Chances are you’ll keep in mind Heidi Erickson, the Cat Girl of Beacon Hill, who had a number of pets in her Beacon Hill condominium, a lot of them lifeless – no less than till police and firefighters responding to neighbors’ experiences of what smelled like a lifeless physique in 2003 burst in and discovered an emaciated Nice Dane, a number of equally near-death cats and, within the kitchen, a fridge and cupboards full of the our bodies and elements of our bodies of fifty or so lifeless cats.
Erickson, not one to let one thing like that cease her, started submitting a number of fits in each state and federal courtroom – which she continued after transferring along with her cats and elements to Plymouth. Judges stored dismissing her fits as with out benefit and finally each the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket and the US Supreme Court docket advised her to knock it off.
Then, the courtroom circumstances appeared to cease and she or he now not made the information.
Besides it isn’t as a result of Erickson gave up gathering cats and canines. She simply moved out of state. And whereas she now not petitions the Supreme Court docket to behave on her varied grievances, she continues to file circumstances in decrease federal courts.
Earlier this month, police in Macomb, IL, residence of Western Illinois College, raided the small home she purchased there in 2023 and, based on certainly one of her neighbors, discovered “a home that was feces and rubbish full of greater than 30 dwell cats (2 pregnant), 3 frozen lifeless cats within the freezer, 2 carcasses behind home equipment, 3 child chickens, and 1 canine.” The home was condemned and authorities took Erickson into custody and moved her to Lake Behavioral Hospital, some 270 miles away.
Erickson self-filed a habeas corpus movement in federal courtroom on Could 9, demanding she be let out. On Could 14, a decide in US District Court docket for the Northern District in Illinois dismissed her case, as a result of she must undergo state courtroom first.
She should give the state courts the primary likelihood to deal with any issues along with her instantaneous custody earlier than elevating claims in a habeas corpus petition earlier than this Court docket.
Not less than as of as we speak, Illinois courtroom data don’t present any motions filed by her.
The neighbor experiences she didn’t even know Erickson’s title till the day Erickson gave her a handwritten cease-and-desist order to remain away – after which she Googled her after which contacted reporters who had lined her varied circumstances over the previous 20 years:
My husband and I together with our different neighbors have lived with a relentless scent of cat urine, filth and rubbish piling up, and the dearth of any yard care. Though we assumed from the scent that there have been cats dwelling inside the house, we by no means noticed them. In November-December she bought an 8-week-old lengthy hair fowl canine. Every time it was exterior, it could get twisted within the bushes or round her swing and bark and cry. I untangled her thrice however on the fourth try, she screamed at me to get out of her yard and she or he was calling the police. She mentioned, “you’re hindering the canine’s training”. “She is a service canine in coaching and I used to be ruining her means to learn to untangle herself”. A pair days later I acquired an electronic mail of an image of a handwritten stop and desist from her.
In between Massachusetts and Macomb, Erickson lived in a trailer in Bighill, an unincorporated hamlet in Madison County, KY.
In 2015, she sued the US Division of Agriculture and the state of Kentucky for decreasing her SNAP – or meals stamps – allowance. A federal decide in Kentucky dismissed her case after noting that the state reduce her allowance as a result of “it was decided that the medical deduction that the Plaintiff claimed was inflated by nonqualifying medical bills pertaining to her pet canine.”
The decide famous her previous authorized battles and mentioned he “acknowledges the Plaintiff’s macabre historical past as a pet proprietor,” in a footnote with hyperlinks to Harvard Crimson articles in 2003 and 2004 about her Beacon Hill points. He concluded that Erickson “could be smart to take her grudging and grievances elsewhere” and admonished her, as did courts in Massachusetts and Washington, DC, to cease submitting fits with no authorized foundation.
The ruling got here a number of months after one other Kentucky decide threw out one other swimsuit she filed, additionally alleging broad violations of her constitutional rights over what she claimed have been coaching prices for her “service canine.”
In 2014, she sued Richmond, KY, three of its cops and a towing firm for allegedly towing away her RV after she was cited for driving it with no license or insurance coverage. The decide in that case dismissed her request for a brief restraining order partly as a result of, even below the extra relaxed requirements judges have to make use of in listening to circumstances introduced by professional se litigants:
Erickson’s grievance is sort of incomprehensible. Moreover, a lot of the grievance might undergo from issues with sovereign and certified immunity. The Court docket finds that Erickson’s grievance doesn’t have a powerful probability of success on the deserves.
