Saturday, April 11, 1998

California: Cindy Green, 44, admits to animal cruelty after her 8-month-old Aussie puppy ate her cocaine and died

CALIFORNIA -- A Palmdale woman faces up to 14 years and six months in prison after pleading guilty to charges she let her 8-month-old Australian shepherd eat rock cocaine, which led to it being euthanized.

After a judge rejected a plea bargain that would have let her off with a year in jail, Cindy Green, 44, entered the plea Wednesday to animal cruelty, possession of cocaine and heroin, failure to care for an animal and possession of a smoking device.

Under the earlier plea bargain, Green had pleaded no contest to one count of cocaine possession after prosecutors agreed to drop the animal cruelty charge. Under the plea, she had been scheduled to be sentenced to up to a year in county jail and five years' probation.

But Lancaster Superior Court Judge Michael Luros rejected the plea bargain last week, citing Green's prior felony convictions for burglary and a drug charge.

Luros returned the case to Municipal Court, where Green again faced the original charges.

The dog was put to sleep at a Lancaster veterinary hospital in December after eating a gram of cocaine off a bedroom table, where Green had left the drug during a Christmas Eve party, sheriff's deputies said. 

When Green was arrested Feb. 26 on the animal cruelty charge, deputies said they found heroin and rock cocaine at her house in the 37800 block of Rose Marie Street.

Deputies said Green left some cocaine on the bedroom table and took the rest to a party in her living room. After her puppy ate the drug, it went into convulsions, began spitting up blood and developed a fever of 108 degrees, deputies said.

Green took the dog to a veterinary hospital, but the pet went into congestive heart and pulmonary failure and had to be euthanized, deputies said

(LA Daily News - April 10, 1998)

Friday, April 3, 1998

Kansas: Sabine Davidson refused to take a plea deal on a charge of involuntary manslaughter after her Rottweilers attacked and killed an 11-year-old boy. Last month a jury convicted Sabine of 2nd degree murder. This convinced her husband Jeffrey Davidson not to risk a jury trial; he took the original plea offer of involuntary manslaughter and is sentenced to probation

KANSAS -- Former Milford resident Jeffrey Davidson was placed on probation for five years Wednesday, nearly a year after authorities said his three Rottweilers fatally mauled a neighbor boy at a school bus stop.

District Judge George F. Scott imposed the sentence on the 41-year-old Fort Riley bowling center manager in Geary County District Court.

A month ago, Davidson's wife, Sabine Davidson, 27, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after a jury convicted her of unintentional second-degree murder in the April 24 death of 11-year-old Chris Wilson, a fifth-grader at Milford Grade School. Sabine, who was present Wednesday, also had received an additional 12 months of imprisonment on a separate misdemeanor count of endangering the life of a child under 18.


Following the sentencing, Jeffrey Davidson's attorney insisted that her client "does not believe he has committed a crime," said public defender Linda Barnes-Pointer, of Topeka.

"First off, both of the Davidsons cannot accept that their dogs did this," Barnes-Pointer said. "(The couple) lived with the dogs, they had them around, this is contrary to what they knew about the dogs. The Davidsons believe their dogs came (on the scene) after the fact, after another group of dogs had killed this little boy."

On March 12, prosecutors dropped an unintentional second-degree murder charge against Jeffrey Davidson in exchange for a no contest plea on a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter.

County Attorney Christopher Biggs said he didn't oppose Scott's order to place Jeffrey Davidson on probation, a penalty that also includes 100 hours of community service.

"Based on Mr. Davidson's involvement in admissible evidence against him," Biggs said, "what occurred today would have been a likely result had we gone to trial."

Prior to his sentencing, Jeffrey Davidson read aloud a brief statement in which he said Chris Wilson's death "was tragic and an act in which only God in his infinite wisdom can hope to see meaning and reason."

Biggs told reporters he was surprised by Jeffrey Davidson's decision to read the handwritten note, which also included the Davidsons' hope that "God grants some measure of peace" to the boy's parents.

"We have not had up to this point in time any acknowledgement of responsibility, or any acknowledgement or sorrow, on the part of either defendant," Biggs said.

While an appeal is pending, Sabine Davidson remains free on a $50,000 appearance bond, according to attorney Ronald Hodgson.


Following the hearing, Jeffrey Davidson talked with reporters while standing beside the family's parked minivan. Inside the vehicle, 3-year-old daughter Ashley occasionally honked the horn while perched in the driver's seat. The family, which also includes two other daughters, ages 8 and 1, resides in Alta Vista.

"We'd love to go back to the day before (April 24) and make everybody happy," Davidson said. "If we could 'time warp' back, we'd like to have killed the dogs, regardless of what really happened. Whether our dogs did or did not (do the killing) is still a point of conjecture."

(Topeka Capital-Journal - April 2, 1998)

Earlier: