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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Charges Dropped Against Alleged ‘Vampire Vet’

Texas prosecutors have dropped animal cruelty charges against an alleged “vampire vet” accused of keeping a dog alive for months to harvest blood while telling its owner it had been euthanized.

FORT WORTH (CN) — Texas prosecutors have dropped animal cruelty charges against an alleged “vampire vet” accused of keeping a dog alive for months to harvest blood while telling its owner it had been euthanized.

Tarrant County prosecutors exercised “prosecutorial discretion” when they dropped the case against Millard Tierce, 74, on Nov. 29, according to court records.

Tierce was indicted in October 2014 on charges of felony theft, felony misapplication of fiduciary property, a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty.

He faced up to two years in state prison on the first two counts and up to a year in county jail on the third.

Tierce agreed that month to a 5-year suspension of his veterinary license. He was allowed to continue owning the Camp Bowie Animal Clinic in Fort Worth while other licensed veterinarians cared for patients.

Tierce declined to comment on the dismissal Wednesday to The Associated Press.

The Tarrant County District Attorney's Office said Thursday that the charges were dropped on the condition that Tierce’s license remain suspended.

Tierce was investigated and arrested in April 2014 his after client Marian Harris complained to the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners. In a pending civil lawsuit she filed against Tierce, Harris claims he recommended that her dog, Sid, be euthanized in October 2013 due to a congenital spinal defect. She said he kept Sid in a cage in unsanitary conditions for blood extraction.

"When the Harrises were loading Sid into their car and attempting to leave the clinic, Dr. Tierce came out to the parking lot and attempted to justify/rationalize/explain why he had kept Sid alive,” Harris said in the complaint. “In doing so, Dr. Tierce definitely admitted that he had intentionally kept Sid alive, despite having represented to the Harrises (six months earlier) that he would euthanize Sid."

A second lawsuit was filed against Tierce in June 2014 by Kimberly Davis, who claimed her 12-year-old Chihuahua, Hercules, was to have been euthanized, but was kept alive for mistreatment and for “experiments.” She said Hercules was found “lying in a small cage, unresponsive, his eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was covered with feces and urine.”

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Categories / Criminal

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