'What a gift.' Greenwich cat missing 571 days finally reunited with family
Turtle the cat slipped out the front door of his home in Greenwich in March 2025 and was found over a year and a half later six miles away in Mamaroneck, New York.
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A beloved cat that was missing for 571 days is back home in Greenwich, giving his family the purrfect ending they never stopped hoping for.
Turtle, a rescue cat originally from Tennessee, vanished on March 18, 2025, after slipping out the front door of Kelly Moore's home.
"It was so hard, and I felt responsible," Kelly Moore told News 12.
Kelly Moore explains that she was rushing to take the recycling out before an appointment and didn't realize there was a gap in the storm door.
At the time, Turtle had been living in Greenwich for about nine months. He was originally adopted by Kelly Moore's daughter in Brooklyn. But after Shelby Moore's existing cat didn't care to share the space, Turtle went to her mom, where Shelby Moore still saw him plenty.
"He definitely is a bit of a Houdini cat to begin with. When she told me he got outside, I was like, 'Oh my God. How are we going to get him back?'" Shelby Moore recalled. "I posted on the Nextdoor app, posted a picture of him and everyone was commenting, 'You should reach out to this guy, Rocco. He's really good at reuniting people with their lost pets '"
The Moores followed their advice and contacted Rocco Autero, founder of Rocket Lost Pet Rescue, who's based in Westchester County. Autero set up trail cameras and a cage on the property and quickly confirmed Turtle was still nearby.
"We determined he was coming back to the house," Autero said. "We tried all different things to kind of lure him into the cage, but he wouldn't go into it," Autero said.
For a couple of weeks, the cameras continued capturing images of Turtle. Then, the sightings stopped, and the trail went cold. There were occasional leads, but none led to Turtle.
Still, Autero never stopped checking for clues. A year and a half later, one appeared on social media. Earlier this month, while scrolling through posts on Nextdoor, he spotted a photo of a cat found in Mamaroneck, New York, that looked like Turtle.
"We scanned his microchip, and it was him," Autero said. "I was very ecstatic."
"I was like, 'No way!'" Shelby Moore recalled. "I called my mom, and she was just like, 'What?!'"
Even more remarkable was that, despite all that time gone, Turtle returned seemingly unchanged.
"It's like no time has passed. It's just us," Kelly Moore said with a smile.
The family still doesn't know exactly where Turtle spent those 571 days or how he ended up about six miles away just over the New York border. What they do know is they're holding on a little extra tight to Turtle these days.
"I just feel really grateful to the community around us and Rocco," Shelby Moore said.
"It was quite an experience," added Kelly Moore, laughing. "We're still in shock, but it's starting to really sink in, like wow, what a gift!"
