Cat’s tale has a happy ending
Published: May 17, 2006
Bailey is clearly the luckiest cat in the Pointes.
The big Maine coon cat went out for a walk almost a year and a half ago and never came home to his family’s Grosse Pointe Woods colonial. His family — Grosse Pointe Farms Police Officer Tom Shimko, his wife, Kelly Shimko, and their daughters, Gabrielle, 9, and Olyvia, 7 — tried desperately to convince themselves that Bailey had simply gotten lost and maybe been adopted.
For Kelly Shimko, that always seemed like a stretch.
“All this time I’ve been telling my husband, ‘I really think someone stole that cat,’ ” she said. “He’s so friendly and beautiful.”
Last week, in an amazing coincidence, Tom Shimko’s colleagues at the Grosse Pointe Farms Department of Public Safety solved the mystery that had been plaguing the Shimkos.
Officers started an investigation in January, after 57-year-old Sylvia Gray parted ways with Eastpointe-based All About Animals Rescue and allegedly refused to return the animals she was taking care of.
When the search was over last week, officers had confiscated 42 cats, three dogs and six birds from deplorable conditions in Gray’s home off Kercheval.
Gray has been charged with misdemeanor larceny. Police say child welfare workers are investigating conditions at the now-vacant home, where Gray’s two teenage children also lived.
“Out of the 42, he was the 38th cat pulled out of the place,” Lt. Rich Rosati said of Bailey. “I know — I was writing them down as they came out.”
Problem was, no one knew Bailey belonged to the Shimkos. It wasn’t until later, when the family saw news reports, that Kelly Shimko had an idea.
“Wouldn’t it be something if Bailey was in that house?” she said she asked her husband. “He said that would be a long shot.”
Nevertheless, the Shimkos called Rosati. Pretty soon, one of the animal rescuers e-mailed them a digital picture of a cat, at thumbnail size, that Kelly Shimko said didn’t look much like Bailey. Her two daughters watched anxiously over her shoulder.
“So I click on the photo,” she said, “and it was like we won the lottery here. We all started jumping. ‘It’s our Bailey!’ ”
Soon Tom Shimko had picked Bailey up.
“He immediately came up to us and was purring, letting us know that he knew us,” Kelly Shimko said. “He knows he’s home. We cried that day.”
Apart from a slightly chewed ear, an upper respiratory infection and a not-too-pleasant odor, Bailey seems none the worse for wear, she added.
Not all the animals recovered from the home are as well off, said Amber Sitko, president of All About Animals Rescue. Gray was a former volunteer at the nonprofit rescue service. “Our bills are astronomical,” Sitko said. “We had a vet come in Saturday and spend six hours going through them all. There are some pretty serious health problems. We’ve got like a MASH unit going here.”
Sitko said the Shimkos were the first people reunited with a pet removed from Gray’s home — and it almost didn’t happen.
“That cat was one of the last ones that we brought out of the house,” she said. “We almost missed him because he was hiding behind the washer. … That cat is the luckiest cat in the world right now.”
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