Police in Pennsylvania said a man who buried his dead cat in a neighbor's tomato garden was charged with trespassing.

ADVERTISEMENT

Patricia Lapsanky Lutz, 55, of the Slatington area, said she was preparing to plant tomatoes Thursday when she came across the carcass of Patches the cat, the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call reported Tuesday.

"All I did was turn the soil over maybe 10 inches, and there were paws sticking out," she said.

Lutz called state police to have the cat exhumed and it was identified as Patches, a cat belonging to neighbor John Paly, 49.

Paly admitted to police that he buried the cat in the garden May 30.

"He said he didn't have anywhere else to bury it," Lutz said.

Paly, who said he expects to pay a $30 or $35 trespassing fine, said he felt he had the right to use the plot to bury his cat because he had tended the garden for 16 years before Lutz moved in and another three years after she arrived. He said he does not believe the police needed to get involved.

"All she had to do was come over and say, Hey, I don't want the cat buried there," he said.

Patches is now at rest in a Slatedale, Pa., pet cemetery.

Lutz said she does not plan to plant any tomatoes in the cat's former resting place.

"I won't touch that soil now," she said. "I just can't. I don't know where I'm going to put them now."