A Bucks farmer flew to Belize, leaving 124 animals behind in one of the biggest abuse cases in county history

Abigail Tuttle O’Keeffe had a problem.

Earlier this month, a team of animal welfare workers and local police officers were descending on her Bucks County goat farm, removing scores of sick and malnourished animals from the 36-acre property.

O’Keeffe couldn’t intervene. Instead, the Wrightstown farm owner was more than 3,000 miles away in Belize — the tropical nation she’d fled to the month before — messaging her small group of farmhands who stayed behind.

O’Keeffe was used to bad luck, “So this is normal to me,” she wrote to one farmhand in a private Facebook message, viewed by The Inquirer.

Hardly anything about Narrow Way Farm was normal.

The Bucks County SPCA’s Aug. 6 visit led to the discovery of 58 goats, 49 chickens, 10 pigs, five sheep, and two cows living in squalid conditions, in what officials called one of the largest abuse cases in county history.

A goat and sheep were dead, and other animals riddled with parasites. Some suffered infections in their hooves, according to the BCSPCA, or were so undernourished that their rib cages were visible.

Inside the home, officers with the Newtown Township Police Department seized 73 pounds of suspected marijuana and eight firearms — adding even more intrigue to a case that’s captured the attention of everyone from Gen-Z TikTokers to sheep farmers at the Middletown Grange fairground. (The department did not return a request for comment about potential charges.)

Interviews with former Narrow Way staff and O’Keeffe’s neighbors revealed a farm that was in disarray long before this summer.

They allege that O’Keeffe fostered a culture of mismanagement, manipulation, and flagrant health code violations that went unaddressed for years.

O’Keeffe did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Officials believe she remains in Belize.

“I carried buckets, made blankets, helped clean her house,” said one elderly volunteer who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation. “I just can’t believe this woman had everyone do things for her. We’ve all been fooled.”

Two weeks after the BCSPCA rescued 124 animals from the property, Narrow Way Farm was barren and still.

This wasn’t the scene that Kelsey Munz remembers when she began working for O’Keeffe in 2021.

Then a nursing student, Munz had prior experience on a horse ranch that proved valuable for O’Keeffe, who purchased Narrow Way in 2017, about the time of a divorce.

Over her year of employment, Munz said, the state of the farm set off numerous internal alarm bells.

Munz alleged she once discovered a dog with a shock collar so tight around its neck that it left gashes that later became infected with maggots; and she was surprised to find that antibacterial protocols for handling livestock, including when drawing blood, were nonexistent.

“We knew things were wrong there,” Munz said.

In one 2022 incident, corroborated by Munz and three other people, Narrow Way staff “botched” the dehorning of an 8-month-old Jersey calf, Kiwi, cutting the horn too far down and leaving lasting nerve damage around the animal’s eye.

Munz and another former coworker claim they contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture after learning that months after, Kiwi was butchered by farm staff. Both employees eventually quit.

Meanwhile, O’Keeffe became increasingly reliant on a team of mostly unpaid volunteers — “naive” young men, single moms, elderly women, Munz said — who had little to no farming experience.

“She’s not a real active farmer,” said Ken Heintz, owner of the nearby Windy Meadow dairy farm and a former acquaintance of O’Keeffe’s.

He described O’Keeffe, who has a doctorate in developmental psychology from Temple University, as largely absent from the time-intensive work of running a farm.

“If you look at her Facebook posts, it’s always, ‘Come help me do this. Who’s gonna cut my grass? Who’s gonna pick up my prescription at CVS?’” Heintz said. “She had all of these disciples, volunteers who followed her like a cult.”

On July 13, a young man in Butler, Pa., attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, and Abigail Tuttle O’Keeffe sensed that the country was facing impending doom.

So the farm owner did what she often did — posted on Facebook.

O’Keeffe warned her followers of a nationwide shutdown, one inspiring her to flee the country, according to those who viewed the posts.

It was hardly unordinary behavior for O’Keeffe, who had developed a reputation as something of a chaos agent within Bucks County neighborhood Facebook groups for her off-the-cuff communication style, according to Heintz.

Even TikTok caught on. In a viral video, posted this month by a bewildered Bucks County neighbor, a compilation of O’Keeffe’s recent musings flash across the screen. The post garnered more than 230,000 views.

“Delco girlie here and I am invested,” one user commented; another said they were following the Narrow Way “lore” from as far away as Dublin.

By July 20, O’Keeffe’s increasingly confounding posts were coming from Central America.

“Important farm update for anyone who’s interested,” O’Keeffe announced in early August on Narrow Way’s Facebook page, which has since been removed. “I have been out of the country as some of you know. My plan is to run two farms. The Pennsylvania farm I will run remotely IF I AM ABLE.”

Posts show O’Keeffe had sought advice in Belize-based Facebook groups about buying land there as early as April, in what she claimed would become “Narrow Way 2.0.”

The farm owner peppered Belizeans with questions, such as where she could find vacuum milk pumps, or a hot tub for her sore muscles.

There was one problem with O’Keeffe’s remote farming experiment.

“Thus far, things are not going smoothly with communications between myself and my PA farm,” she wrote on Facebook less than a week after her departure.

In her absence, around 20 goats and sheep had fallen sick and required a veterinarian, according to comments a Narrow Way farm manager made to a BCSPCA Humane Officer in an Aug 6. incident report.

Not only had O’Keeffe recently fired that farm manager, he said in the report, his former boss had also allegedly refused to sign off on veterinary care “because of the costs associated” and encouraged over-the-counter treatment, instead.

For the anonymous volunteer who spoke with The Inquirer, O’Keeffe’s departure was a slap in the face — especially given the long, unpaid days she spent working while her boss stayed “in bed, on the phone.”

But more concerning was O’Keeffe’s suggestion, made from Belize, that she would sell the farm and send about 40 animals — referred to as “lawn ornaments” in one post — to Lancaster County’s New Holland auction center, where livestock are frequently sold for slaughter.

“If I ever see her, I would curse her,” the volunteer said.

O’Keeffe could face more than 100 charges of animal cruelty and neglect, according to the BCSPCA, which has yet to file a criminal case with police.

Some local farmers are shocked that O’Keeffe, once considered a friend, had brought such dour attention to their tight-knit community.

Marcia Heintz, dairy farmer Ken Heintz’s wife, was once collegial with O’Keeffe, bonding over their children’s shared participation in 4-H farming programs.

Heintz and her daughter had once pursued a deal to lease sheep from O’Keeffe that ultimately fell through. Her visit to Narrow Way this month to assist the BCSPCA’s rescue confirmed it was for the best.

“There’s the sheep that were mangy-looking,” Heintz said, scrolling through photos she took that day. She came upon another photo. “That one ended up dying.”

The drug and gun discoveries were harder to understand; Heintz said police at one point held rescue workers on the property due to it being “an active crime scene.”

The SPCA is now treating Narrow Way’s livestock at its Quakertown facility, and has received over 200 adoption requests.

“What’s sort of sad and tricky about this situation, is when you look at a lot of these animals, they look like they’re doing OK,” said agency spokesperson Cindy Kelly. “[But] internally, they have this severe, heavy parasite load … a poor diet.”

The Bucks County Health Agency might investigate the products sold at Narrow Way’s store, which had lost its permit to sell raw milk in March, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

And O’Keeffe’s story has followed her to the tropics.

“Admins delete her from this group!!!!!!” a user posted to the “MADE IN BELIZE” Facebook page. “If you’re in other farming groups in Belize, get her banned for everyone’s sake, especially the animals !!”

Some members of the Wrightstown farming community could have seen this coming.

“You know what? We all tried to help her when she was having problems,” said Ken Heintz.

“But once it gets to this level, farmers police themselves.”