By Sara Patterson
December 20, 2011
Two happy children opened their arms Tuesday and welcomed into the van their old friend, a male dog with a white face and reddish fur who was a bit thinner and much dirtier than when they'd seen him last.
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"He peed in the car!" 4-year-old Aidan Shoup yelled while his father, Darrell, gave a statement to police outside a home on Peachtree Drive in Senatobia, Miss., about 50 miles south of Kapone's Cordova home.
Kapone, Memphis' most publicized missing pup of 2011, was found after an anonymous tipster pointed searchers in the direction of a home with inflatable Christmas decorations in the front yard.
"Unbelievable," Cindy Sanders of Community Action for Animals muttered under her breath when she saw the dog reunited with his family. "And they said we didn't need the billboard."
Sanders and animal advocate Beverly King headed much of the search for Kapone, plastering the area with banners, erecting a billboard on Interstate 240 at Perkins and fielding tips called in to the Seniors-B-Safe hotline number for Crime Stoppers of Memphis and Shelby County.
"I never gave up hope," said King. "Whenever I got a tip, I'd go to investigate. I looked at dead bodies, decapitated heads ...
"I'm glad we found one that's alive."
A reward for Kapone gathered from local and national dog lovers had climbed to $8,000, but King said the anonymous tipster who led to the dog's discovery didn't ask for a reward.
"I've got the commitments, but the informant didn't want the reward money," she said.
Kapone first escaped from the Shoups' Cordova backyard with the family's 3-year-old pit bull, Jersey, on June 24. Records show that he was picked up by Demetria Hogan, an animal shelter employee who was subsequently fired and now faces a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty.
Brooke Shoup alerted media when she found only one of her dogs at the shelter, less than 24 hours after they'd been picked up. The family feared Kapone, too old to fight, would become bait on the dogfighting circuit.
Darrell Shoup said he hadn't thought they'd see Kapone again.
"I'm just overwhelmed," he said before he brought Kapone to the Senatobia shelter.
From there, he drove to the police station and waited a few hours to get the "OK" to take Kapone home.
Because there isn't an animal control officer in Senatobia, according to assistant shelter director Alecia Burns, police handle cases such as these.
Senatobia Police Chief Steve Holts said that because the case began with Kapone's apparent abduction in Memphis, further investigation into the matter will be conducted by Memphis police. The Senatobia homeowners in question didn't answer a reporter's knocks on the door Tuesday afternoon after Kapone was removed from the property. Police interviewed two people before they took the dog away, but no arrests had been made.
"There are numerous questions that must be answered before any investigative unit can move forward," said Karen Rudolph, Memphis police spokeswoman.
Crime Stoppers director Buddy Chapman said he had received two or three tips a week since Kapone's disappearance and has become interested in the larger implications of the dog's situation.
"There have been rumors for years that pits don't make it to the shelter," he said. "It will be fascinating to work this case back and see ...
"How did Kapone wind up in Senatobia?"
Source: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/dec/20/kapone-comes-home-missing-dog-found-alive-mississi/
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Another version of the story is at: http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-kapone-found,0,7184594.story
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