Shannon Miranda, Miranda’s Rescue logo.

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In the affidavit for a search warrant served at Miranda’s Rescue on May 1, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Detective Julian Aguilera reveals that the Sheriff’s Office has taken eight dead dogs into evidence. The dog carcasses were covered in dirt and blood, and some if not all have what appear to be bullet holes in their heads, the affidavit says.

According to Aguilera’s sworn statement, two women, one of whom lives on the property right next to the nonprofit animal rescue in Fortuna, admitted to trespassing onto Miranda’s Rescue property in the dead of night and digging up the dead dogs from a mass grave. The women said they’d captured owner Shannon Miranda on a motion-activated trail camera earlier that day using a tractor to dump the carcasses into a hole, Aguilera reports in his statement.

The affidavit goes on to say that Miranda, the 55-year-old man who founded the animal rescue operation 28 years ago, lied about the fate of at least one of those dead dogs, telling staff at the Oakland shelter where it had come from that the dog been adopted. Miranda also lied to the Sheriff’s Office, Aguilera statement says, and after investigating the situation and interviewing the key people involved, the detective concluded that Shannon Miranda had killed those eight dogs as part of a money-making scheme.

“[I]t is my belief that Shannon murdered these dogs so that he could accept more from Oakland Animal Services for financial gain,” Aguilera’s affidavit says.

The operations manager of the Oakland Animal Services Shelter, Melinda Tierney, told Aguilera that Miranda would get paid $400 to $1,000 for every dog he accepted from the shelter, via a nonprofit affiliate. The Oakland shelter was transferring hundreds of dogs per year to Miranda’s Rescue, enough for him to generate at least $178,000 in revenue over the past three years alone, the affidavit says.

Meanwhile, public records reveal that over the past two years at least, Miranda’s Rescue was receiving hundreds more dogs from shelters scattered across the state, from Del Norte County to Palm Springs.

The Sheriff’s Office’s Major Crimes Division is now investigating Miranda over “credible” allegations of felony animal abuse, animal cruelty, fraud and conspiracy.

Attempts to reach Miranda for this story were unsuccessful. Calls to his cell phone trigger a voicemail message from Miranda inviting the caller to leave a message, but a recording then says the mailbox cannot accept messages. Texts sent to the phone showed they went through but they did not receive a reply.

More than 600 dogs received in a year

Aguilera’s affidavit notes that Miranda’s Rescue advertises itself as a no-kill rescue, adoption and sanctuary facility. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating the rescue operation and four local thrift stores, the organization is “encouraged” to abide by the same guidelines and recommendations as shelters in the state, but it’s not mandated.

“The is no regulatory body that oversees Miranda’s Rescue,” Aguilera attests.

Miranda’s Rescue has formal Memorandums of Understanding with a variety of cities, counties, animal shelters and nonprofits around the state and beyond. This includes shelters in Oakland, Berkeley, Contra Costa County, Monterey County and Solano County. The cities of Fortuna, Rio Dell and Ferndale all paused their contracts once news of this investigation broke, and Oakland has reportedly done the same.

The Sheriff’s Office has obtained copies of the contracts that Miranda’s Rescue has with several of these government organizations, and they show the prices that Miranda requests for taking in dogs, according to Aguilera’s affidavit. While the local governments pay him a flat monthly fee — $450 per month from Ferndale, $800 per month from Fortuna and $1,450 per month from Rio Dell — other shelters (or the nonprofit organizations that partner with them), pay between $400 and $1,000 per dog.

“Of all the agreements, Solano County is the only shelter that has a term listed [stating] that Miranda’s Rescue may not euthanize a dog to create space for additional dogs,” Aguilera’s statement says. “In the past year, it is estimated that Miranda has received approximately over 600 dogs from various shelters. This number does not include any animals privately surrendered to Miranda’s Rescue. It is estimated that Miranda’s [Rescue] received approximately $510,000 in payment for caring for these dogs.”

Sabrina Woods is a volunteer at Solano County Animal Shelter. In a phone interview Monday she told the Outpost that this shelter alone sent 126 dogs to Miranda’s Rescue in 2025, via a nonprofit rescue partner, at a rate of $500 per dog.

Jennifer Raymond, founder of the nonprofit Humboldt Spay/Neuter Network and one of the women whose trespass operation triggered the current Sheriff’s Office investigation, has long been suspicious of operations at Miranda’s Rescue, and a little over a year ago she purchased the parcel right next to it.

“And I thought, ‘This is the way to find out, because I will be right there,’” she said. 

Asked whether she really bought the property for that sole purpose, Raymond replied, “I did.” After a beat she added, “I mean, it happens to have a wonderful old Victorian on it, and I love fixing up old houses. But … I bought it specifically so I could see what went on at Miranda’s Rescue, and to try to figure out where these animals were going.”

Aerial view of Miranda’s Rescue. | Google.

‘Guilty of lying’

On April 27, the morning after Raymond and her friend Jenna Moore (aka Jenna Kilby) say they dug up the dog bodies, Detective Aguilera interviewed Miranda at his Fortuna property. In his affidavit the detective says Miranda was “very open with law enforcement,” opening his home and offering a tour of the facility.

He denied killing and dumping the eight dogs that had been found.

“Shannon advised that he was not truly a no-kill shelter and that he did the best he could with the resources available to him, … ” Aguilera’s statement says. Miranda told the detective that he typically employs a veterinarian to euthanize animals but occasionally has to shoot one himself when “immediate action was required to prevent further suffering,” the affidavit says. 

Miranda admitted to taking compensation for surrendered dogs but said he uses the money for their care. He also admitted to being over capacity, with 69 dogs currently onsite despite terms in his conditional use permit allowing a maximum of 60.

Also on April 27, Raymond and Moore called the Sheriff’s Office that same day to report that they’d seen multiple large loads of dirt delivered to Miranda’s Rescue a day earlier and deposited in the same field where they’d dug up the dead dogs.

Aguilera saw the dirt mounds during his tour of the facility and asked Miranda about it. “Shannon informed us that he was trying to level the field for his horses,” the affidavit says.

Once the bodies of the dead dogs were obtained by the Sheriff’s Office, investigators found that six of the eight had been microchipped for identification.

Moore had told Aguilera that she’d identified one of the dogs as Zora, a big, black female with clipped ears who’d recently been shipped to Miranda’s Rescue by Oakland Animal Services. Aguilera spoke with that shelter’s operations manager, Melinda Tierney, who confirmed that Zora had been delivered to Miranda’s less than a month earlier. She said Zora had no temperament issues and was in good health at the time.

A social media image showing Zora before she was sent to Miranda’s Rescue.

“Melinda stated that a shelter employee received a picture message from Shannon Miranda on April 25, 2026, of Zora on a leash with the message, ‘Zora adopted,’” Aguilera’s statement says. 

Tierney told Aguilera that the shelter had arranged to bring seven more dogs to Miranda’s Rescue a few days later. Aguilera’s interview with Tierney led him to conclude that Miranda had killed those eight dogs so he could accept another lucrative shipment from Oakland, the affidavit says.

Woods, the volunteer from Solano County, told the Outpost that she tracked other dogs from the hole to shelters in Oakland, Berkeley and Palm Springs. One of the dogs, named Charmaine, was described in a social media post as being friendly with people and other dogs.

Charmaine, another of the dogs allegedly dug up on Miranda’s property, in a social media post.

Woods said she personally visited the shelters in Oakland and Berkeley so she could present the evidence she’d gathered.

On Monday, in a story by the Times-Standard, Oakland Animal Services Director Joe DeVries said his shelter immediately stopped transferring dogs to Miranda’s Rescue after learning about the investigation and hearing from “a Solano County volunteer.”

Woods confirmed that this was her.

On May 1, the day Miranda’s Rescue was searched, Miranda spoke on the phone with Tierney, the Oakland shelter’s operations manager. “He again lied to her and told her that Zora was adopted out,” Aguilera’s affidavit says.

Later that day, Miranda spoke with DeVries, who said he wanted to retrieve any remaining Oakland dogs from Miranda’s Rescue. Miranda told DeVries that he did not have good records and said several of the dogs he’d recently received from Oakland had to be “put down,” or had jumped out of cars, the search warrant says.

“Shannon admitted [to DeVries that] he lied about Zora” but said he did so “to spare the transport officer’s feelings,” Aguilera’s statement says. Miranda later told Humboldt County Animal Control Officer Andre Hale that he’d had to put Zora down because the dog had killed a cat and bit him. 

“Shannon told Andra [sic] that he was guilty of lying,” Aguilera’s statement says. 

A records check on Miranda revealed that he had a misdemeanor embezzlement conviction in 1993. Despite the age of the conviction and the fact that it was expunged from his record earlier this year, Aguilera says in his affidavit, “it shows a pattern of Shannon’s behavior in business.” 

According to the affidavit, Oakland Animal Services transferred 445 animals to Miranda’s Rescue from 2023 through 2025. If Miranda charged $400 for each of those dogs (the lowest amount specified in his agreement with the shelter’s affiliate organization), then “Miranda’s Rescue would have generated approximately $178,000 in revenue,” from that shelter alone.

Aguilera concludes that Miranda is “killing the dogs for financial gain” and says in his affidavit, “It is believed there may be more victims of potential abuse or fraud.”

‘Very complicated’

The Outpost recently obtained heavily redacted copies of Sheriff’s Office reports with similar allegations. Two years ago, for example, the office received a call from someone reporting that Miranda’s Rescue was receiving a $500 surrender fee and then “just putting the animals down under false pretenses of rehoming [them].”

In February 2025, the Sheriff’s Office received another report from someone who said they’d surrendered three healthy dogs to Miranda’s Rescue and at least two wound up dead. The report says Miranda confirmed that all three dogs had died but he didn’t have euthanasia records. 

“Per Miranda one died in kennel, one [was] euthanized by adoptive owner, one died in foster care.”

Reached via phone on Tuesday, Humboldt County Undersheriff J.D. Braud acknowledged that despite all of the evidence gathered thus far, this remains a “very complicated” investigation.

“We’re trying to utilize all options, including calling in additional resources or experts where we can,” he said. 

Aguilera’s affidavit says, “Due to some of the dogs being shot in the head, I request to seize the firearms located at his property to ensure no other dog is killed, and in order to locate the firearm that was used in Zora’s death and to prevent the killing of any future dog.”

He goes on to say, “I believe that he [Miranda] is prepared and able to destroy evidence.”

According to the search warrant return inventory, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office seized the following from Miranda’s Rescue on May 1:

  • a Ruger 10/22 rifle with ammo
  • a Beretta .380 pistol with 11 boxes of ammo
  • a Remington 870 model shotgun with ammo
  • a pellet gun, bb gun and air rifle
  • adoption records and related paperwork
  • a gray tote, and
  • various electronics, including an iPhone, a laptop and a flash drive

Raymond said she knows that she may well be criminally liable for trespassing, but that doesn’t bother her.

“I have to go to jail for this I’m willing to, because I will get great pleasure sitting in a court of law under oath, talking about what I’ve witnessed,” she said. “Because it is absolutely abominable that anyone would do this — to the animals, and also to the people who thought they were saving those animals.”

The Sheriff’s Office is requesting any tips or information relevant to this investigation be called in to their tip line at 707-268-2539

Miranda’s Rescue’s entrance. | Google Street View.