Most of us who’ve handed our car keys to a valet or our dog’s leash to a stranger know that little flutter of “please don’t let anything go wrong.” For Natalie Jones of Englewood, Florida, that flutter turned into a full-blown nightmare. She booked a sitter through the Rover app for the first time ahead of a trip abroad in early July, figuring she’d done her homework. The sitter had 39 recent reviews, worked as a vet tech, and even owned a dog grooming business. On paper, it looked like a home run.
It wasn’t. When Jones got back and pulled up footage from her home security cameras, she says what she saw broke her heart. Her two dogs, Harry and Buddy, were allegedly screamed at and kicked by the sitter, Sara Bettencourt, simply for coming to greet her the way friendly dogs do.
That was just the start of it. According to an arrest report obtained by Gulf Coast News, cameras also caught Bettencourt and another person rifling through cabinets and the refrigerator, and allegedly loading trash bags full of Jones’ belongings into a car before driving off. Jones says audio from the footage included talk of drug use, and video appeared to show one of them washing out their nose in the sink…