Woman sues shelter for $2 million after she says 'crazed' hellcat attacked her

A Bronx couple who ran an animal shelter have been hit with a $2 million lawsuit by a woman who claims she was given a "crazed" hellcat that viciously attacked her. Retired waitress Barbara Pinchbeck, 70, says she wanted to adopt a friendly feline, but Jamie and Alan Turell brought her a black cat with a bad attitude named Wheezer. The feisty furball went berserk on its first night in Pinchbeck's Putnam County home, leaving her with serious injuries, court papers say. "It was snarling, hissing and bearing its fangs," Pinchbeck said at her home in Mahopac, N.Y.



"It leaped 6 feet in the air and landed on my hand. It bit through my two fingers." The bites were so severe, Pinchbeck said, she lost the use of one hand and nearly had it amputated during a weeklong hospital stay that cost her thousands of dollars. "I wanted to die it was so bad," she said. Jamie Turell, 53, who with her husband operated the For the Love of Animals shelter in Westchester, brought Wheezer to Pinchbeck's home in April.

She admitted it wasn't the kitty Pinchbeck wanted but convinced her to keep the cat for one night, the suit says. When Pinchbeck went to check on Wheezer a short time later, he leaped up and mauled her, severing a tendon in her hand, she claims. "I've never seen a cat act like that in my whole life. That cat was crazed," Pinchbeck said, adding that she's owned cats all her life. She told Turell "to take the cat and get it out of my house," but the shelter owner was afraid to retrieve Wheezer alone.



"She needed her friend to get the cat. She was afraid of her own cat," Pinchbeck alleged. Turell's lawyer, Thomas Gorton, said Pinchbeck will have a tough time making her case. "It was a very nice pussycat," Gorton said. "The plaintiff is the only one who's talking, because the cat's not saying a word."