A stray cat seen through a hole in an iron panel covering a basement window in the Belarusian capital Minsk, Monday, Feb. 4, 2013. Municipal authorities in Belarus are walling up stray cats in basements in compliance with Soviet-era regulations, dooming them to death of hunger. Belarus doesn't have shelters for stray animals. Municipal authorities said they wall up doors to basements in line with sanitary norms introduced in 1990, when Belarus was still part of the USSR. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) (The Associated Press)
A Maine town and a group of cat caretakers have sued estate trustees in a long-running dispute over a woman's wishes that her life savings go to care for abandoned cats.
Barbara Thorpe died in 2002 and left most of her $200,000 estate to give food, shelter and veterinary care to the stray cats of Dixfield. The Sun Journal reports that only a few thousand dollars have been given for the cats' care. Lawyers have taken more than $16,000, and the estate's trustees received over $22,000.
Dixfield and five women who care for the town's strays sued the trustees last week. The suit says the trustees excessively billed fees to the trust and have failed to carry out Thorpe's wishes.
The trustees' attorney says they "vehemently deny any wrongdoing."
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