By Laura Bell
Michelle Knuttila Cochran, and the co-founder of the HiCaliber horse rescue, Romney Snyder (and other primary players at the rescue) are used as examples of the rescue racket throughout our book, “The Animal Rights War: Lost Souls and Ruined Lives.”
The last chapter is devoted to relating how they went from virtually unknown in rescue to very prominent through the use of manipulation, lies, illegal activities, and most importantly, under-regulated, virtually lawless social media platforms.
We use them as prime examples of scam-artists in rescue because we have thousands of pages of documentation that backs up everything we have written about them as factual. However, although we’ve never heard of any other rescue that has shot to death well over 200 healthy animals in just a few years, they are not alone with high levels of fraud, misrepresentation, false pretense, embezzlement, and having mentally abnormal, true believer, enabler-followers that go on the attack of anyone their gurus direct them to attack. We know of several rescues that hopefully soon will also be under investigation.
Another blog, “Hicaliber Horse Killers,” began covering their illegal activities of the past 5+ years beginning in September 2016, and also their illegal killing of horses via bullet to the head, complaints filed, etc.
Several people have been aware of their crimes, cruelty, and also the disappearing of hundreds, if not over a thousand horses that were supposed to be “safe in rescue” through the use of millions of dollars of donated funds.
Unfortunately, it took several years from the beginning of their criminal and cruel activities 5+ years ago for more people to wake up, and then it snowballed. I pray the killings and disappearing of innocent horses has stopped.

[…] horse rescuer named Laura Bell entered the debate. She was critical of Knutilla and seems to have provoked some heated responses criticizing […]
I am as anti HC as they come. But, to use Laura Bell as a source. Eek! Pot, meet Kettle!
YIKES, Yikes, another cowardly hicaliber horse hater groupie enabler. Michelle sure has trained you poor dears well. LOL
And why is anyone thinking I’m “the source”? I mean I do have thousands of pages of documented facts to back up my statements, but I’d never even read this blog before it was posted on a couple of anti-hicaliber and anti-alphamare pages. I made a factual comment using my own name and it was used as a blog post. I have no problem with that, but watching you cowardly ignorant, petty, small minded fools come out of the woodwork with your effortless lying about something you know nothing about (I pray you’re not raising children but you all probably are tragically enough) reminds me of why hicaliber got as far as they did over a period of 5 years with their hustle.
I notice Laura Bell didn’t mention Shedrow Confessions blog mmm I wonder why?
Marty UK, I SHARE every, single shedrow blog post in various places (although I do note incorrect info if/when I know it’s not factual because I only deal in facts), so what in the world are you talking about?
If you mean the one she wrote about us; since everything she wrote was “info” gotten from michelle and romney and we turned in all of our information to authorities when we were investigated and we were exonerated, why would I mention a blog post that was not factual on many/most points? That would be silly, right? I would have been happy to speak to shedrow but I don’t deal with people that don’t identify themselves when we’re dealing with important information. I think it keeps people more honest when we know who we’re speaking with…..wouldn’t you agree Marty?
We do mention shedrow in our book if I remember correctly, and not in a negative way, because even though they wrote non-factual stuff about us, by the time they engaged in May 2017 regarding hicaliber, our concerns regarding the illegal shootings of horses at hicaliber had been out in the public for 9+ months, more and more people were speaking up, with many more gaining courage in numbers and they were ready to speak up too. IOW, info could be fact checked through multiple people that had been burned by hicaliber, in addition to those people we’d been in contact with since late-2013.
Now tell me Marty, are you another true believer, horse hating, enabler follower of hicalibers? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Laura Bell is your source ?
You might need to do your homework, Frank.
https://shedrowconfessions.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/antis-behaving-badly-starlight-sanctuary/
Golly gosh MN (why are all you women so afraid to use your own name? LOL), where do you think shedrow got their “info” about us? Yep, from michelle, romney, etc when they were pulling the wool over everyones eyes. Shedrows “facts” came from the hicaliber players and we have thousands of pages of factual evidence refuting it, which led to our exoneration. You really should buy our book so you’re not so sheeple-like. LOL
Sadly enough, you’re just another small-minded, nasty, petty woman (doubtful you’re a man because men don’t generally do petty, catty, nasty crap that anonymous cowardly women do) that was, and probably still is a true believer enabler follower of hicaliber and michelle. You probably also say you’re a horse lover, but that’s obviously a lie because if you were you’d not be acting like a gossipy POS and tearing down people like us who spend nearly every penny we earn taking care of horses with issues that you’d never care for for the rest of their lives. Go back to the hicaliber playpen, michelle has your fireball pacifier. LOL
I have a great affinity for horses and I’m very interested in this story. Thanks for sharing. I will keep reading and doing some homework.
Go back and read all the Shedrowconfessions from the start.
Laura Bell is hardly one to talk. She has a personal grudge against Romney and Michelle because Laura Bell herself used to run the same scam with Romney.
Laura Bell was running kill buyer scams with Romney Snyder until Michelle busted her for neglecting and hoarding animals. Animal Control was involved with dispersing the animals at Laura Bell’s ranch, and we all know AC doesn’t move in easily.
Romney took her scamming expertise straight to Michelle, and instead of scamming straight from the kill pen, they scammed straight from auction and the kill buyer.
Laura has managed to put together some good info regarding Hicaliber and Michelle, but please don’t buy her book and let he prosper from her own abusive past. Disgusting.
More evidence that, in general, women are more cruel to others than most men could ever imagine.
Don’t be so sure about that. Most serial killers and killers in general are men. And even though AM is vile and hurt countless people, KAR did more damage for a longer period of time.
Women can be emotionally abusive, (not sure if they are worse than men in this area or not) but men are much, much more likely to be physically violent than women are.
Statistics don’t lie. Just Google the statistics for domestic violence and murder- the difference is huge.
Spot on, Flowers
Ok but what about the horses, every single one of them please?
Poor, pathetic ICU (I know why you won’t use your real name: because ignorant, nasty, small-minded cowards never do because if they have assets they’d be sued for defamation lol), your utterings are so inaccurate it’s laughable. If anyone should buy our book it’s you so that you’d not be vomiting misinformation and lies.
Who told you we had animals seized and dispersed? We didn’t and we continued to spend our own money taking care of horses the likes of people like you who are shills for hicaliber would cheer michelle for shooting.
You also don’t seem to know that I called animal control to our property, not michelle or romney. We were fully cooperative in 5 1/2 months of being investigated, our financials were gone over with a fine tooth comb and it was proven that we not only weren’t neglecting animals, we also spent thousands of dollars of our own personal money on the feedlot rescues (romney was an unpaid volunteer, but michelle made money on the transport of rescued feedlot horses in nevada to their new homes in California) and we also continued to fully support the animals at our sanctuary, which we still do, by WORKING. That’s something your handlers at hicaliber know little to nothing about (WORKING to earn money instead of living off donations). After several months of investigation we were exonerated and absolved of any wrong doing (by the way, having a ramshackle property, that included pipe panels, shelters, etc, that we entirely financed with our own money with no one’s help, is not against the law). Michelle and romney also collected several thousand dollars in donations, well before they were even registered as a nonprofit, to “save the starlight horses”, but they never did anything for our horses and KEPT all that donated money for themselves (it’s called fraud in case you didn’t know).
If anyone knows who ICU is and cares to Share their identity with me, please message me on Facebook, or email me at laurab9506@gmail.com and if your info is accurate I’ll be happy to send you a free copy of our book that is getting awesome reviews regarding the rescue racket, false pretense seizures, extremism on both sides of the animal issue, etc. The proceeds go toward the care of our unwanted, unadoptable horses at our sanctuary that were saved from slaughter, and unlike michelle, we don’t kill, or have them killed by a vet, just because we can’t use them for anything. They peacefully live out their lives with us with no expectations of performance placed upon them. We also don’t put up with ignorant freak-shills for hicaliber spewing false, defaming bullshit*t about us because behavior like that is just plain nasty.
Oh, and ICU, I don’t do grudges, I do JUSTICE, as evidenced by the fact of what’s finally occurring with your friends michelle & company.