On October 26, 2023, defendant Monique Cook appeared via Zoom from Wayne Brown Correctional Facility to answer questions in court surrounding her failure to make restitution payments over the 2021 grizzly attack of her two dogs on livestock owned by the Sierra County Future Farmers of America (FFA) students at Loyalton High School; an attack so violent it will no doubt never leave the memory of any student or staff who bore witness to the incident or who was left to attend to the injured and deceased animals.Courts found on or about March 20, 2021, Cook willfully and unlawfully allowed her two dogs to attack, injure, and kill livestock, including two ewes, a ram, and one lamb. Court documents denote this was not the first time the defendant had allowed her dogs to run in town loose, “unleashed and without collars.” On April 6, 2021, Sheriff Fisher (Chief Animal Control Officer) presented the case to the Board of Supervisors. Despite an assessment in which Fisher deemed the

The arraignment for former Sierra County Behavioral Health employee Brandie Purvis began on October 12th and will be continued on October 24th, 2023. Judge Jane York Punneo appeared less than thrilled with Purvis attending the initial arraignment hearing on the 12th via Zoom and made crystal clear her order for the defendant to be personally present on the 24th.Purvis is charged with four felony counts: theft from an elder or dependent adult by a caretaker, embezzlement, identity theft, and grand theft. Messenger readers were made aware of the allegations against Purvis in the September 14th, 2023 edition by a press release from the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office, which stated, “[Purvis] illicitly accessed the victim’s banking cards and subsequently made unauthorized purchases, amounting to thousands of dollars in merchandise, that was delivered to her residence.” Purvis remains out of jail on a $20,000 bond, with several instructions forbidding her to contact t