A judge on Friday ordered the arrest of a woman previously accused of drowning her dog at Orlando International Airport after she missed a court hearing in her animal cruelty case.
Alison Agatha Lawrence, 57, of Clermont, is accused by Orlando police of killing Tywinn — a 9-year-old white miniature Schnauzer — in an airport bathroom Dec. 16 before her flight to Bogota, Colombia, because she couldn’t take the dog on the flight, according to arrest records.
Lawrence was arrested in March and later released on bond. She was charged with animal cruelty with intent to torture and evidence tampering, to which she pleaded not guilty. She had a court hearing scheduled for Friday morning to discuss her request to be declared indigent for court costs.
But records show she failed to appear, causing Orange Circuit Judge Diego Madrigal to order her arrest. However, a spokesperson for the Orange County Clerk of Court said Monday the arrest warrant for Lawrence isn’t active and is still being processed.
Lawrence’s attorney, Javier Chavez, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. Court filings show Chavez filed a request to the court Friday to withdraw as Lawrence’s attorney.
The filing said Lawrence had not maintained contact as required and that the two had irreconcilable differences. It also said Lawrence hadn’t fulfilled her promised contractual obligations and that continued work on the case created a substantial financial burden on his law firm.
Police say Alison Agatha Lawrence, 57, of Clermont, drowned her dog Tywinn in a bathroom at Orlando International Airport before her flight from Orlando to Bogota, Colombia on Dec. 16. (Courtesy of Orlando Police Department)
According to Lawrence’s original arrest affidavit, her dog was discovered in the bathroom by an airport employee. The employee told police she saw a woman — later identified as Lawrence — in a bathroom stall cleaning up water and dog food from the floor. The employee returned to clean the bathroom about 20 minutes later and saw Lawrence leave the stall. When she went to remove the trash bag she noticed it was unusually heavy and found the dog.
The Orlando Police Department responded to the scene along with Orange County Animal Services. The affidavit said police found other items in the bag with the dog’s body, including a dog tag with Lawrence’s name and phone number on it. A necropsy ruled cause of death as drowning/submersion into water, according to court records.
The affidavit said surveillance footage shows Lawrence walking with Tywinn to the bathroom and later exiting the bathroom without the dog.
