“We couldn’t believe what we found inside the home,” San Antonio police officer Chet Daniels said. “In all my years on the force, I’ve never seen anything like this. There were cats and dogs everywhere, just covered in fecal matter. It was sad.”

When police officer C. Daniels served a warrant on a luxurious home around 8 a.m. on Sunday, he expected it to be a routine call. After receiving noise and smell complaints from neighbors, officer Daniels and his partner Jason Stewart paid a visit to the well-to-do 100 block of Sioux Circle. When they knocked on the door, there wasn’t an answer… But they knew someone was home, because they saw the curtains move and a person peek out from behind the blinds.

After several minutes of insistent knocking, an attractive older lady in hospital scrubs came to the door. “She was really tentative at first,” officer Daniels remembered. “She would barely open the door and seemed embarrassed.” Once the officers explained that they were there to serve a warrant and had legal access to the interior of the home, the woman stepped aside and allowed the officers to enter.

What they found in Dr. Amanda Nichols’ home, shocked the young officers, made the local news, and even had San Antonio residents picketing the doctor’s office…

“Based on the fecal matter, all the ammonia with the urine, there are some health concerns that are possible, so as a precaution, we went back out to our cruisers and put on Tyvek suits," officer Daniels said.

When officers Daniels and Stewart entered the doctor’s home, they were shocked at what they found. Cats and dogs, too many to count, roamed freely throughout the property and the furniture and carpeting was completely ruined with animal waste. “There was literally dog and cat poop everywhere. You stepped in it, you just couldn’t avoid it,” officer Stewart recalled. “And so many of the animals were sick with feces matted in their fur.”

The doctor was strangely detached from the proceedings going on in her living room. She sat on a small ottoman in a corner and looked down at her shoes. “Where she was sitting, that was the only clean place really in the entire home. You could tell that was her little place that she sat,” said Daniels. “It was weird how her clothes were so clean. In fact, she looked like she was getting ready to go to work with her scrubs and lab coat.”

In addition to the cats and dogs living in absolutely deplorable conditions, there was something else about the good doctor’s home that made headlines…

“If you’ve ever heard of hoarding behavior or read anything about it, it’s where people feel that they can’t throw anything away,” officer Daniels explained. “So they keep all kinds of things, trash, boxes of old newspapers. And eventually the entire home becomes filled with these items.”

The hoarder makes small trails through the mountains of boxes and stacked up belongings, so they can move from one room to another. “Well, Dr. Nichols had taken this to a whole new level. She literally had stacks of boxes and stuff up to the tops of her twelve foot ceilings,” said officer Stewart. “And a lot of the cats would climb up to the top and just sit perched up there. We had to bring in a latter and help from the SPCA to get some of them down.”

A total of twenty-six cats and dogs were removed from the doctor’s home. One animal was euthanized due to the extensive nature of its injuries. The others are receiving medical treatment at two different local SPCA facilities. “But you know, once we got up on the latter and started investigating what was up at the top of the stacks, that’s when we really started freaking out,” officer Daniels said.

Sometimes, the truth is honestly much stranger than fiction…

“We eventually found five dead cats, three dead squirrels, ten or more dead birds, and we stopped counting at twenty-five dead mice,” officer Stewart remembered. “The bodies were completely dehydrated and preserved. They probably just, over time, dried out up there.”

After the animals were removed, the doctor was booked into the San Antonio city jail on 26 misdemeanor charges of animal abuse. According to the district attorney’s office, other charges are likely to follow pending the investigation of the deceased animals’ remains. The San Antonio Police Department said the rescued animals are being checked for microchips to see if they belonged to a different owner. Dr. Amanda Nichols was not available for comment.

What would make someone want to have so many animals in their home? Are they crazy? Well, veterinarian Dr. Michelle Gonzalez says hoarding is a mental illness. “People don’t hoard animals necessarily just because they want to do it. It’s kind of like a compulsive disease,” she said. “People get emotionally attached to these animals. They’re not neglecting them and abusing them because they are trying to cause them harm or be mean, on the contrary, they’re hoarding them because they love them so much.”

But the kind of love that Dr. Nichols showed to her animals was of a sick and twisted nature! After a veterinarian with the San Antonio SPCA examined the dogs and cats rescued from the home, he discovered something appalling…

“Well, two of the dogs had internal contusions consistent with sexual abuse. We couldn’t actually be sure because the animals were so malnourished, and often times, internal bleeding and bruising occurs when an animal is starved like that,” said Dr. Frank Paulson. “What’s so troubling, is that the alleged perpetrator is a doctor herself.”

While there are sexual abuse statutes that apply to animals under a person’s care in Texas, the district attorney’s office has not filed any additional charges at this time. So what became of Dr. Amanda Nichols? After spending about twelve hours in the city jail and posting a $200,000 bond, she was allowed to return to her home on Sioux Circle. Her court date has not been scheduled. However, the local affiliates picked up the story and several ran pieces on the evening news. The public outrage was swift and resulted in pickets at the doctor’s private practice.

“She received death threats over the telephone and through the mail. She hasn’t been back to work as far as I know,” said officer Daniels. “It’s important to get hoarders help from a mental healthcare professional, otherwise they could go right back to collecting animals all over again. It’s also important to report suspected cases of hoarding to humane officers,” Dr. Michelle Gonzalez said.

How much time would you give this sick woman?

Do you believe animal hoarding is a mental illness?