COCOA, Fla. -- A Cocoa woman accused of animal cruelty after her dog was left in a cage and starved to death was released from Brevard County Jail.

Christine Dawn Abrams, 30, was released late Thursday after a pre-trial hearing on a felony charge of cruelty to animals, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported.

Cocoa Officer Eric Austin arrested Abrams on Thursday after a tip from her neighbor led police to the house where Ella, a 2-year-old white German shepherd, died after Abrams left her in a cage for two months without food or water, police said.

Detective Barbara Matthews of the Cocoa Police Department said that during an interview with Abrams, she told police she moved out of the house because her water had been cut off. Abrams admitted that the last time she checked on the dog was Jan. 18 and that she knew what would happen if Ella was left without food and water for that length of time, but that her roommate at the new house didn't like dogs.

Austin said when he checked the house, he found a large bag of dog food placed just a few feet from the cage. Police were tipped off about Abrams and Ella when a call came in from Abram's neighbor, who was concerned when she hadn’t seen Abrams walking or playing with the dog, which was unusual. The neighbor looked into the window of Abrams' house and saw Ella dead inside the cage.

"Our first thought was that something had happened to her (Abrams) because no one would leave a dog like that," Matthews said. "We spent five hours looking for her, thinking if something like this happened to her dog, what must have happened to her? Then, when we finally found her, less than 6 miles away, she showed no remorse for what happened to her dog."

Abrams is being held in the Brevard County Jail on $1,000 bond.

"All she had to do was open the door and let the dog go and he would have wandered the streets and been better off," Matthews said. "Eventually, someone would have contacted us or animal control would have picked him up, and he never would have suffered this fate."

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