Updated

Two north Florida women facing animal cruelty charges were found dead of an apparent double-suicide.

Union County deputies reported finding the decomposing bodies of 53-year-old Jeannette Brown and 39-year-old Tina Vetterlein at a Lake Butler home on Thursday. Autopsies showed that each woman had died from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head from different firearms.

The women had each been charged in September with 14 counts of animal cruelty and 14 counts of animal abandonment. Authorities began investigating after receiving complaints. Officials eventually seized nearly a dozen horses, along with two dogs, a donkey, a goat and a bull.

Authorities believe the women might have been dead since November.