Police said the suspect, 24-year-old Robert Farmer, is the son of retired San Jose police Cpt. Jack Farmer.
Robert Farmer was arrested Thursday morning while he was sleeping in his vehicle in the area of Hillsdale Avenue and Leigh Avenue in San Jose. Officers search inside his car and found a dead cat.
San Jose Police have not confirmed the identity of the deceased cat or its owner.
According to police, on September 21, at approximately 9:40 P.M., a domesticated orange tabby cat, Gogo, disappeared from its residence on the 1600 block of Hyacinth Lane. Surveillance video shows an unknown white male lure the cat to him. The white male then grabbed the cat and ran away holding the cat.
“Several people contacted the San Jose Police Department and provided significant information about the possible suspect,” police said. “Detectives from the San Jose Police Departments Assaults Unit followed up on this information and identified a possible suspect.”
Kristi Affonso, who says she knew Farmer, told KRON she suspected Farmer is the same man who hurt her friend’s cat. And when she saw the security video of a cat being stolen not far from her friend’s house, she knew it had to be him.
Affonso then reported farmer to animal control and to police, who on Thursday, arrested him while he was sleeping in his car. Farmer has been charged with one count of felony animal cruelty.
Affonso said Farmer is homeless, and her friend let him stay at her house, but when her cat came up lame, he suspected him and asked him to leave.
Neither police nor animal control have said whether farmer is a suspect in at least two other missing cat cases in the area. GoGom the stolen cat in the video, is still missing.
So far, authorities have not connected farmer to that case, but Affonso think the neighborhood is safer.
(KRON - Oct 9, 2015)
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