This has to be one of the most hideous things I’ve read in a while.
Rodney Travis Jr. pleaded guilty this week to beating and maiming nearly 20 cats before uploading videos to social media claiming the animals had cancer and begged for donations.
After prosecutors linked Travis to multiple TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts where he scammed unsuspecting users of more than $400,000, the 27-year-old was charged with animal abuse and computer fraud.
Henrico County Circuit Judge Linda Lambert accepted a plea agreement requiring Travis to spend 15 years in prison, the state’s longest such sentence.
Rodney Travis Jr. has been given the largest sentence for animal cruelty charges ever imposed in Virginia.
— Richmond Times-Dispatch (@richmond.com) September 24, 2026 at 10:03 AM
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Henrico prosecutors brought charges after discovering that Travis used three Henrico hotels to gather footage of the cats he would use for fundraising.
A sister hotel of one of the identified hotels told police on February 13 that Travis had checked in at 2 a.m. that morning before leaving at 9:50 a.m. When investigators searched the room, they found cat blood and hair, prompting them to obtain a search warrant for his apartment.
Investigators rescued six cats from Travis’s dwelling, five of which survived; one named Vivi, who suffered a crushed skull, died on its way to the veterinarian.
Inside Travis’s apartment, the investigators found cat beds covered in blood, a leather book of hexes and curses containing cat blood and fur, a dozen devices used for the fraud and a whiteboard spelling out the fraud’s details.
Under several aliases, Travis posted videos of distressed cats with captions like “I don’t want to lose my best friend” or “she’s all I have.” Prosecutors say that a veterinarian who analyzed the footage ruled that the cats suffered blunt force trauma.
From the local NBC News affiliate 12 On Your Side:
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