Davis’s dog Ragnar, an Akita mix, was shot and killed and then buried in a shallow grave near a neighbor’s property off Pactolus Road a week ago Sunday. Davis moved into the area last March and has worked as a cook at the Sundance Cafe for the past five years.
During that time he has seen his neighbor Erik Miller drive to his property located behind Davis’s residence often and has heard gunshots coming from the area, where Miller often shot at targets. Miller is a contract building inspector for Gilpin County.
Neither Davis nor his house-mates had ever met Miller or talked to him.
On Sunday morning, October 18, Davis was asleep after working the previous night, when one of his housemates came into his bedroom and said, “I think your dog just got shot.”
Zach Starcher said that he heard a gunshot from Miller’s property and then a bunch of yelps and screams followed by another shot and then silence.
“I drove up the guy’s driveway past the no trespassing signs and I saw him walking down with a pistol,” says Starcher. “He didn’t say anything. When I told him I heard gunshots and asked him if he had shot a dog, he said he was shooting targets and asked why I was there. He was nonchalant and gave me a look that was threatening without saying anything. He held out his gun in an attitude of intimidation. I said yeah, that’s a big gun and came back down to the house.”
Davis and Starcher walked around the property, searching the woods, waiting to see if Ragnar returned. The next morning, Starcher took his black lab Clyde with him who picked up a trail of blood near an area that had been cleaned up, but there were blood streaks on the branches nearby. Clyde led him down a steep embankment into a deep ravine to the gravesite.
When Starcher dug up the disturbed soil he found Ragnar’s body under about eight inches of leafy topsoil. The dogs collar and tags were gone and there were two big holes in his chest.
“I carried him back to the house and we called the sheriff. By that time Miller was gone. The deputies took a report and then we took Ragnar’s body to the Nederland Animal Hospital.”
Davis says that on Monday night a deputy called him and said that Miller had been served a summons for Cruelty to Animals, a misdemeanor offense and also admitted to killing the dog. The sheriff’s report, however, is still under investigation and not being released until the investigation is completed. The case has also been turned over to the Gilpin County District Attorney to investigate the possibility of a felony charge of Animal Cruelty with Aggravated Circumstances.
Since then Davis has been mourning the loss of his buddy. He got Ragnar, one of the clan of a local dog, when he was six weeks old in March of 2013.
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| Josh with Ragnor who Eric Miller killed |
“It was him and me,” says Davis. “For two and a half years he was my loving dog. He was big with lots of energy and loved to do anything, whatever I wanted to do he was for it. He also liked to lay around and cuddle. When I lived in Nederland he went everywhere with me and everyone knew him.”
Ragnar was named after a legendary Viking hero and Davis says he is the first dog he has ever had. Davis suffers from PTSD and says that Ragnar would help ground him when he was in a stressful situation. “It is a big thing to take away somebody’s dog and not even know what the situation is.”
Chris Sarnecki, another housemate, says that this isn’t the first time Miller has shot at a dog. He says that once when the dogs were at the end of the driveway and starting to chase Miller’s pickup truck, Miller stopped, jumped out of the truck and shot a few rounds over the dogs heads from five feet away. Not trying to hit them at the time, but yelling, “Get out of here, get out of here.”
Davis says the dogs have gone onto Miller’s property and brought back deer bones and they found a pig’s head stuck on a tree close to his boundary.
Davis says he is going after Miller in a civil case because then maybe he’ll realize that this was a wrong thing to do.
“If Ragnar had never yelped, we would have never known anything had happened to him. We probably would not have pursued this if Miller had told us what happened, but he tried to hide the evidence and say it never happened. Any justification is gone because of what he did after he killed my dog. He knew he did something wrong when he tried to hide it. He even took the time to take off the tags and dig out the bullets. If he had come to me and confessed and apologized, it still would have hurt and I still would have been angry, but it would be over and done with.”
Davis and his friends are working on setting up an account at Centennial Bank in Nederland to raise funds to pay an attorney. He says that any proceeds after that will be donated to a stop animal abuse charity. Right now he is waiting for the sheriff’s report to be released. The summons to appear in court is slated for December 2.
Last Monday night, one of the regular Sundance customers brought a female puppy, eight weeks old, part lab, part doberman, to Davis.
“I was reluctant at first,” he says, “But she has already worked her way into my heart. I am waiting for her name to show itself in her personality. I have a lot of love to give back.”
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