GILBERT, Ariz. — They had names like Snickers and Zoey, Maci and Buick. They were golden retrievers, beagles, Shih Tzus — dogs coddled by owners reluctant to leave them with strangers.
Those worries were eased, though, after driving down that pocked dirt road to Green Acre Dog Boarding, finding a homey atmosphere and wide-open lawn.
The family that owned the business, operated out of their home, told them the dogs would spend their days running free, their nights cuddled in beds inside. Only a few animals would stay at a time, the dog owners say they were told.
But one day in June, sheriff’s investigators arrived at the home to find dozens of dogs, most of them dead. Some had been wrapped in blankets and left in front of the house. More than a dozen others had been piled in a tool shed.
The dogs, investigators found, had been crammed in a poorly ventilated 9-by-12-foot room for hours on end, left panting and thirsty as temperatures climbed in the sweltering Arizona summer. They slowly died of heat exhaustion and suffocation.
Since then, the stunning allegations of neglect — with a son of a United States senator as one of the accused, and a notoriously get-tough lawman with a soft spot for animals leading the investigation — have gripped Gilbert, a town about 20 miles southeast of Phoenix, and the entire area for months.
“You had the victims, who were very angry — they didn’t let this stop,” said the sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, whose reputation extends far beyond his jurisdiction. “They showed how concerned and angry they were losing their pets, and how it was done in that small room. That made it a little different.”
And that difference helped put Sheriff Arpaio, better known for issuing news releases about the “federal government release of criminal aliens onto American streets,” in the sensitive position of investigating Austin Flake, the 21-year-old son of the Republican Senator Jeff Flake.
The junior Mr. Flake and his wife, Logan, 21, were caring for the dogs while Logan’s mother and stepfather — MaLeisa Hughes, 45, and Jesse Todd Hughes, 32, the owners of Green Acre Dog Boarding — traveled to Florida in June. During that trip, 22 of the 28 dogs that were held in the 9-by-12 room died, some with no food in their stomachs; the defendants say that one of the dogs chewed through a cord to the air-conditioner in that room, where most of the dogs were locked up for the night.
Public vigils for the dogs drew hundreds of mourners. Plans have been drawn up for a memorial at a park as a tribute to the dogs referred to as the Gilbert 23, including one who ran away from Green Acre and was hit by a car.
“It really shook up the community,” said Cary Heath, whose family lost three dogs: Happy, Cloe and Rosie. “The community has been behind us on this. I thought we were just completely betrayed and nothing would come of this, but we’ve met a lot of wonderful people and changed a lot of lives.”
Details of the case, including the voluminous report from Sheriff Arpaio’s office, have dominated the local news. One local resident called it the “dog equivalent of the Jodi Arias trial” — a news media circus of a murder case here.
In October, a grand jury indicted the two couples on multiple felony charges related to animal cruelty, and the Hugheses also face fraud charges. The Hugheses pleaded not guilty last month. On Thursday, the Flakes are scheduled to be arraigned and will also plead not guilty, their lawyer said.
“These are two innocent people who have been going through a nightmare that’s really unfair when all the facts have not come out,” said Dennis I. Wilenchik, the Flakes’ lawyer. He also condemned the sheriff’s department’s investigation as “heavy on publicity but devoid of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing.”
The defendants say that on the night of June 19, the dogs were ushered into what was known as the “slumber room,” that 9-by-12 room where pets had been kept many times before without any problems, according to a statement from the Hugheses’ lawyer, Robert P. Jarvis.
The room was cooled separately from the rest of the home by an air-conditioner, they said. When Mr. Flake went to check on the dogs at 5:30 the next morning, it was sweltering.
A dog, they said, had clawed through the drywall and chewed through the air-conditioning wire. At that point, the defendants’ lawyers say, Mr. Flake went to work trying to cool off the dogs that were still alive.
In the sheriff’s department’s investigation, forensic experts said that it was not possible for a dog chewing on the cable to have disabled the air-conditioner — an inadequate unit that had been poorly maintained.
But the defendants’ lawyers released electric company records showing a dip in energy consumption at the home corresponding to the time the dogs died that they contend was consistent with the size and type of the air-conditioner in the room.
“The Hugheses committed no crime,” Mr. Jarvis said in the statement. “They managed an open and well-respected boarding facility. They did not intend for the dogs to die. They did not knowingly do anything to cause harm or the deaths. They did not know of any risk of harm or death.”
For the young couple especially, the notoriety that has come from the dogs’ deaths has been ruinous, Mr. Wilenchik said. For the families whose dogs died at Green Acre, the months since have been filled with anguish. Many say they struggle with the feelings of betrayal, believing they had taken their beloved pets to a “doggy Disneyland” only to have them locked in a stifling and claustrophobic space.
“It looked perfect from the outside, but we were deceived from the moment we dropped our dogs off,” said Shannon Gillette, who lost two golden retrievers, Sherman and Parker.
Others cannot erase the image of the dogs’ bodies — bloated, some with blood seeping from their noses.
“I’m still angry,” said Jesus Cabrales, 40, of Peoria, Ariz., who picked up his Rhodesian Ridgeback named Sonny Corleone from Green Acre wrapped in a blanket.
A number of people have gotten new dogs, but the memories of their former pets are painful.
Ms. Gillette recalls Sherman walking down the aisle at her wedding, filling the role of her husband’s best man. Jan Miller, who lost her Catahoula mix, Roxy, still comes across Roxy’s tennis balls when she trims her bushes and mows the lawn. Heather Bennett lost her dogs — Remington and Valor — just as her husband, who is a reservist, was called up for service.
“They were supposed to be my security blanket,” Ms. Bennett said. “They were supposed to be my protectors. And now I’ve got nothing.”