North Reading lieutenant who authored the complaint against Ragland wrote that he believes she not only intended to keep the Hansons’ deposit despite having no intentions of training Charlie, but planned to collect the rest of the money for Charlie’s training even after he had died. 

North Reading police ultimately charged Ragland on Sept. 25 with larceny over $1,200 and intimidation of a witness.

Ragland has not responded to repeated attempts to contact her by phone and email.

Previous alleged incidents in California

According to the complaint, police in Palo Alto, California, provided North Reading police with nearly 50 pages on their investigation into Ragland following the disappearance of a German Shepherd named Scott, who is still missing. 

Scott’s owner, Carolina Bruchilari, hired Ragland to take him for a two-week training in mid-December 2022, NBC Bay Area reported in January, not naming Ragland as the trainer. When Ragland brought back a dog at the end of the training period, she allegedly returned a different German Shepherd.

When confronted, Ragland said that Scott had broken through a window screen while in the care of another trainer she had left him with while she dealt with a family emergency, Bruchilari told the news station. Bruchilari said Ragland told her Scott was “definitely dead” and blamed the false Scott on the other trainer, explaining that she hadn’t realized the trainer had given her back a different dog.

According to the complaint, after speaking to 18 of Ragland’s former clients, Palo Alto police suspected her of “not being a legitimate dog trainer.”

“Those statements clearly indicate patterns and practice of abuse and neglect of the animals in Ms. Ragland’s care,” the complaint says. “Many of the animals being returned [were] emaciated, having not been properly fed, [and were covered] in urine and/or feces. Many of the dogs, once returned, showed no evidence of having received the training that was discussed in their agreements [as well as] signs of extreme anxiety and fear.” 

Palo Alto police said Monday that their investigation into Ragland is complete and that they are awaiting a determination from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office as to whether criminal charges are warranted. 

What’s next

North Reading police issued a summons for Ragland. She is due to be arraigned on Oct. 13. The Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s Animal Control Division said Monday that its investigation into Ragland is ongoing and would not comment further. 

All Thumbtack listings belonging to Ragland have been taken down. The website declined to answer questions about Ragland or how their ratings and background checks work, but offered a statement.

“We are actively investigating this situation. We take the integrity of our platform seriously and will continue to take action in the best interest of our community,” a Thumbtack spokesperson said.

Hanson said he’s still working to get the $1,500 he paid Ragland back. He has set up an email address, [email protected], for Ragland’s clients in any state to contact him.