Prosecutors are dropping charges of animal cruelty against a Boulder woman accused of blowing heroin smoke in a cat’s face after a necropsy found no trace of the drug in the dead feline’s system.
Danielle Blankenship, 21, was arrested July 5 after officers responding to a domestic-violence call found her ex-boyfriend’s roommate’s cat, Muffin, unresponsive.
According to a police report, the ex-boyfriend, Robert Thompson, 24, told officers that Blankenship was smoking heroin and blew smoke in the cat’s face.
Blankenship denied blowing smoke in the cat’s face or even smoking heroin at all. She did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The cat was taken to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, where veterinarians treated it for poisoning. Muffin was transported to the Boulder Emergency Pet Clinic, where he “crashed,” according to the police report.
The cat was revived with CPR, but then became unresponsive a short time later, the report said. A second attempt at resuscitation was unsuccessful.
A necropsy of the cat performed at Colorado State University found no evidence of heroin in the cat’s system, Boulder police spokeswoman Kim Kobel said Tuesday.
The cause of death was inconclusive, Kobel said. It appears that Muffin had a number of pre-existing health problems, despite being relatively young.
