Cat Was Potentially Stolen; Followed The Crumb Trail But Have Now Hit A Dead End.

Location: Denver, Colorado. My sister adopted an abandoned 2yo cat about 5-6 years ago. The cat went missing Monday 9/21; and my sister looked all over the neighborhood for the next few days. She’s (or he, we’re unsure of the sex since it looked really feminine) indoor/outdoor cat that always comes home before dark (no, she doesn’t murder any birds else we’d keep her inside). On Thursday 9/24, we found a post on Nextdoor from this lady in the neighborhood about her daughter and her friend finding the cat and taking her home with them and is looking for the owner. However, the tag on her collar has my sister’s address and phone number on it already. They could have called my sister directly or just drop the cat off since it’s only two blocks away from where they found her. My sister managed to get a hold of this lady, and was told that they took her to a vet to get checked out and afterwards her “daughter’s-friend’s-sister” took the cat to the Denver Animal Shelter. Admittedly my sister is still young and a bit emotional and was being rude to the lady, so it’s hard to get any information out of her. This is where I took over so she doesn’t poison the well any more.

Today on Friday 9/25, we checked the databases from the shelter’s website and can’t find her on there. I even stopped there by earlier and gone through the database again with them and walked the kennels as well but the cat is nowhere to be seen. No cat matching my sister’s ever showed up on the date we were told it was dropped off. We even checked the databases of the other shelters in the metro area incase in case they lady accidentally told us the wrong shelter. Afterwards I went to the vet that the lady said she took the cat to and the vet confirm the cat had been there. The vet told me she recommended that lady they take the cat to the Denver Animal Shelter.

I want to give the people who found my sister’s cat the benefit of the doubt because they seem like they were trying to do the right thing, but at same time, they were the last ones in possession of the cat. The cat would have been home by evening like she does everyday had they not taken her. At point between the vet visit; the hand off the lady’s “daughter’s-friend’s-sister”; and the drop off at the shelter, the trail went cold. The lady won’t give us the contact to the sister of her daughter’s friend either, but I don’t want it to look like my sister is harassing her.

At this point, I’m kinda at a loss of what to do. My sister wants to file a police report, but I’ve been trying to hold her off on it. Should just let her and get the authorities get in involved or are there other avenues we should take first?