3 dead dogs found in U-Haul truck in Mattapan, Boston police looking for suspects

Boston police found three dead dogs in a U-Haul truck in Mattapan, bloated by the heat wave.

Boston police are treating the case as animal cruelty and are asking the public for any information they can provide.

Just before 9 p.m. Tuesday, officers were dispatched to the first block of Edgewater Drive in Mattapan. In their report, officers wrote that they found the U-Haul with Arizona plates and noticed “a foul odor coming from the van and insects flying around.”

The officers who entered the van looked in through the rear windows and saw a wire mesh dog crate. The officer “stood on tiptoe and could only see (1) the dog’s head in the crate,” the police report states. They also saw dog paws between the seats of the van.

An animal control officer arrived on scene and said he saw three dead dogs that were “bloated,” the report said, likely because “a heat wave was declared for Boston and temperatures have exceeded 90 degrees for the past two days.”

According to the police report, U-Haul could not determine where the van was rented without having the reservation number or the phone number on file for the reservation.

Police spoke to several neighbors. One of them said the van’s renter lives around the corner and uses the van for work. Another said the van had been parked there for eight to nine days. Another said she saw two dogs, “one light and one dark,” “jumping around and barking when the fireworks went off on the Fourth of July.”

According to the report, neighbors who saw two men near the van described them as “black, light-skinned” and 5’6″ tall. Another witness said the driver had dreadlocks.

Police are asking anyone with information about this van or the two men to call Crime Stoppers at 617-343-5607 or submit information anonymously through the CrimeStoppers hotline by calling 1-800-494-TIPS (8477) or texting the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463).