‘We trusted her’

UT students, alumni speak out about pet sitter charged with animal cruelty

ABBY ANN RAMSEY Managing Editor

A Knoxville family of four is facing animal cruelty charges after animal control discovered five dead animals and 38 living ones in a Powell home on March 8. Now UT students and alumni who paid one of the family members to watch their pets, including some who say their pets died under her watch, are speaking out about their experiences.

A week after the discovery, Thomas Morris, 52, Michelle Burgess-Morris, 50, Haylee Morris, 22, and Isabella Morris, 19, were each charged with two counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, a class E felony, two counts of cruelty to animals, a class A misdemeanor and one charge of violation of rabies laws, a class C misdemeanor.

The house was an animal foster home but was also home to Knoxville pet sitter Haylee Morris, operator of Haylee’s Petsitting, who came highly recommended on Facebook. The business is now permanently closed on Google and its Facebook page has been deactivated.

According to Knox News, officials first tried to investigate the house last summer on an animal welfare call. They weren’t able to enter the home until March 8, after responding to several animal welfare checks, just days after some Facebook posts detailing clients’ experiences with Morris gained traction.

Previous clients of Morris say that the sitter’s negligence was evident before animal control’s recent discovery. UT students and alumni often booked Morris’ services through UT-specific Facebook groups, and many are now reporting that damage was done to their homes and their animals were returned in poor condition. In some cases, clients say their pets died under Morris’ care.

Morris’s clients say she came so highly recommended that on the surface, it didn’t seem like hiring her would be a mistake.

Savannah Black, a second-year student studying animal science, said she posted in a Facebook group for female UT students asking for pet sitter recommendations, and several people recommended Morris. She then saw Morris come up as a certified sitter on Rover and decided to employ her shortly after that.

“I just kinda did some research on her, and it looked like she worked with multiple different rescue organizations in the area, she fostered and she just made it look like she had dedicated her whole entire life to animals,” Black said.

She used Morris several times with few to no problems. Her house was messier than she would have wanted when returning home and the sitter missed some calls and texts, but nothing to make her question how her four dogs and one cat were cared for.

That was until a few months later when Black, along with her husband and baby, went on a long trip to Memphis to visit family and hired Morris to watch the animals. They did not get many updates, but Black didn’t want to pester her too much by asking for constant photos and videos.

“We trusted her,” Black said. “So we weren’t just like on her back the entire time.”

Black said that trust was broken when they returned to find their house in shambles.

They discovered 13 different urine stains on their area rug, found the sectional couch covered in urine and vomit and realized that two of the dogs’ crates had been zip tied together. Each dog had an identical wound on their nose, which Black thinks was from trying to escape from the crates when they had been left for too long.

“We were so excited and then we just walked into a complete disaster,” Black said. “It smelled like a rotten pig barn in there.”

Black said the smell overtook the house, even though all of their animals are house-trained. They discovered more and more damage over the course of several days and had to throw away the majority of their furniture.

“We got home so late that night that we were just glad the dogs were alive,” Black said. “I guess the reality of everything didn’t really set in until the next day.”

Not only did two of the dogs have injuries, but Black said it was clear they had been further neglected.

“The dogs and cat acted like they hadn’t drank or eaten in days,” Black said.

The police report from March 8 detailed the state of the Morris household, writing that the home was covered in urine and feces.

“The reality of picturing what our dogs and cat went through kind of set in because I can’t really imagine a dog willfully spreading their feces around unless they’re starving for days and they have to eat it themselves because they don’t have anything else to eat,” Black said.

Despite the state of the house and the animals, multiple apologies from the Morris family convinced Black that this was an isolated incident. A few months later, Black needed a new sitter since spring break was approaching. She once again asked on Facebook and briefly included her experience with Morris, not expecting to get the overwhelming response that she did.

Within minutes, over 300 comments came pouring in with tales of similar experiences. It was just three days later that animal control rescued discovered all the animals in the Morris household.

Hayley Sponcia, another member of the Face- book group and a senior marketing major, also had a questionable experience with Morris as she received little communication while out of town.

She said after picking up her dog Emerson, the dog was so tired she had to be carried and couldn’t be woken up for hours after picking her up. She made another post, asking people to talk about their experiences and received almost 500 comments.

“I was absolutely blown away,” Sponcia said. “I figured there’d be like three or four, but my phone was going crazy.”

That’s when Natalie Hartman (‘20), a digital advertiser with PetSafe, began to rethink her experience with Morris. Last summer, Hartman’s dog Koda died under Morris’s care, from what Morris said was an unexpected seizure. Hartman said Koda was perfectly healthy when she dropped her off.

Hartman was on a hiking trip in Canada, getting little phone service, but still asked Morris for updates and pictures when she could. She said it took her a long time to send a photo and then the next day, she received several calls from Morris.

“She had just said that Koda had a seizure and like she’s unresponsive and they’re giving her CPR and obviously I’m freaking out,” Hartman said. “There’s nothing I can do so I called my parents.”

Thinking that Koda’s death was a freak incident that could happen in the hands of any pet sitter, Hartman and her family opted not to pay the expensive cost of a necropsy.

“Now we look back on it, and it’s like she had to have been dead for more than two hours for her to be that hard and cold,” Hartman said.

Koda was Hartman’s registered emotional support animal. Even when she assumed Morris played no role in the death, she struggled to accept that Koda was gone.

“I fully have not been able to accept it, and this coming to light,” Hartman said. “How am I supposed to process it now?”

Hartman, Black, Sponcia and the dozens of others that have taken to Facebook to share their experiences said that justice is necessary. For sev- eral people, that looks like jail time for the people involved in the abuse and neglect of animals that came from Morris and her family.

“Honestly I’m just happy that this has been brought to light,” Hartman said. “I’m hoping that she will never be able to watch or own a pet ever again and I do think that she deserves time for what she has done.”

Sponcia added that Morris was not only neglecting the animals but was also profiting off of it, which is evident through a now-deleted TikTok the pet sitter posted, where she claims to have made more than $75,000 from pet sitting last year.

“You see animal abuse like on the news and everything, but like you just never suspect it I guess,” Hartman said. “Now it’s like oh my god, it was like right there in front of my face and how did I not notice.”

At the same time, she said Morris’ popularity and Rover certification gives victims a reason not to blame themselves.

Rover allows customers to find local pet sitters online for services like boarding, dog walking and drop-in visits and boasts its commitment to background checks, safety quizzes and profile reviews. Rover removed Morris’ profile, barring her from taking bookings or offering services, in the fall of 2021.

“As pet parents ourselves, we are appalled by these reports,” Rover said in a statement to the Beacon.

Black and Hartman both said people often fail to take stories of animal cruelty seriously, even though animals feel like family members to many.

“It’s like some people look at their pets as like their babies and their everything and I think most of the people who were affected by her, that’s how we look at our pets,” Hartman said. “It’s gutwrenching.”

The animals rescued from the Morris household have been transported to Young Williams Animal Center. A GoFundMe was created specifically to help care for these animals, and the public can donate online.