Looking Back: The Cat Lady of Petaluma

In 2003, Marilyn Barletta’s bizarre story was about to get stranger|

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Marilyn Barletta, the San Francisco woman facing charges of animal cruelty for keeping more than 200 cats in her Petaluma home, spent the weekend in jail after she missed a court-ordered appointment.

Superior Court Judge Robert Dale ordered Barletta to remain behind bars after she missed an appointment with a psychiatrist to determine her fitness to stand trial.

She was held on $50,000 bail.

Earlier this month, the court appointed psychologist Thomas Cushing to evaluate Barletta to determine whether she understands the court proceeding and can participate in her defense. Barlett was supposed to meet with Cushing on July 11, but took a trip to Los Angeles instead.

Barletta, a former San Francisco real estate agent, was charged in May 2001 with animal cruelty, after police found 200 mostly feral cats living in a house at 200 Baker St., a home she apparently purchased with that purpose.

Animal control workers said the cats were living in deplorable conditions, although Barletta was driving up from San Francisco every day to feed them.

July 23, 2003

Petaluma Argus-Courier

The phrase “Crazy Cat Lady” was not technically coined to describe Marilyn Barletta, but there are few individuals in recent memory for whom the term fits so well. To this day - though many have forgotten Barletta’s actual name - the story of the Petaluma Cat Lady has rooted itself into popular culture, inspiring numerous magazine articles, websites and books, with our own curious true story joining countless other iconic Crazy Cat Ladies, including beloved characters on “The Simpsons” and “The Office.”

There’s even a Crazy Cat Lady action figure, a Crazy Cat Lady “magnetic sculpture” set, Crazy Cat Lady bandages, and a Crazy Cat Lady coloring book.

Even so, few other cat ladies - real or fictional - can match Marilyn Barletta for sheer bizarreness, dark comedy, and psychological drama.

It all began in May of 2001, when it was revealed that Barletta - a one-time San Francisco real estate agent and microbiologist - had been harboring nearly 200 feral cats in a residential house she owned not far from downtown Petaluma. After numerous complaints from neighbors that something wasn’t quite right at the two-story house on Baker Street (mainly the smell, which reached all the way out to the street), investigators eventually discovered nearly 196 feral felines occupying the house.

It should be pointed out that though Barletta owned the house, she did not reside there, but visited daily to leave food for her four-footed friends - and to deposit additional cats. By the time authorities finally intervened, the screeching, squabbling cataclysm of cats had thoroughly destroyed the place. Witnesses reported mountains of feces in every room, soaked carpets giving off moist clouds of toxic urine vapor, several mummied cat corpses, and the cannibalized remains of at least six long-dead cats.

Arrested and charged with several counts of animal cruelty, Barletta’s strange story turned her into an instant cult figure all over the world. To some she was a joke, to others a misunderstood hero. For nearly two years, she was in and out of local courts. For several months following her initial arrest, she continued to collect cats and deposit them at the Baker Street house, from which she had been legally barred, as it was still considered an active crime scene.

Barletta was quickly revealed to have operated other kitty compounds in rented houses and offices in Sebastopol, Novato and Sausalito.

But the story was only just beginning.

In July of 2003, Barletta had been arrested again for failing to meet a court-appointed psychologist (see excerpt in sidebar of Argus-Courier article). Shortly after her released on bail, Barletta disappeared. After four months on the lam, during which she hid out in her mother’s vacant house in Florida and other locations (with a carload of cats, it turned out), she was eventually recognized and arrested again at a hotel in San Francisco. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and in May of 2004, was declared incompetent to stand trial.

She was committed to the Charles W. Norton Mental Health Center in Santa Rosa for treatment.

The house on Baker Street - which Barletta had refinanced in order to raise the cash for her cross-country escape - was foreclosed upon and seized by the bank. It ultimately sold to an Oakland-based real estate investment company for $450,000. In 2005, The Press Democrat published a story in which Francis Ho, a partner in the investment firm, admitted that after spending $50,000 on repairs and renovations, the place still smelled like the armies of reeking cats that had once lived there, and remained unsold at that time.

Barletta’s story inspired a website titled Cat Stash Fever, and went on to be told in graphic novel form in the book, “Pet Noir: An Anthology of Strange But True Pet Crime Stories.” In that book, by Shannon O’Leary, with illustrations by August Bornique, Barletta’s story is mention right on the cover, under the title “The Petaluma Cat Lady.”

For all of her notoriety, it should not be overlooked that Barletta was seriously ill during her time in the spotlight. Though many saw her compulsion as comical, and others saw it as a threat to the well-being of cats, there continue to be those who believe she deserves the same pity and compassion one would feel for most people with debilitating mental illnesses.

And for what it’s worth, she isn’t exactly alone. Though no other “Crazy Cat Lady” has surpassed Barletta’s reputation in Petaluma, there was a fellow named Roger Dier who, in 2006, was found to be caring for over 1,000 rats in his one-bedroom Petaluma house. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle dated June 27, 2006, Dier was quoted as saying that, though his rat colony had admittedly gotten out of control, “he still loved the rats, and they loved him.”

As for Barletta, the Cat Lady all but dropped out of limelight after her institutionalization. According to a letter posted in the Weekly Calistogan on Sept. 2, 2004, written by Rev. Linda Dew-Hiersoux, Pastor of the United Methodist Church, St. Helena, Barletta had just been released, after about four months at the Mental Health Center.

No other news-related mention of the Petaluma Cat Lady, or her post-treatment life, can be found. Only the sordid details of what has become one of the strangest and saddest pet-related chapters in modern Petaluma history.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Marilyn Barletta, the San Francisco woman facing charges of animal cruelty for keeping more than 200 cats in her Petaluma home, spent the weekend in jail after she missed a court-ordered appointment.

Superior Court Judge Robert Dale ordered Barletta to remain behind bars after she missed an appointment with a psychiatrist to determine her fitness to stand trial.

She was held on $50,000 bail.

Earlier this month, the court appointed psychologist Thomas Cushing to evaluate Barletta to determine whether she understands the court proceeding and can participate in her defense. Barlett was supposed to meet with Cushing on July 11, but took a trip to Los Angeles instead.

Barletta, a former San Francisco real estate agent, was charged in May 2001 with animal cruelty, after police found 200 mostly feral cats living in a house at 200 Baker St., a home she apparently purchased with that purpose.

Animal control workers said the cats were living in deplorable conditions, although Barletta was driving up from San Francisco every day to feed them.

July 23, 2003

Petaluma Argus-Courier

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