Bucks County farm owner who fled to Belize to dodge animal abuse charges pleads guilty
Abigail Tuttle O'Keeffe, the owner of Narrow Way Farm in Wrightstown, entered a diversionary program that will spare her from jail, prosecutors said.
A Bucks County woman who presided over squalid conditions on a Wrightstown farm and mistreated more than 100 animals in one of the worst neglect cases in county history has pleaded guilty.
Abigail Tuttle O’Keeffe, 55, the former owner of Narrow Way Farm, entered guilty pleas to aggravated cruelty to animals, neglect of animals, and related crimes late last month. She was spared from prison by entering a diversionary program, prosecutors said Monday. O’Keeffe must attend substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, and is barred from owning animals.
Her attorney, Josh Buchanan, declined to comment Monday.
» READ MORE: A Bucks farmer flew to Belize, leaving 124 animals behind in one of the biggest abuse cases in county history
In August 2024, the Bucks County SPCA served a search warrant on O’Keeffe’s property after a farm manager notified the agency that a sheep had been found dead, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest.
Officers rescued more than 100 pigs, goats, and sheep, many suffering from infections, parasites, and other chronic medical conditions. One severely emaciated goat died while investigators were searching the property. Another one was so malnourished and riddled with parasites that it had to be euthanized after weeks of intensive care, the affidavit said.
Volunteers at Narrow Way who spoke with The Inquirer in 2024 said O’Keeffe, who holds a doctorate in developmental psychology, did not have the skills to match her ambitions of running a working farm.
Most of O’Keeffe’s workforce also had little to no farm experience, and the 36-acre property was in disarray, to the detriment of the livestock she kept there, according to some of those volunteers.
In one incident, workers botched the dehorning of a calf, leaving the animal with permanent nerve damage.
Word of the conditions at Narrow Way spread quickly: The owner of a nearby farm said O’Keeffe was not “a real, active farmer,” shied away from the work that required of her, and ran the operation like a cult, comparing her farmhands to “disciples.”
But when local investigators came to the farm, O’Keeffe was thousands of miles away. Prosecutors said she moved to Belize, where she was arrested in April 2025 on gun charges.
U.S. Marshals extradited her to Bucks County months later.
Staff Writer Jesse Bunch contributed to this article.
