With dog toys pinned to his overcoat, Bill Whiting spent the night of Nov. 5 on a bench in Dickinson Square Park at Fourth and Tasker streets in the Pennsport section, where there had been several sightings of his beloved pet, Edna. But like every night since Halloween, when the canine went missing from a friend’s home in the Italian Market — where he was having dinner with his mixed-breed beagle and Shiba Inu in tow — sleep eluded him.
"I looked like an crazy person. No one would dare come near me," Whiting said with a laugh of his park stay where he wore the toys to create a scent for the dog he regularly took to hospitals, nursing homes and brain-injured patients.
A mount maker artist for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology creating mounts for gallery artifacts, Whiting painted Edna in the Shriners Hospital mural he crafted about a decade ago and which still stands today.
Any jokes that come from the Washington Square resident are amazing, considering the ordeal made him so ill he went to the ER three times over the last weekend and lost 12 pounds due to stress and lack of food and sleep. The sordid tale of his pet, acquired as a pup from Morris Animal Refuge, 1242 Lombard St., has become one of presumed dognapping, torture and extortion. Police are on the case and The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the responsible parties, PSPCA Outreach Director Lisa Rodgers said.
Knowing this could end in tragedy, dozens of people in area neighborhoods have rallied to help find Edna — many of whom are Whiting’s friends. "With all the horrible things that happen, there are some remarkable people out there," Whiting said.
The latest Edna sighting was the morning of Nov. 15 at 11th and Federal streets, the second spotting in that area last week. One was by a man wary of dogs he did not know so he called police, but when cops arrived, there was no sign of the animal; the other was a woman who spotted the dog while walking her own, but lost sight of the canine.
Things turned serious
Nov. 10 when Whiting received a call at about midnight from a restricted line to the number posted on hundreds of $500 reward posters plastered around the city. Two voices Whiting had trouble understanding because of their slang and broken English, indicating to him they were about 9 and 16, claimed they had the pooch and demanded $100 more than the promised reward. "They kept saying if you want us to prove it’s your dog, we’ll hurt it so you can hear," the owner said.
In the background, Whiting heard whimpering and thinks it was Edna. "The sound of the voice was consistent with the pitch and cadence of my animal," he said. "They began to torture and abuse an animal. The sound — it was yelping and crying out and it was an animal in pain. I pleaded with them to stop it. I said I would pay the money."
The pair instructed him to come to the 4000 or 5000 block of what sounded like Norris or Knorr Street, the latter in the Northeast, alone that same night. When the alleged dognappers hung up, the owner called 911. Even if it was not Edna, he believes somebody’s canine was hurt that night.
Friend Marya Kaye of Bella Vista agrees.
"Even if it wasn’t Edna, there was another dog out there in pain. I found that phone call incredibly disturbing that someone could be that evil — even if it was a hoax," Kaye said.
Upon hearing of the torture from a reporter — the story having been covered by TV and print — Pennsport Civic Association board member Rene Goodwin — whose community figures prominently in the search and whose members have had several sightings of the canine — remarked, "Where is the humanity?"
Her community’s response does not shock Goodwin. "I’m not surprised to hear that at all. I would be disappointed to hear otherwise. It’s a real strong community. There are a lot people in this community that are strong animal lovers. People are very caring, they are caring about the elderly, youths and their pets."
Three hours after Whiting was first contacted on his cell, an adult male called the phone number on the dog’s collar — a line different from the one on the flyers and one that presumably could only be known by someone who found the canine or its collar. The man claimed, "’I’ve killed your dog. It’s dead,’ and hung up," Whiting said.
Adding to the confusion is a bizarre call 9 p.m. Nov. 14. The man spoke very quickly, claiming to have Edna and said if Whiting picked her up that night, he would accept $750, $900 if he didn’t come until Thursday and $1,000 when Saturday rolled around. If the dog was still unclaimed, he would kill her. The strangest part was he left no contact information or where to go. "I felt like I was in the middle of a Macy’s sale," Whiting said.
Saturday, the story took another twist when a Patrick Anderson contacted the pet-finding Web site www.dogdetective.com and said he had Edna. Anderson was a man in Nigeria claiming a Nigerian woman kidnapped Edna and flew her back to that country, he told Whiting. The man did not ask for money but gave a bank account to wire funds. Whiting reported the imposter to the site, who blocked Patrick Anderson’s e-mails and posted an apology.
"It’s a very good and legitimate site and they responded promptly in blocking this man," Whiting said.
It seems as the story progresses truth is stranger than fiction. "If you were paying me money as a screenwriter I could never have come up with this. It’s just as whack-a-doodle as it gets," he said.
At this juncture, Whiting said he doesn’t know what to think and can’t say whether Edna is alive or dead, but each day that passes with no sign of his pooch leaves him little hope. "The whole thing just makes me sick to my stomach. She was a good dog," he said.
The PSPCA’s $5,000 reward is $1,500 more than the recent high-profile case of Etana, the brown boxer who was beaten and set on fire over the summer and had been at the PSPCA since Aug. 23. Phillies second baseman Chase Utley and his wife footed the bill for the animal’s care, Rodgers said. Etana was adopted by a family Nov. 12.
Of the $5,000 for Whiting’s pet, $2,000 came from the PSPCA and $3,000 from a concerned citizen.
"Mr. [Howard] Nelson is very proactive about animal cruelty. He wants to see these cases go to trial and these people pay [with jail time]," Rodgers said of the CEO who took over in March and often instigates rewards in animal cruelty cases.
Sonja White, a friend of Whiting’s from Chester County, told the Review she would pay $600 for proof Edna is dead so her friend can have closure.
White and her son from Valley Forge joined about two dozen people on bikes and foot for a massive search that began 12:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at Catharine Street and Passyunk Avenue in Queen Village. The search concentrated on the Bella Vista, Passyunk, Queen Village and Pennsport areas close to where Edna went missing and sightings have been reported.
A 45-year-old Pennsport resident, who declined to give her name for fear that whoever called Whiting would find and harass her, joined the search. "This is one of your worst nightmares. It’s bad enough he lost his dog and he can’t recover it, but now he’s facing cruelty to the dog and extortion. It’s one big, bad package rolled into one."
Glenn Hauler and partner Michael Lauff, friends of Whiting, searched on bikes from their home at Third and Queen streets, paying close attention to alleys and side streets where the animal may have found shelter. "The atrocity of it is just devastating. It doesn’t matter who this happens to. Bill is just a kind, warm, caring person who didn’t deserve this. He needs closure on this. We hope that it means he finds his dog. If we can catch the people that did this, that would be something. It’s not going to bring Edna back, but these people should not be getting away with this," Hauler said.
The day after Edna went missing, Hauler took Whiting to the PSPCA and Philadelphia Animal Care and Control Association shelters, both based in the Northeast. "Even though she had plenty of tags, they might have been removed so we checked both of those shelters with no luck," Hauler said.
Whiting never had Edna microchipped because she never strayed far from his side, but hindsight is always 20-20. "It’s something that I would urge any pet owner [to do]," Hauler said.
And if his pet is found? "There’ll be fireworks and Tall Ships at Penn’s Landing," Whiting said with a laugh.
For now, the priority is finding the pooch — hopefully alive — the Pennsport resident who aided in the search said.
"We’re trying to get as much attention as possible to flush out somebody who has seen this dog or knows somebody. Somebody somewhere knows something," she said.
Edna’s owner added, "I hope that wherever she is, she knows she’s loved."
