Bart Hanson never owned a dog before. He finally took the plunge when he bought a bulldog and named it Charlie.
Desiring to have a professional train Charlie, he used gig work app "Thumbtack" to search for dog trainers. Thumbtack is used to hire various kinds of service people to take small jobs, such as housecleaning, home repair, etc. In this case, Bart was looking for a dog trainer there.
Unfortunately, despite Bart typically being very diligent regarding avoiding potential scams, he wasn't aware that Thumbtack was full of dog training scammers. He was of the belief that all reviews had to come from verified customers, and that he was simply hiring a well-reviewed trainer named "Lilly" from a company called "Wagging Good".
Lilly's real name is Josephine Ragland. She is already wanted in northern California for the death of another dog in her care, where she allegedly allowed a German Shepherd to die while being trained, and then returned a different German Shepherd to the owner, claiming it was the same dog.
She then ran off and set up shop in Massachusetts, where Bart currently lives. Charlie was supposed to live with her for 2 weeks and receive professional training. Instead, Ragland allegedly didn't train or feed him, and Charlie died on September 4. Rather than admit that Charlie died in her care, Ragland told Bart that he was simply missing -- until his emaciated body was found 115 miles away -- clearly driven there by Ragland and dumped.
Most obnoxiously, she sent updates regarding the training of Charlie after September 4, pretending he was still alive.
She is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation in both California and Massachusetts.
https://twitter.com/BartHanson/status/1707608634455109936
In addition to the USA Today article linked above, there's an article from local media where he lives, where you can see Bart being interviewed.
I feel awful for Bart in this situation. He finally got a dog, only to have his new pet killed by a scammer who simply collected the money and let the dog waste away.
Apparently Thumbtack is full of dog training scams, where people don't actually do any training (nor have any qualifications to do so), and then return the pet as if it were trained. But this one took it to the next level, where the woman apparently just completely neglected (or abused?) the dogs, and let them die.
Here is a picture of Josephine Ragland:
You can find a Facebook group about Ragland, created by the owner of the German Shepherd here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3684010155160812/