A woman has been charged with animal cruelty after 73 cats — dead, malnourished and one half-eaten — were found in her U-Haul truck in Tacoma.

Prosecutors charged the 39-year-old woman with 10 counts of first-degree animal cruelty and one count of animal cruelty in the second-degree failure to provide care, according to court records.

The woman is being held at the Pierce County Jail on $30,000 bail after pleading not guilty to the charges during an arraignment in Superior Court on Monday, records show.

Tacoma police were dispatched at 12:09 p.m. Nov. 7 to help animal control with a complaint at a motel in the 1800 block of South 76th Street. Animal control had been asked to check on a U-Haul truck that was full of cats, according to charging documents. Officers initially saw at least 2

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