A simple neighborhood dispute wound up going all the way to trial in Fairfax County.
Relief for a Virginia woman accused of not cleaning up after her friend’s dog. A Fairfax County jury found Kim Zakrzewski not guilty Tuesday afternoon.
“Will it offend you if I use the word poop?” the commonwealth’s attorney asked the jury at the beginning.
The dog poop trial was the latest chapter in an ongoing feud Zakrzewski said she had with two neighbors. Sisters Virginia and Christine Cornell accused Zakrzewski of failing to clean up after Baxter, a friend’s Westie-bichon frise mix she often looked after and walked.
“Every time she has the white dog, poop appears around our building,” Christine Cornell testified.
The Cornell sisters said they watched Zakrzewski for three days -- March 30-April 1. They photographed her walking the dog with a camera system in their third-floor condo at Penderbrook in Greenwood Court. They said they secretly followed her, cameras in hand, and watched her let Baxter poop in the common area, then fail to scoop it.
“Not once during the three days did she ever bend down, did she ever producer a dog bag,” Christine Cornell testified.
The sisters produced pictures of Zakrzewski with Baxter and of dog poop but none of the dog doing the alleged dirty deed.
"I'm asking you specifically if you have any pictures of the dog going to the restroom?" the defense attorney asked Christine Cornell.
“Do dogs really use the bathroom?” the judge interjected, eliciting laughter in the court.
“How do you know the pile of poop you took pictures of was the one he did?” the defense attorney asked.
“You can tell fresh dog poop,” Christine Cornell explained. “It’s that simple. Old poop dries. There was a moist appearance to it.”
The sisters testified that from their open window on April 1 they heard Zakrzewski boast to a neighbor that she leaves the poop on purpose to bother them. They live in fear of Zakrzewski, they said.
Baxter’s owner, Michelle Berman, was a key witness for the defense. The poop in the pictures was too big for 19-pound Baxter, who produces proportional bowel movements, Berman said.
“Looks like a horse’s poop," she said. “There’s no way that came out of my dog.”
She had a sample from Baxter in her car to introduce into evidence if necessary.
It wasn’t.
After all the testimony about size and consistency of excrement, the jury needed just 10 minutes to return the not guilty verdict.
The poop scandal wasn’t the first time Zakrzewski went to court because of Cornell sister accusations. She was acquitted of reckless driving charges in 2009 after the sisters accused her of trying to run them down in the parking lot.
