She later found the bloodied short-haired feline, meowing in a kitchen cabinet of her home, with injuries to its nose and face, according to court documents.
Portland Officer Gabe Hertzler rushed the cat to Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital, and took photos of the cat owner's face, which was red and swollen.
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| Faces of Evil: Daniel Warren Clark |
The incident occurred about 8:30 p.m. Oct. 24 during a domestic dispute.
The girlfriend told police she was trying to help fix her boyfriend's computer, but that angered him, sparking a confrontation about her suspicions that he was cheating on her, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in court.
The girlfriend said she left the house. When she came home around 2 a.m., she noticed two of her cats and her dog hiding in the living room, looking scared. A third cat was missing.
When she walked into the bedroom, she saw spots of blood on the wall, and feared that her boyfriend had harmed her cat. He told her the blood was his own, but she didn't see any injuries to him, she told police.
She begged him to tell her where her missing cat was, and called her boyfriend a "punk," the affidavit says. He pushed her over the back of a sofa, causing her to fall to the floor. He came at her again. She tried to hit him, but missed, and he punched her in the right side of her face, knocking her to the ground, the affidavit says.
The girlfriend left her home, taking two of her cats and the dog to a neighbor's home.
By 4:30 a.m. Oct. 25, she returned to her home, and again urged her boyfriend to tell what happened to her cat. Clark left the house, and the woman heard the cat meowing from the kitchen cabinet. She found the cat with blood on its face and mouth.
Dr. Kathy Keenan, of Dove Lewis animal hospital, said bleach is very abrasive, can burn the cornea of the eye and potentially be blinding. But tests showed the bleach didn't burn the cat's corneas, Keenan said.
The nearly year-old cat, named Nemesis, was released the same day.
Clark is on post-prison supervision stemming from 1996 convictions for attempted first-degree rape and first-degree assault of an ex-girlfriend.
As he awaits trial on the recent charges, the court ordered him not to own, possess or supervise any animal, and undergo random urinalysis tests if released from custody.
Court records show he's been dating his girlfriend for nine months, is unemployed and had completed an anger management class in prison.
Last month, another Portland man who beat his ex-girlfriend and impaled her pet fish was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.
A 1997 national survey by a Utah State University professor and two others found that the overwhelming majority of battered women shelters surveyed indicated that women seeking shelter mention experiences of pet abuse. The animal abuse is done by perpetrators to frighten their partners, as a threat of interpersonal attacks, and, as a form of retaliation or punishment.
(The Oregonian - November 4, 2009)
