Attorneys for two Salina Animal Shelter employees facing trial on misdemeanor animal cruelty charges are requesting a change of venue, and that the Saline County Attorney’s Office be disqualified as the prosecuting agency.

Motions filed on June 30th contend the misdemeanor animal-cruelty case “has become the focus of a sustained, organized, and escalating public campaign against the Defendant throughout Saline County and the surrounding region. Local and regional news outlets have published theDefendant’s name and booking photograph; a single news post drew approximately 2,000796 comments, and 308 shares. Members of the public have publicly called for the Defendant to be hanged, “strung up,” fed into a wood chipper, and “euthanized” “the same way” as the animals; have posted gallows and noose imagery; have circulated her booking photograph beneath the banner “Let’s make them famous”; have asserted the central disputed fact of the case as though it were proven; and have openly volunteered to sit on her jury. The prejudice in this community is pervasive, inflammatory, and ongoing. An impartial jury cannot be empaneled here.”

The defense also seeks the disqualification  of “John Reynolds, the elected Saline County Attorney, and the attorneys of the Saline County Attorney’s Office, from further participation in the prosecution of this matter, and for the appointment of a disinterested special prosecutor.”

In support of this Motion, the Defendant states prosecution is brought by the Saline County Attorney’s Office.

“John A. Reynolds is the elected Saline County Attorney and the head of that Office.According to the probable-cause affidavit of Deputy Kody Trower, thE investigation originated not with any law-enforcement observation but with citizen complaints, principally from Kimberly Hill and Michelle Timson. Hill acknowledged that most of her information came from “public records, Animal Shelter Advisory Board meetings, and word of mouth.  That same constituency has conducted a sustained and escalating public campaign against the Defendant, including the publication of her booking photograph, demands that she be“made famous,” and numerous violent and threatening statements.

The motion also contends “on or about Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at approximately 6:31 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus, Linda Reynolds, who is the spouse of County Attorney John A. Reynolds, was photographed distributing signs and/or materials on behalf of Justice for Shelter Animals—the organized group aligned with the complaining witnesses and publicly advocating against the Defendant in connection with this very case.  The spouse of the elected prosecutor is thus not a passive observer but an active participant in the private campaign that generated this prosecution and that continues to seek the Defendant’s public condemnation. The head of the prosecuting office shares a household with a public proponent of one side of this partisan community dispute. On information and belief, the signs the spouse was photographed distributing are the same “Justice for shelter animals” signs now posted throughout the Salina community, directly tying the prosecutor’s household to the pervasive public campaign against the Defendant.”

Animal Services Manager Monique Hawley and Operations Superintendent Andrea Murphy are both facing charges which include three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. Both waived the reading of the formal charges, and the Judge entered not guilty pleas for them.

A jury trial has been scheduled for early September.

If found guilty, the potential penalty would be 5 days to 1 year in jail, and a fine between $500 and $2,500.