Oklahoma man charged with torturing dogs he was hired to transport, several found dead

A metro man is in trouble in St. Louis, Missouri--where he's accused of abusing and torturing dogs he was hired to transport. 

Several were found dead or critically injured.

“They basically put them in an oven,” said Brooke Thompson, Gone Rogue Girls Rescue Inc. founder. 

At the time of his arrest, Robert Peters was transporting 16 dogs that were bound for rescues across the country. Peters was hired by several rescue groups to transport the animals. 

Brooke Thompson, founder of Gone Rogue Girls Rescue, hired Peters to transport a Cane Corso mix named Captain to her New Jersey rescue. Captain and the other dogs were pulled from shelters and were rescue-bound.

“Captain has a forever home waiting for him, and that was the whole point,” said Thompson.

Thompson says just hours into Captain’s journey, Peters, who’s licensed by the USDA to transport animals, cut off all communication.

“It doesn’t seem right that he’s not, you know, no more pictures, we're used to pictures, location-everything,” said Thompson.

She was later contacted by a transport organizer, who informed her that Peters had arrived at a crematorium with four dead dogs. Due to a lack of paperwork on board the van, Thompson says she was mistakenly told Captain was one of the dogs who didn’t survive. She was told a generator hooked to an air conditioning unit in the back of Peter's van had stopped working. In triple-digit heat, the dogs travelled through California and New Mexico.

“Many of them came from cruelty or near death in a shelter, and some of them didn’t survive when they got a second chance, and that's disgusting to say you’re a human being at that point,” said Thompson.        

Employees at the crematorium took photos of Peters’ arrest after alerting police to the deceased dogs and other animals found caged in deplorable conditions.

“They were already in the heat, super high temperatures, no food, no water in the bowl,” said Thompson.

Thompson says Peters should never be allowed around animals again.

“To fully pursue it, whatever it is. Whether it's pressing charges and making his life ten times harder or whatever it is. The conditions were horrendous--none of these dogs deserved that,” said Thompson.

Peters remains jailed in St Louis without bond. He's charged with multiple counts of animal abuse and torture.

In May, News 9reported Peters' six-year-old son was mauled to death by a family dog at their Lexington home. The Cleveland County District Attorney declined to charge anyone involved in that case.