Free to a loving home, the March 7 Craigslist ad said: “Beautiful Yellow Labrador.”
A Simsbury couple saw the post — which showed two pictures of the dog, a 7‑year-old named Bella, and said its owner couldn’t have the animal at a new condo — and soon replied, making arrangements for Bella to be brought to their home within days.
Except the Stratford woman who wrote the ad allegedly never told her husband she was giving Bella away, and is due in court Thursday to face criminal charges of concocting a story about the dog being stolen in Derby as an explanation.
The woman, Carolyn Novotny, surrendered to Derby police April 15 after learning an arrest warrant had been issued charging her with second-degree falsely reporting an incident and second-degree interfering with an officer, both misdemeanors.
The five-page warrant, written by Patrolman Daniel Donston, was made public last week at Superior Court in Derby.
Background
The Novotny family of Stratford said Bella was stolen from the family’s car while parked at the Home Depot on Main Street March 11.
The family posted information about the alleged theft on “See, Click, Fix“ and the Valley Indy first reported the allegations March 13.
William Novotny told the Valley Indy at the time that his wife had gone into Home Depot for about 10 minutes to make a purchase. When she returned, the dog was gone, but the animal’s collar had been neatly left behind.
The owners worked incessantly on social media to locate the dog. They created a Facebook page called “Bring Bella Home,” where Bella’s story was shared thousands of times. The family also placed “missing” fliers throughout the area and offered a reward for information leading to the dog’s return.
On March 28, the family reported that Bella had been safely returned. The dog was allegedly found wandering the Interstate 84 area in the Hartford area by a family who wished to remain anonymous, William Novotny said at the time.
But that wasn’t true — he told the Valley Indy April 3 his family had recently moved to a condo from a single-family home, and that his wife gave the dog away without his knowledge because she felt the family could no longer properly care for Bella.
Initial Investigation
According to the warrant, Carolyn Novotny went to the Derby police station to report Bella stolen March 11, but almost immediately, police seemed to pick up on peculiarities in her story.
For instance, she said she asked Home Depot to check their surveillance footage, “however her car was parked to the extreme rear of the parking lot where the cameras do not reach,” the warrant says.
In addition, the warrant says Novotny said she was “unsure whether Bella went missing while she was in Stratford or whether she was in fact taken from her vehicle in Derby.”
Novotny and Donston met a few days later, according to the warrant, at which point he asked her to describe events leading up to the alleged theft.
At that meeting, Novotny told Donston that she believed Bella was laying in the backseat of her car when she went into Home Depot, “but was not 100 percent sure.”
The warrant also says Novotny was hazy about other details — she said she stopped for gas, but couldn’t remember which station, or what type of cars she parked near at Home Depot — and told police she initially drove around the area thinking the dog “may have gotten out accidentally.”
“Novotny could not explain why she waited two and a half hours to contact the police,” the warrant says.
The detail about the alleged thief leaving behind Bella’s leash also seemed to puzzle the patrolman.
“This affiant questioned why the alleged suspect would take the dog’s leash and collar off and place it underneath the seat before taking the dog,” Donston wrote. “Novotny could not explain this.”
He also noted that in the days after the incident, the family had posted numerous lost dog fliers and created a Facebook page to track possible sightings, but that he had not received any calls with leads.
Confession
The next development in the case mentioned in the warrant came a day after Bella’s return to Stratford, when Donston called Novotny March 29 after learning the dog had been found.
According to the warrant, she said her husband had picked the dog up in Hartford the previous day, but “did not know the specifics on how the family came to be in possession of Bella,” only that they had apparently found her roaming near Interstate 84.
Three days later, Donston got a call from Novotny, who told him Bella was never missing or stolen.
At the police station later that day, Novotny told police she had listed the dog on Craigslist without her husband’s knowledge, and gave Bella away to the Simsbury family March 11.
On her way home from dropping the dog off, she said she called her husband and told him she lost Bella, the warrant says.
But after the search for Bella got more and more attention, Novotny said she called the Simsbury family “to tell them about the Facebook page and all the publicity surrounding the dog.”
She told police that she offered to take the dog back to avoid further problems, but they elected to keep her.
However, about two weeks later the family called Novotny’s husband — after they had seen a post online about Bella being “missing” — and told him she gave the dog away. So the Novotnys drove to Simsbury to get Bella back after cutting the family a $750 check “for the inconvenience and stress they may have caused.”
Novotny said she gave the dog away because she and her husband had moved from a house with two acres to a condo, and that because of a recent diagnosed medical condition, she gets stressed, and felt the responsibility of taking care of a dog too much for her.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Novotny declined to comment, except to call the attention the case has gotten “ridiculous.”
