A Montgomery County goat rescuer raised thousands to rebuild her sanctuary. Now she’s being charged with animal torture.

When flames tore through a Montgomery County goat sanctuary in the spring, Sharon Mathers rushed to the scene, prepared to put her lengthy experience in animal rescue to good use.

Little could prepare her for what she found in the ashy remnants of the House of Wiggle farm.

“What I saw were animals eating animals,” said Mathers, a volunteer from Rose Bridge, a nearby farm, who was one of the first to arrive at the Lansdale property. “The pigs were eating goats and pigs.”

In the remnants of the sanctuary’s barn were piles of animal bones, Mathers observed, similar to the decayed remains scattered throughout the property. Elsewhere, chicken carcasses that had been dead “for a couple days” before the fire rotted in the open, while goats — those not among the 40 animals to perish in the blaze, according to Erin Wiggle, the sanctuary’s owner — were found riddled with bacterial infection.

“I’ve never seen emaciated farm animals like this, ever,” Mathers said. “There’s no reason for it. It had nothing to do with the fire.”

Mathers expected Wiggle would face swift charges of animal cruelty and become a pariah among animal lovers and the community.

Instead, Wiggle raised tens of thousands of dollars online.

In the weeks since the May 28 blaze, Wiggle’s efforts to rebuild the sanctuary alongside her husband, Michael, were documented by a friend on GoFundMe, where dozens of surviving animals like Swiss the cow, Jackie Chan the goat, and Otto the pig became characters in a feel-good story that would ultimately raise more than $68,000.

But after Montgomery County prosecutors filed charges against both Wiggles last week, details around the harrowing conditions in which their animals lived before the fire broke out are coming to light.

In all, Erin and Michael Wiggle face more than a dozen felony and misdemeanor charges that include felony animal torture, animal cruelty, neglecting to provide water and food, and neglecting veterinary care.

Reached by phone last week, Michael Wiggle said the couple were “not making any statements at this time.”

As of Thursday, the couple had yet to be scheduled for a preliminary hearing.

A GoFundMe spokesperson said the fundraiser was under review in light of new information.

“We have reached out for additional information, and a hold has been placed on funds during our review,” the spokesperson said.

The family friend organizing the fundraiser, Shaina Columbia, said Sunday on GoFundMe that she could not speak to the “upcoming legal battle” but that House of Wiggle had been submitting all veterinary bills, which have amounted to $50,000 so far, to GoFundMe.

“We prove that what we say the funds are being used for is exactly what it’s used for,” Columbia wrote. “That is also why the GoFundMe has not been taken down.”

She added that none of the animals had been “sickly, underweight, abused or ‘tortured.’”

Still, details in the criminal complaints mirror the accounts of three volunteers from separate organizations who told The Inquirer they were among those who responded to assist Wiggle’s distressed animals after the fire, which local fire officials ruled accidental.

According to the filings, a Humane Society police officer visited House of Wiggle two days after the fire because of reports that numerous animals that had not died in the blaze looked “skinny” and were “eating deceased animal remains.”

Investigators noted five senior goats and two pigs that appeared underweight, cross-referencing the claims the couple made to the animals’ veterinarians.

Concerned that veterinary care had been needed for the animals prior to the fire, investigators seized three goats and the two pigs. The goats were found to have a generalized decrease in muscling and high parasitic loads, and required nutritional plans and medication.

The pigs, meanwhile, had thinning or missing hair and mild hypothermia, were also underweight, and needed nutritional plans and medication, according to the complaint.

The most serious charges say Erin Wiggle “did intentionally or knowingly torture” two of the goats — Gandalf and Bilbo — and two pigs by allowing “severe and prolonged pain through prolonged deprivation of food or sustenance,” the Humane Society police officer reported.

Investigators said the Wiggles had failed to provide necessary sustenance and veterinary care to all five of the seized animals.

Volunteers with Eastern Snouts Adoption and Rehoming did not need the charges to understand the scope of the abuse.

When members of the adoption agency lent Wiggle a female potbellied pig, Peppa, in October for temporary rehoming, they believed they were leaving the husky animal in good hands.

Erin Wiggle shared images of a radiant-looking Peppa with Eastern Snouts in the days after taking her in, according to one volunteer, who asked not to be identified over fear of retaliation.

Six months later, when Eastern Snouts volunteers visited House of Wiggle to help in the fire rescue operation, the starving, skeletal animal was unrecognizable, the volunteer said.

“It was absolutely devastating,“ the volunteer said. ”Peppa went to Erin semi-overweight, and she left Erin completely emaciated.”

An initial veterinary report for Peppa, viewed by The Inquirer, said the animal had a uterine infection, chronic abscesses, pneumonia, and a poor body condition.

After what looked like the beginnings of a recovery, Peppa died “naturally” on July 13, the veterinary report says.

The Wiggles deleted their Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok pages amid the fallout of the investigation and charges.

A blurb about the operation on an animal adoption website says that House of Wiggle Goats started as a “small hobby farm in 2016″ but that the operation grew post-pandemic, with people turning in all kinds of farm animals to the couple as they started going back to work. House of Wiggle began the process of becoming a registered rescue and nonprofit in 2023, and acquired nonprofit status in January 2024.

At the time of the fire, Fox 29 reported House of Wiggle Goats had about 120 animals, including goats, pigs, chickens, and rabbits.

Like Mathers, Susan Magidson went to House of Wiggle after the fire, removing 14 struggling animals from the property.

“I took all the babies I could find,” Magidson said. “One nursing mother — a burn victim — as well as the skinny ones, the ones that were really needing to be fed.”

Magidson, with Ross Mill Farm in Jamison, said she saw a sheep in a field that she believed was sleeping. Finding it hadn’t moved four hours later, she realized it was dead.

Magidson and Mathers suggested Erin Wiggle was a “hoarder” of animals who was unable to care for her continually increasing numbers of livestock. That theory was affirmed for Mathers when rescuing one of Wiggle’s goats that, due to a suspected leg injury, was only able to hobble on three hooves.

Wondering how the abuse went unreported, Mathers believes the lot, set back from surrounding suburban homes, was largely concealed from outside eyes.

“When you get back there it’s a disgusting eyesore, but you can’t see it from the road,” she said. “All the houses around there are absolutely beautiful.”

For animal rights advocates, the charges are a form of vindication after having urged people to refrain from donating to the farm’s GoFundMe.

Animal rescue is a game of Tetris where neuterings, shots, and animal transport to permanent homes require constant coordination with other organizations and volunteers, they say. Groups offer to teach new animal rescues the ropes, and word spreads if a place is not adopting best practices.

Revolution Philadelphia, a woman-led animal rights organization, and Eastern Snouts took to Instagram and Facebook shortly after the fire to highlight red flags and share gruesome images of rotting animal corpses that volunteers captured on the property.

The day investigators visited the property, the House of Wiggle Facebook page made a long post pushing back on the social media posts and complaints that led to the visit.

“I wish every animal that came into Rescue was a perfectly plump animal with no issues, but unfortunately, that is not the world that we live in,” said the later-deleted post, which did not deny claims that animals had been dead on the property before the fire.

“Yes, we use the composting method because we cannot individually dig graves, and have tombstones for every animal that ever dies on our property,” said the post, which included screenshots of individuals who had spoken ill of the shelter online.

“Release the hounds, ride at dawn! Whatever you have to do brings these people down,” the post said of those critics.

Meg Barlow, president of Bunny Brigade Inc., an animal shelter operating in Wilkes-Barre, Philly, and Harrisburg, was featured in the screenshots.

About two years ago, Barlow said, she asked the farm if it planned to spay and neuter a large crop of recently acquired rabbits, only to be told off. It was odd and the large acquisition raised a red flag because rabbits require a lot of space, Barlow said, but she watched from afar until the fire. She balked as she read Erin Wiggle defend the use of carcass composting.

“I’m in the Poconos, we’re surrounded by farms, and let me tell you, nobody has ever heard of that,” Barlow said. “That’s not something that you do.”

The House of Wiggle charges are a reminder that the animal rescue system is “totally broken,” she said.

In addition to criminal prosecution, Mathers, the Rose Bridge Farms volunteer, hopes the ordeal will lead to the sanctuary losing its status as a nonprofit.

“The amount of suffering on that farm, from being hungry, emaciated, injured, and not being helped — it’s not a sanctuary,” she said.