This story is about mini horse Bernie, who was originally named Kuma.

But I’ll come back to him in a minute. To start this story, I first want to share that I love to do puzzles. (This is related, I promise!) As someone who suffers from anxiety and depression, they are one of the ways that I quiet down my racing brain, relax, and calm myself.  I mean in order to do this they have to specifically have less than 500 pieces and the pieces can’t be too small, otherwise the puzzle will just stress me out, haha. I like Disney puzzles, animal-themed, pretty scenery.  I have a very large collection, and I do one almost every night. Again – they’re relaxing, they’re easy, they’re a nice distraction when I need one, and they help me wind down.

Working on the Twist of Fate “puzzle”, by contrast, has been frustrating, maddening, upsetting, difficult, sad, time-consuming, and does the complete opposite of relax or calm me down. I have spent hours, days, weeks and MONTHS pouring over every photo and video from this case, reviewing old posts and downloading Instagram videos from the sanctuaries that took in the animals just so that I can pause them and/or zoom in. I’m trying to match animals in posts with old photos, new photos, photos where animals aren’t named or are only partially shown. Plus I have a very limited number of puzzle pieces since I only have access to the old TOF Patreon and Ashley DiFelice had always posted more on the TOF Instragram or Facebook, both of which have been dark for over a year and a half.

Before I publish or post anything I fact check as much as possible, I research the medical terms and ailments for the animals so that I can understand them myself and explain them to others. I have researched nearly every single “horse term” that I have ever come across because I know less than ZERO things about horses (Palomino, gelding, Appaloosa, percheron – I knew what none of this meant, lol). I contact the sanctuaries that took in the animal that I’m writing about or that were there on those first few days at Twist of Fate in order to double-check something or ask questions – sometimes I get lots of helpful answers, sometimes I’m ignored and my story sadly and frustratingly remains partially or completely blank. I do all of this in order to tell their stories as accurately as possible, to help other people to research things about this case if they want to, to relay what happens at the court appearances, and to piece together this horrible puzzle.

I have done a lot of research into a variety of topics, and most of it is awful. It keeps me up at night. I came across photos of the skull of a bird from the TOF property that I wanted to include in an update but I couldn’t tell if it was from a turkey, a chicken, or a duck so I started to look into it. Googling that turned out to be a huge mistake and it was quite upsetting and triggering seeing image after image of skulls of dead animals. In the end I just ended up captioning the photo with a sad and generic “bird”. I would’ve really liked to determine what bird that was, what his or her name was, and what happened to them. Animals are given so little dignity at times, and I always want to do my very best to give them even a shred, especially when monsters rob them of it. But even I have my limits – sometimes those limits are psychological and emotional, sometimes they are physical, and sometimes I will just never get access to the information I am seeking. And there are so many questions that will NEVER be answered. It’s hard, on my end, to accept this. Because I want to complete all the puzzles.

I remember the first time that I was able to fit two pieces together when I first started gathering and going through my research and files. It was for little sheep Ethan, formerly named Poe, and I had his new photos where he was gaunt and sad, and his old baby photos of him tiny and plump. You can recognize his reverse widow’s peak “from a mile away”, but to someone like me who has never spent any time at all with “farmed” animals and didn’t know anything about identifying any of them, this was a very overwhelming project and I was at the very beginning of it. It felt like the biggest victory. Was this sheep an obvious match? Yes. But it was one of the first two pieces of this puzzle that I could confidently and without a doubt match up, so even the easy pieces were a relief.

In digging for clues and posting about stories, I have had a few people message me and ask me, if I had the opportunity, what would I say to Ashley? What would I ask her to help me piece all of this together? I have also had people message me some suggestions or what they would say, and the one that I hear most often is that they want to ask her “What happened?" or "How could you let this happen?” And I understand this. 

Me? I don’t care. There is absolutely nothing that she can say that would make any of this okay. There isn’t a reason that exists under any circumstances that would excuse any of her actions and inactions. She isn’t suffering from any kind of mental illness – her deliberate, premeditated actions speak volumes in the opposite direction of any “mental duress”. Way back when this story first broke, the sanctuaries involved in the cleanup were not sharing the name of the person who did this for a while. When it finally came out that it was Twist of Fate and that it was Ashley, my immediate thought was that something tragic had happened to her young son, Deacon. It must have, because in the entire time that I was following her she seemed to love the animals so much and to love the work that she was doing. (She fooled us all). I was incredibly upset, because like everyone I adored Deacon. An adorable little boy helping his mom care for animals was what brought me to following and donating to Twist of Fate to begin with. When I heard that all of this happened at Twist of Fate, I got a horrible pit in my stomach - something must have happened to Deacon.

It wasn’t long – hours maybe? before information starting pouring in and one very important detail about this case stood out. I had concern, sympathy, and empathy for Ashley…until I read that animals had been locked in stalls, already dead or left to starve to death. This was different – this one bit of information, this one act showed that everything she did was deliberate. She wasn’t suffering, she wasn’t grieving – she made a conscious choice to kill these animals. She completely meant to do this. Within those same moments I found out that Deacon was fine. Any concern, sympathy, and empathy that I had for her vanished immediately.  I am not exaggerating when I say that it happened in an instant, like a switch had been flipped. Other details came to light – she was offered help many times, and turned it down. She had lost her non-profit status, yet didn’t tell anyone and continued to falsely collect donations. She raised funds for new “rescues” over and over only to not buy or give them food, water, medical care, or even just…attention. She continued to post on social media like everything was fine, again – just to continue bringing in donations. While animals at her home were dead and dying, she was all smiles on vacation in Instagram posts. My reaction was immediate, but I had to wade through days, weeks, and months of people expressing concern and discussing her made-up mental duress (it’s so insulting to those of us that ACTUALLY suffer from mental illnesses when people use them as a made-up excuse for horrific actions, as if anyone that has them is capable of such monstrosities). I had to wait days, weeks, and months for others to stop making excuses for her, mourning her, or feeling sympathy for her. Not that everyone was in the wrong to feel these things – many of the people going through this were her former friends and colleagues. It was just hard to watch, and hard to stomach. I felt like there were a small number of us that had this very important piece of this puzzle, and others were just…not seeing it yet. It was frustrating, and it broke our hearts on behalf of the people that formerly called her a friend or colleague.

Well - with all of the above being said, I have been looking for Kuma for a very long time. For months I never even saw a picture of him – he wasn’t anywhere in the TOF Patreon posts to find out how he originally came to be there, and more importantly for me to see what he looked like, which obviously would have helped in spotting him if he had turned up in someone else’s posts.

All I had to go off of was his description on the survivor sheet – he was a mini black gelding around 20 years old and was missing hair on his pole (the area immediately behind the ears). From the court documents, I knew that he had a body score of 0.5. Kuma is one of the 17 charges of animal cruelty against Ashley DiFelice.

I have gobs of files about this case everywhere, and I have looked through all of them probably 100 times. I didn’t see any mini horses that matched his description in anyone’s photos or videos. There were several mini horses at Twist of Fate, and the only one that came close to looking like Kuma was a mini named Kevin*, but I knew where he was. I finally found one among my files that looked like it could be Kuma (tiny, black, incredibly emaciated) so I asked around, but unfortunately no one could remember where he went. The first few days of the rescue were a blur for everyone, and so much had to be done while they were all simultaneously processing their shock, grief, horror, and anger. Still, I knew that Kuma was ALIVE since he was on the list of survivors but I still really wanted to find him, especially since he’s one of the only animals out of 100+ that managed to become one of the animal cruelty charges. Though she should have been charged for every single animal, alive OR dead since she either tried to kill them or succeeded in killing them. This is cruelty. This is neglect. This is abuse. I wanted to finish Kuma’s puzzle even though I had almost no pieces for it and it was so far from even being close to complete. My best guess was that he went to a private home somewhere, since none of the rescues or sanctuaries that took in animals from the case had him.

I was chatting back and forth about a week or so ago with Triple 7 Rescue & Rehab about mini mule Queso* when I was writing about him, and she ended up sending me a link to every photo that she had from the time that she was on site helping with everyone’s rescue. This proved to be incredibly helpful since she was one of the first rescues that was on the scene. Among her photos I saw TWO that were of a dark bay mini that definitely did not match Kevin or any of the other horses and also looked like it could be Kuma. She also said that that particular horse had originally been in a field with a horse named Moose*.

We both did some asking around and it turns out that Kuma was one of the first animals removed from the former Twist of Fate site and before the majority of the sanctuaries showed up to help, which explains why he wasn’t in any of their posts or videos from that day. Lesley from Bluemont Equine Sanctuary confirmed that he went with Leanne of Goats of Anarchy and then to someone that Leanne’s vet recommended. That person, Marnie, started Lame 2 Fame Horse Rescue (@lame2fame_horse_rescue) in Basking Ridge, New Jersey with Kuma being their very first rescue in the beginning of August 2022. They named him Bernie.

Under someone’s loving care Bernie was able to gain weight, his skin condition cleared up, and he learned that he could trust humans again. He made friends with the other animals and he loves to bathe them (especially the donkeys). He LOVES attention and is always close by, just in case you want to give him some pets.

I have been looking for Kuma for so long that he is one of the only animals from TOF that I still accidentally call by their former name. It was one of the notes on my chart, prominent, highlighted, and all by itself: “Where is Kuma?” Every so often I would revisit this puzzle. It is of course a habit that I am determined to break though! BERNIE is doing wonderfully. I knew he was alive somewhere, but knowing that he had a body score of 0.5, knowing that he was one of the 17 charges of animal cruelty against her – I really, really just wanted to be able to see him as he is now…happy, healthy, and healed. I didn’t have a single photo of him for so long, and then the only photos I had of Bernie he was sickly and so, so thin. You can see that in the photo above, taken while he was still on the former TOF property. I wanted a new image of him in my head – a better image. Finding Bernie and completing his puzzle brought me so much joy, satisfaction, and such peace of mind. 

To complete Bernie's puzzle for yourselves, please check out Lame 2 Fame Horse Rescue on Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok! If you would like to donate towards his care, you can do so on their website, Venmo (@lame2fame), Zelle (lame2famenonprofit@gmail.com), or PayPal (linked on their website). You can also send him something from their Amazon Wishlist, or become a monthly sponsor! You can also reach out about personally sponsoring Bernie by emailing them at lame2famenonprofit@gmail.com. Thank you to Lame2Fame for taking in this sweet boy and taking such good care of him. 

 

Thanks to all of you for reading too! 

 

*You can read about Kevin and Queso, and Moose will have his story shared soon! 

 

To find out how you can help ALL horses, please click here to sign The Safe Act. You can also sign a petition that was created to save the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park here. 

 

Also: Animals are here with us, not for us, and should not be used, abused, exploited or commodified in any way. None of should look at an animal and wonder what they can do for us or what they can provide for us, whether that is food, clothing, recreation or entertainment. To learn more about how riding horses or any animal is exploitative and cruel (whether or not you identify as a vegan), please click here and here. 

 

 

Ashley DiFelice's next court date is Thursday, February 22nd. Please continue to share the petition in the meantime! Thank you.