Months after the news first broke that two of Lady Gaga’s beloved pets had been kidnapped in a violent Hollywood encounter, the Los Angeles Police Department is continuing its investigation into the crime. And new developments have led to the arrests of several suspects, including the very person who tried to claim Gaga’s $500,000 reward.
In late February, a man named Ryan Fischer was approached by a group of men while walking Gaga’s three French bulldogs Koji, Miss Asia, and Gustavo through West Hollywood. The men shot Fischer in the chest four times before taking off with Koji and Gustavo, leaving the dogwalker bleeding out on the sidewalk. Upon learning of her dogs’ being stolen, Gaga shared an urgent plea for her pets to be returned and offered up a hefty reward of half a million dollars for their safe return.
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That same evening, a woman named Jennifer McBride showed up to a local police department with Koji and Gustavo in tow; she claimed that she’d brought the dogs to the authorities after seeing them abandoned in a random alley. Unfortunately, the LAPD believes that McBride wasn’t actually being a good Samaritan — they're now linking her to the kidnappers as part of an elaborate scheme.
The police have since identified James Jackson, Jaylin White, and Lafayette Whaley as the three men who approached Fischer that day in February, and they have been charged with armed robbery and attempted murder. (Jackson, believed to have been the person who fired his gun at Fische, is also facing additional charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and being a felon with a concealed firearm in a vehicle.) The LAPD has also named Jaylin’s father Harold White as an accessory to attempted murder, and McBride faces those same charges because an investigation revealed that McBride is involved in a relationship with Harold. So her “random” happening upon the dogs in an alley? Yeah, probably not so random at all.
As the authorities continue looking into the details of the incident, Gaga has since been happily reunited with her dogs. And the last we heard from Fischer, who the pop star called a “hero,” he was still on the mend, healing from his near-fatal injuries in a hospital.
“A lot of healing still needs to happen,” Fischer shared with his followers on his Instagram account back in March. “But I look forward to the future and the moment when I get bombarded with kisses and licks (and maybe even an excitement pee?) from Asia, Koji, and Gustav.”