Numerous people in northeast Ohio are feeling stuffed with anger after they say a taxidermist made off with their cash and animals.
"We were concerned. We didn't hear from him for quite some time," said Heather who didn't want to use her last name. She told me her husband shot a coyote in March of 2014 and took it to Miller's Taxidermy in Sheffield Village. The owner Todd Kinzel is seen in a 2013 The Morning Journal article talking about the taxidermy business.
Heather's husband has a skin in the game to the tune of a $300 down payment. "Drove by and there was just no response. And then out of the blue we get this letter from him,” explained Heather. After months of hearing nothing, a strange, handwritten letter arrived saying for health reasons the business closed. All work would be finished at some point but Heather told us "it's at an undisclosed location and no number to contact him at."
Sheffield Village police said 10-15 complaints came into the station about the taxidermist. Some even mounted efforts to find more info through social media. We found several people on Facebook wondering where their deer heads are, where their walleye and deposits are.
We also found the Ohio Secretary of State sent a notice to Miller's Taxidermy to renew the trade name registration in October of 2013 and then by February of 2014 sent a "cancelation by operation of law.”
"That's what's frustrating,” said Heather. “How are we supposed to know what's going on?"
Sheffield police took a shot and forwarded the complaints onto the prosecutor, but it was determined that all of the issues are civil matters not criminal.
After being pelted with dead-ends, Heather just wants what is rightly hers. "We just want the coyote back...or at least just refund us the money, but preferably we would like to have the coyote because it was like a prize for my husband."
We knocked on the door of an address where Todd Kinzel has been known to live, no one answered.
