NEWFANE, NY.- One summer day, a cow and a steer walked away from their farm. The cow was black and was named Blackee. The steer was golden brown, with two stubby horns. He was named Hornee.

Nobody knows when the cows got out, or how. They crossed a field and a road and wandered onto a neighbor’s yard.

This type of thing sometimes happens in rural western New York, where pastures and farms stretch for miles. But Hornee and Blackee had crossed not into another farm but into an animal sanctuary whose owner saves livestock from slaughter and encourages visitors to become vegans.

The next morning, Tracy Murphy, the sanctuary’s owner, found the cows in her yard. She herded them into a pen, she said, and immediately notified the local animal control agency. Six days later, an investigator with the agency came to check in on the cows. He interviewed people around the area and learned that a neighbor, Scott Gregson, was missing a heifer and a steer. Clearly, the cows discovered at the sanctuary belonged to Gregson.

But when Gregson asked that they be returned, Murphy refused. First, she demanded proof that Gregson actually owned the cows. She also demanded he pay $2,500 to reimburse the sanctuary for nine days’ worth of hay, straw and care.

Or, Murphy suggested, maybe her sanctuary could buy the cows, whom she was now calling Little Willow and Ismael.

That was two years ago. Since then, the case of the wandering cows has inspired death threats, rowdy protests, shadowy figures skulking in the woods, intercessions by Fox News and Joaquin Phoenix, stolen chickens, county and state legislation and a court battle featuring a rotating cast of lawyers, one of whom was convicted of felony duck theft.

The town of Newfane, New York, population 3,200, has never been the same.

‘Heifer Hider’

Before she came to own a 27-acre animal sanctuary, Tracy Murphy gave little thought to animals. She liked her home in Cheektowaga, a Buffalo, New York, suburb, and her job in banking. Then, in 2004, she saw a billboard with a picture of a caged beagle used for product testing.

The billboard disturbed her. So, she searched the internet for animals abused by labs, circuses and farms.

“What hit me hardest was the cows,” said Murphy, 61, describing videos from a slaughterhouse. “I had a nice life. But I wasn’t happy. I kept saying that I wanted to move out to the country, and I wanted to start a sanctuary.”

In January 2013, she finally did, buying a skinny rectangle of property in Newfane, 2 miles from Lake Ontario, on the edge of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area. In time she quit her bank job and moved from the suburbs to her 27 acres.

She adopted chickens and a turkey. At a farm auction, she paid $50 for a newborn calf. She named him Albert and hosted “Kiss a Cow” events, which attracted people to learn about veganism. The popularity of the events helped win grants to pay for the care of the residents of Asha’s Farm Sanctuary.

“Everybody wanted to come in and see Albert,” she said. “Hundreds of people. It was in the paper!”

A quarter-mile away, Murphy’s neighbor, Gregson, was just moving into his new house, too. A New York state trooper, he had left a small ranch home on a busy two-lane highway outside the city of Niagara Falls, moving to a rambling colonial on a narrow road in Newfane. Gregson liked the quiet, the rural setting and the chance to raise farm animals of his own.

“This was our little retreat,” said Gregson, 44.

From his porch, he could see the woman across the road erect barns for her animal sanctuary. He didn’t really pay much attention. Western New York is rich in animal rescue organizations, including at least one other farm animal sanctuary. He had some cattle, including Hornee and Blackee. Gregson wanted to teach his two young children to care for livestock, and after grazing in his side pasture, a fattened and butchered cow could net a few thousand dollars.

Then two of his cows went missing. When Gregson drove to the sanctuary to ask for his cows back on July 25, 2022 — nine days after they went missing — he showed up with a fellow state trooper, as well as the animal control investigator and members of his family. He was not in uniform, arriving as a neighbor, but things grew testy quickly.

“Well, I’ll come get the animals,” Gregson said.

“No, you’re not coming to get the animals,” Murphy replied.

Murphy and Gregson’s wife both started filming the encounter. Even though Gregson had provided the state police with receipts proving he owned the cows, Murphy refused to give them up. Gregson finally drove off in frustration, leaving Hornee and Blackee behind. Murphy took to Facebook Live and asked her supporters to tag and share her video “to let them know that law enforcement is violating my civil rights.” In another Facebook post, Murphy published Gregson’s home address and telephone number.

Soon Gregson received phone messages at his house threatening to rape and kill his children, according to court documents filed by the Niagara County district attorney’s office.

The town of Newfane seemed to unanimously unite behind Gregson. Someone doxxed Murphy. She received threatening voice messages, emails and comments on Facebook, calling for her to be lynched. Neighbors gathered for a rowdy protest at the edge of the animal sanctuary, carrying signs that said things like “Nacho Cows!” and “Heifer Hider,” as a parade of cars, trucks and tractors rolled past, with people leaning on their horns and hooting.

To taunt Murphy’s veganism, some men erected a large grill on her property line and cooked steaks, according to court documents. A man in a cow costume stood in the sunroof of a pickup and pumped his fists as the driver laid on the horn. Someone on a motorcycle did doughnut in Murphy’s yard, tearing up patches of lawn.

“I was afraid for my life,” Murphy said.

Joaquin Phoenix Weighs In

Two days after the protest, five state troopers, all of them Gregson’s colleagues, arrived at the sanctuary to execute a search warrant. They arrested Murphy. Neighbors loaded the cows into a trailer, a scene that was filmed and quickly uploaded to Facebook. When Murphy appeared in court that evening, she was chained at the wrists, waist and ankles. She was charged with third-degree grand larceny, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. The judge also imposed a gag order barring Murphy from posting any content, on any subject, on any social media platform.

That did not keep her supporters from speaking out. Joaquin Phoenix, the actor known for his outspoken veganism, learned on social media, incorrectly, that Murphy had named the wandering cows “Joaquin” and “Phoenix.” He released a statement to local newspapers via Michelle Cho, his social impact adviser: “To so harshly punish a woman who was simply showing kindness to two individuals who had wandered onto her property is astounding.”

Within Newfane, though, few people agreed with Phoenix. Ed Pettitt, a retired engineer who lived down the road from Murphy, drove with several supporters to the property of an Asha’s Farm Sanctuary board member and strode onto her property.

The board member said she was not involved in the dispute. “This has gone way too far,” she said, as Pettitt filmed the confrontation.

Pettitt retreated to the street, grabbed a megaphone and turned his camera on himself in a Facebook Live video as he led a small protest.

“I’m sorry if I disrupt your dinner that was provided by farmers while I’m here fighting for the rights of farmers!” he yelled to the neighborhood.

‘All-Out War on Us Farmers’

Early in her legal saga, Murphy came to be represented by Wayne Hsiung, a prominent animal welfare activist and lawyer based in California. Hsiung founded the nonprofit group Direct Action Everywhere, part of the “open rescue” movement, which advocates entering farms to free suffering animals and to report the conditions to law enforcement.

Almost a year after her arrest, Murphy was invited by to speak at a Right to Rescue Summit that he organized in the suburbs of Buffalo. She spoke to a small crowd about her case and then left. The rest of the day was spent teaching about 20 activists the practical aspects of open rescue: which farms to target, how to enter properties safely and how to win the social media battle.

Kimberly Simmeth, a local resident, took to Facebook to criticize the events’ attendees. Two days later, 50 chickens went missing from her farm.

“I always felt very secure here,” Simmeth said. “Now I feel really exposed. I started questioning: What am I doing out here?”

That same week, a farmer named Paul Strobel noticed two people in his driveway, 2 miles south of Asha’s Farm Sanctuary. He watched as the trespassers, a man and a woman, approached his cattle gate, filming his livestock with their phones. He ran outside, yelling. The pair returned to their car and sped off. Strobel gave chase in his pickup, but the couple got away.

“She brought these people in,” Strobel, 54, said of the animal activists. “If she doesn’t get punished, it’ll be all-out war on us farmers.”

Many in the area agree. Days after the incident, Rob Ortt, the New York Senate Republican minority leader, organized a news conference on Strobel’s farm. He discussed legislation to increase criminal penalties against farm trespassers (the bill remains in committee), and made what seemed to be a veiled threat.

“This is a dangerous situation,” Ortt said to the small crowd of journalists. “The Second Amendment exists to protect persons and property, and I would remind these advocates of that fact.”

He wasn’t the only government official who wanted to go to war with animal activists. The Niagara County sheriff, Michael Filicetti, posted a warning on his official Facebook page asking residents to be on the lookout for suspicious activity. At least 14 people responded to the post by making death threats against Murphy. He went on “Fox and Friends First,” where he blamed the trespassing incidents on animal welfare activists, though none of the trespassers were stopped or questioned. “It’s not rescuing,” he said. “It is a crime.”

Filicetti did not respond to interview requests.

For his part, Hsiung maintained that the training focused on targeting corporate farms, not family farms like those in Newfane. Murphy said she knew nothing about the trespassers or the chicken thieves.

“It’s not connected to Asha,” she said. “It could be anybody.”

‘The World Gone Insane’

Blackee and Hornee did not live to see the fallout of their wandering. Soon after Gregson retrieved them from Asha’s Farm Sanctuary, he sold the cows and they were slaughtered.

Hsiung no longer represents Murphy; he was disbarred following his own felony conviction in California in November for a protest in which he trespassed on a farm and stole ducks. The charge against Murphy was reduced to a misdemeanor of petit larceny. She maintains that the law is on her side.

“The neighborly thing to do is to follow the law, and that’s what I did,” she said, describing her efforts to report the missing animals and to obtain payment and proof of ownership before giving the cattle back.

She still faces up to a year in jail. The trial, after years of court arguments over venue, evidence and the gag order, is scheduled to start in October.

“If this had been an issue of a lost or stolen iPhone, this case would have been dismissed within months,” said Chris Carraway, staff attorney at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law’s Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, who took on Murphy’s case after Hsiung was disbarred for stealing ducks. “This is a case of the world gone insane.”

Though the protests on the edge of the sanctuary have stopped, you can still find anti-Murphy yard signs around Newfane that read, “Support Local Farmers, Not Bullies.” Just beyond Murphy’s property line stands a large red sign that reads “Compassion Is Not a Crime, But Stealing Is!”

Murphy and Gregson haven’t spoken since their confrontation two years ago. Neither is afraid of their neighbor. Instead they fear those who threaten murder on Facebook and Instagram. Gregson bought new locks for his farm gates. He attached security cameras to his barn. Murphy did the same.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.