EEO officers responded to an anonymous tip about possible animal cruelty at a residence on Smythe Street in the Saxon community of Spartanburg County on Thursday.
Officers later interviewed Jonathon Meldzuk at the Spartanburg County Detention Center. Meldzuk was already being held on an unrelated arson charge.
The officers said Meldzuk provided a written confession in which he admitted taking the 2- to 3-year-old female black Labrador mix into his house and then “violently repeatedly striking the dog’s head and then holding the body still until it stopped spasming (sic).”
Investigators later determined that the dog had been struck in the head several times with a hammer.
Meldzuk told the officers that he then “wrapped the body and carried it to a local creek, putting the body in the creek, so that nature could have back that which came from.”
The reason he gave was the family “couldn’t afford to take care of the animal and it wouldn’t leave.”
The officers said they found the blanket in the creek, but someone had buried the dog. They later found the dog's body, and photographed it for evidence.
Meldzuk's sister, Jacquelyne Meldzuk, told News 4 that the dog was a rescue that she had brought home.
Meldzuk’s cousin, Tammy Smith, said, "He has problems in the head and we all know that, and every time we try to get him help they send him right out of there, I guess because he has no insurance. He does have problems, but everybody can be fixed. That's all we can say for him. We can just leave it in God's hands.”
Meldzuk was charged with ill treatment of animals.
Officer Jamie Nelson said, "This is one of those crimes that we, as law enforcement officers, need to look at it, because this is a doorstep crime. Somebody that would inflict this sort of injury to an animal, you know, later in life would have no problem inflicting the same injury to a human. It's just a doorstep, working a progress up."
Meldzuk is being held at the Spartanburg County Detention Center.
His family told News 4 that Meldzuk had recently gotten out of jail and was on probation for another crime at the time of his arrest on the arson charge.
The incident report from the arson arrest said that Meldzuk had used a small propane tank to try to set fire to the home of an elderly woman. The man who discovered the fire told deputies he saw Meldzuk near the home and had seen him with a similar tank the day before.
According to the incident report, the man said that Meldzuk had “recently been acting more aggressive and violent and was talking about killing things.”
Meldzuk was charged with third-degree arson on Jan. 12.
Jacquelyne Meldzuk, said, “Not everybody comes from a good home. Everybody's broken in their own way, and something inside of him broken. Instead of him being ignored, or singled out as a number, as a prison number or somebody that just needs help. Actually get in there and figure out what's going on."
"Anybody can change -- anybody, anytime,” she said. “Nobody's given him a chance."
[Funny, no words of sympathy about the poor dog which was beaten in the head with a hammer by its own owner.]
(WYFF4 - Jan 18, 2013)
