WINDSOR, ONT.—A Windsor man has pleaded guilty to charges in connection with more than 150 dead cats being found in a freezer and refrigerator.

Authorities say 155 dead cats and 49 living ones were found in an apartment in downtown Windsor last December following complaints about excessive cats.

The apartment was also littered with puddles of urine and feces while autopsies found the cats had been cannibalizing each other.

Jerry Miernecki, 61, has been handed one year of probation and can only have one spayed or neutered cat at any time for the rest of his life.

Miernecki was charged with failing to comply with an order and permitting cats to be in distress under the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

Windsor-Essex County Humane Society director Melanie Coulter said in January that investigators believe the cats were kept in the freezer so they could be buried later — not for any malicious reason.

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