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Landlord charged after pig dies

Officials say he broke into his tenants' home and released two pets.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published March 30, 2007

TAMPA - Wilbur was mild mannered. He liked watching TV, and loved to be picked up and held. Gizmo was loud and rambunctious, and liked to jump on the bed.

The Bell family pets were pigs, but they acted like poodles, and were no bigger than Yorkshire terriers. The 3-month-old piglets used litter boxes, walked on leashes and ate chicken and macaroni and cheese out of 2-year-old Trystan Bell's hand.

So when someone ransacked their home and set the pigs loose in a nature preserve, they were ill suited for life in the wild.

Tommie Bell learned Thursday that Hillsborough sheriff's deputies found one of his miniature black pot-bellied piglets dead at the nearby Violet Curry Nature Preserve, and had arrested the man they think left the pigs to die.

The landlord, Jerry Pat Thomas, 46, allegedly broke into the home at the Sands Mobile Home Park, threw more than $11,000 worth of belongings in trash bins and set the pigs loose at the nearby preserve with little food. It was his form of an eviction, Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.

Bell says Thomas, who had recently lost several tenants, got angry and evicted them when the family told him they had decided to move.

The Bell family was getting bigger. A baby was on the way. It was time for a double-wide mobile home, he said.

They couldn't afford a mover, so they packed everything they owned into boxes and started shuttling them from Lutz to their new home in Land O'Lakes the second week of January.

After trip two, Tommie Bell found the front door wide open. The home was a mess. Stuff they had packed up - TVs, radios, shoes, jewelry and baby clothes - was gone. So were the pigs.

He said they initially suspected the landlord, but deputies didn't have enough evidence to make an arrest until a witness came forward. Thomas of 15203 12th St. N in Lutz is charged with grand theft, burglary and two counts of animal cruelty. He was being held Thursday in the Hillsborough County Jail with bail set at $10,500.

Bell spent weeks searching for the piglets, glancing out his car hoping to spot them on the road. Jennifer missed her pigs so much that he got her two cats and a dog. The miniature schnauzer does everything the piglets did. She walks on a leash and plays with a ball. But she doesn't oink, and the family misses that.

They'll be at Thomas' trial, Bell said, for Wilbur and Gizmo. "He hurt us," Bell said.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.

[Last modified March 30, 2007, 00:49:41]