Shelby’s an impressive horse. She’s got a thick body, golden coat and a stark blond mane.

But only a few months ago, her coat was dull and her hip bones protruded. Her skin pulled tight over her ribs.

Shelby is one of a few dozen horses who narrowly survived severe malnourishment while in the care of a southeast Nebraska veterinarian. She was seized by the Gage County sheriff and moved to a Crete animal rescue after an estimated 17 horses owned by the vet died.

As Shelby regained weight, the animal neglect case stalled in the district court, frustrating local investigators, infuriating animal welfare advocates and driving Gage County residents to begin circulating a petition to recall the longtime county attorney.

In March, the 13-year-old horse sold for thousands — as did 36 other surviving horses — when she was auctioned off.

Despite the deaths, the two clinics owned by the veterinarian remain open. The state renewed Jennafer Glaesemann’s veterinary license on April 1.

And when Shelby and the 36 others were auctioned off, most of the proceeds didn’t go to the county, the animal rescue that nursed them back to health or to their continuing care.

Instead, the vet walked away with $113,000.

How did we get here?

Glaesemann bought Shelby in early 2022. She seemed a key addition to Glaesemann’s breeding program, Blue Valley Quarter Horses.

Glaesemann, a licensed veterinarian in Nebraska, owns two clinics, Blue Valley Veterinary Clinic in Beatrice, where she operated her breeding business, and Pickrell Veterinary Clinic.

Her family’s been in the area for generations. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Fairbury.

And she’s cared for southeast Nebraska animals since 2011, operating a vet practice that attracted attention long before the animal neglect case.

In 2015, Nebraska’s attorney general determined that Glaesemann did not meet the standard of care when performing surgery on two separate animals. One died. The other needed a second surgery from another vet. The state eventually placed Glaesemann on a year-long disciplinary probation ending in June 2019.

After her probation, Glaesemann began to quickly grow her collection of breeding horses. When she bought Shelby in 2022, she was already pregnant with a pedigreed foal.

Around the same time, Glaesemann stopped paying property taxes on two Gage County parcels. One of the properties was put up for a tax sale due to the delinquent taxes.

The next summer, the Gage County Sheriff’s Office started to get concerning calls.

People reported seeing skinny horses. Some of them were lying down, unmoving.

Between June and August, the department investigated 12 reports of animal neglect at Glaesemann’s veterinary clinics, police records show.

Around that time, Gage County was preparing the fairgrounds, which adjoin Glaesemann’s Beatrice clinic, for the county fair. Workers and locals complained of a foul smell and an “ungodly” amount of flies.

Police went to investigate, and found about 11 rotting horse carcasses dumped together in one of Glaesemann’s fields. With her cooperation, they hired a local excavation company to dig a large trench and bury the horses before the fair.

By mid-August, police estimated a total of 17 horses had died on the veterinarian’s property. The department executed another search warrant to seize the remaining animals.

Immediately after the seizure, the American Quarter Horse Association revoked Glaesemann’s membership and her breeding business’s registration.

“The reports of inhumane treatment, neglect, condition and deaths of horses involved in this case are deeply concerning to AQHA,” spokeswoman Kyla Jones said in a statement.

Glaesemann declined to be interviewed for this story.

Sheriff Millard Gustafson also was concerned by what he and his deputies found. In an interview, he said they occasionally saw bales of hay and buckets of water near the horses, but there wasn’t enough space or grass for grazing.

In the complaint, C.J. Fell, a livestock investigator for the Nebraska Brand Committee, assessed the living horses and found most to be extremely emaciated, with bones prominently visible.

Glaesemann told police that she had lost employees and assistance, court records show, and that she was “basically the sole provider of care for the horses.”

Police cited Glaesemann for 39 misdemeanor animal neglect charges and took the remaining horses, after seizing that number of horses from her clinics and other properties, Gustafson said.

“My priority was to get the animals away from Glaesemann’s possession, and we did,” Gage County Attorney Roger Harris said.

Stalled out

After authorities seized the horses, they took them to Epona Horse Rescue in Crete.

Ideally, livestock seizures operate on a tight timeline, said David Rosengard of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Nebraska law says the dispersal hearing should be held “as soon as practicable” to place animals in permanent homes immediately.

The Gage County Sheriff’s Office seized Glaesemann’s living horses on Aug. 17, and the hearing was scheduled on Sept. 5.

Glaesemann filed a motion that delayed the hearing for a month.

Then came more motions, and more delays.

The seized horses sat in limbo at Epona.

“It should’ve never took that long. But that’s not in my neck of the woods,” said Gustafson, Gage County’s sheriff. “That’s the county attorney, he’s the one that makes those decisions, about how they’re gonna do it and let it drag on. So that’s on him and what he wants to do with it.”

Why did they die?

Harris ultimately decided against filing criminal charges against Glaesemann.

He told the Flatwater Free Press he decided not to press charges in part because some horses tested positive for equine parvovirus, so animal abuse could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Of the 39 living horses, five tested positive for equine parvovirus antibodies, said Lin Guyton, owner of the rescue, meaning they were infected at some point.

Because equine parvovirus was discovered in 2018, experts still are researching the disease, and sometimes have conflicting opinions, Harris said. The county attorney’s office consulted with veterinary schools and local animal husbandry experts to learn about the virus.

But parvovirus is fairly common, said Mason Jager, a veterinary pathologist who researches the virus at Cornell University. The vast majority are asymptomatic or mildly ill for a few days.

Very rarely, a horse can develop a fatal infection, which causes a rapid death from liver failure.

Weight loss is not considered a symptom of equine parvovirus, Jager said, because the disease is short-term.

The Gage County horses all were underweight, investigation records show, including horses that never tested positive for parvovirus.

After the horses were taken to the rescue, their conditions improved quickly with access to food, water, salt and minerals, Guyton said.

Two of the horses that died were necropsied at a University of Nebraska-Lincoln lab. The veterinarian who reviewed the results determined that they died of “prolonged poor nutrition” from neglect, court documents said.

Harris said that those same two necropsies showed liver failure, which led him to believe parvovirus could have killed them.

Harris didn’t file charges because he felt there could be doubt that the vet abused the horses, he said. He didn’t want to move on the civil case until he reached that decision.

“They want my office to criminally prosecute somebody when it wasn’t justified by the facts. I’m not gonna do it, never have and never will,” Harris told the Flatwater Free Press.

A community strained

Guyton’s rescue herd nearly doubled in size with the addition of the Gage County horses. It was a strain on her resources, she said, forcing her to rely heavily on volunteers and donations from the community.

As spring drew near, the donation money — some $75,000 raised — ran dry.

The situation reached a fever-pitch at the end of February. Guyton began billing the county directly for the horses’ care, $7,728 in January and another $16,095 the next month.

Shortly after she sent the county the first bill that wasn’t covered by donations, the county attorney scheduled an auction for March 2.

Guyton had attempted to buy the horses outright, offering the county attorney’s office up to $30,000 plus waiving February’s bill.

Harris never responded.

“My situation is if we’re forced to sell some animals like that, we’re going to go to a public auction … everyone’s gonna have a chance at it,” Harris said.

The auction was ultimately canceled.

Over the next two weeks, Harris reached a deal with Glaesemann. The county would auction the horses, for real this time, on March 12, and she would turn over their registration papers.

As part of that deal, Glaesemann is not allowed to own horses in Gage County for two years. In exchange, Harris will not press criminal charges related to the estimated 17 horses that died or the 39 horses seized.

Residents of Gage County have expressed their frustration with the lack of criminal charges across social media, in-person protests and an email campaign. People have made personal accusations against Harris on Facebook and over the phone, he said, accusing him of having connections to Glaesemann.

He said he’d never met Glaesemann before the case, and had never used her veterinary services.

“I don’t care whose names are on the reports as far as accused of crimes, I’ll pursue it no matter who it is,” Harris said.

Kerri Barnard Jones, a longtime Gage County resident and horse owner, filed a petition to recall Harris from his position as county attorney in the weeks following the auction.

Two years ago, Jones called in a report to Gage County police after she saw “super malnourished” horses on Glaesemann’s property near the Kansas border, she said.

For Jones, Harris’ refusal to file criminal charges against Glaesemann was the final straw.

“He’s made Gage County the laughingstock of Nebraska,” Jones said. “It’s just embarrassing.”

The petition is circulating now. Jones will have to gather signatures from around 2,300 registered Gage County voters over the coming weeks.

Other community members have focused their attention on Glaesemann.

Jim Luers, a former prosecutor for neighboring Lancaster County, filed an official complaint with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services concerning Glaesemann’s veterinary license and the horses.

DHHS spokesman Allan Urlis said the department “isn’t allowed to provide any information surrounding a complaint or ongoing investigation.”

That department renewed Glaesemann’s license on April 1. Glaesemann is still a practicing veterinarian, and both her clinics have remained open throughout the case.

An auction, at last

On March 12, the stands at the Palmyra Livestock Market filled with people: Prospective buyers, spectators, TV reporters and a contingent of green-shirted Epona rescue volunteers, determined to help the rescue buy as many of the horses as possible.

Bidding proved fierce.

“These horses are going for ridiculous prices,” Guyton muttered to a rescue volunteer, dismayed because they were worth more after six months of rehabilitation at her rescue.

Most of the horses sold for $4,500 or more. Three went for $13,000 each. At a previous Palmyra Livestock Market sale, horses sold for between $475 and $3,900.

By auction’s end, Guyton and her volunteers had bought about 19 of the Gage County horses, including Shelby. She estimated they spent more than $100,000.

In total, auction-goers spent around $185,000 on the horses.

Nebraska law requires the proceeds to go toward sale expenses, any unpaid costs of care and payments, and then go to anyone who has a lien on the animals.

After that, the leftover money goes to the animals’ owner.

That’s how Glaesemann received $113,128.75 after the unpaid care bill and her unpaid property taxes and other debts and collections were deducted.

Epona Horse Rescue will not be reimbursed for costs covered by donations.

Gage County should’ve billed Glaesemann for every month of care, whether or not they were covered by donations, Guyton said. She didn’t know when they were collecting donations that it would end up this way.

“People are pissed off on a whole new level,” Guyton said.

Harris pushed back against donors who are now angry about the payout Glaesemann received. It’s due process for civil forfeiture, he said. Donors should have considered where the money was going to go.

“You take somebody’s property in this country, there’s an accounting that has to happen,” Harris said. “You got some people that don’t believe that with this case. I scratch my head on that … I didn’t realize Gage County had crossed over into China or something.”

Most of the surviving horses at the center of this case will now be adopted out to new homes through the horse rescue. That includes Shelby. She’s doing well now, and Guyton is looking for a trustworthy and loving permanent home for her, she said.

Two of the horses that the rescue didn’t manage to buy, a heavily pregnant mare and young stallion, are now living at a farm in Fairbury, visible from the road.

Kerri Barnard Jones, who is leading the push to recall Harris, drove by to see them after the auction. She knows the owner of the property: Glaesemann’s mother.

Glaesemann is prohibited from owning horses in Gage County for two years. But her parents’ property is in Jefferson County.

“There’s a lot of people in this part of the country that are not going to let this go. Because this is horrific,” Guyton said. “Somebody has to care. There has got to be some justice for these horses.”

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The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories.