The cats died after eating chicken laced with antifreeze.

42-year-old Donna Clark ducked into the courtroom without saying a thing; her face covered with a scarf.

She's accused of setting out the bowl of chicken swimming in antifreeze to lure and kill her neighbor's three cats.

The allegations horrified the animal rescue group Pasado's Safe Haven.

The group brought demonstrators to the courthouse and paid for necropsies and toxicology tests to prove the cats were poisoned.

"It's one of the worst imaginable deaths," says Susan Michaels of Pasado's. "It's a prolonged death. It first attacks the central nervous system. They start losing balance. They fall. They froth at the mouth. Their eyesight goes. They're confused. They're scared. The owner had them euthanized because that was the kindest thing to do for them."

The demonstrators are calling for Clark's conviction on three felony counts of animal cruelty and the maximum sentence with jail time.

But Wednesday's court hearing was about bail.

Her attorney Shane Silverthorne argued she should be free on her own recognizance, citing her ties to the community and job at Western State Hospital.

"Mrs. Clark has never offered a mean or disrespectful word to any other person. She's an excellent employee," Silverthorne told the judge. "She works with highly vulnerable people and they don't have problems or suspicions or the like."

The judge agreed to let Clark go without posting bail.

So she returns home to live next to the parents and two young boys whose cats are dead.

"The boys, they didn't quite realize what death means. They weren't ever close to it before," says the cats' owner Joseph Ashbaugh. "These weren't cats to them. They were family to them. Now it's starting to show that they're not coming back and they miss them. And there's nothing they can do about it. One was up the other night crying for quite awhile."

Clark's trial on animal cruelty charges is set for August.

For More Information:

Pasados Safe Haven -- www.pasadosafehaven.org

Earlier story:

May. 19, 2005 -- 3 Pet Cats Possibly Poisoned to Death