Cody Gerarden was found guilty of felony animal cruelty in March.
He was sentenced to five years, with three years and six months suspended, leaving just 18 months to serve. He will also be placed on supervised on probation and must have five years of good behavior. He is not allowed to own or possess an animal during the good behavior period.
The incident where Pirate the cat was tortured to death occurred in April of 2015.
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| They took poor Pirate to this wooded area to kill him |
On April 10, 2015 a citizen notified Animal Control of a possible animal cruelty case involving a domesticated cat that had been killed.
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| This red tie is what they strangled Pirate with while holding him down as he fought vainly for his life. |
Animal Control officers opened an investigation and were able to locate the deceased cat near the 1000 block of Prosperity Road in Virginia Beach.
NewsChannel 3 obtained a written transcript of an interview between Gerarden and the animal control officer investigating Pirate’s death. In that transcript Gerarden confesses to strangling Pirate with a rope saying he “Pulled it tight, took about 5-10 seconds”.
“Apparently he [Gerarden] was holding it down to remove a tick off him and the cat bit him and that’s what caused it,” added Monica Hines, the suspects’ former neighbor.
“It was hard, because he acts like it is no big deal,” SPCA volunteer Joan Terry said. “The second step after abusing animals is abusing humans.”
Gerarden told investigators that he lived on a ranch and had experience with animals before, and he "knew how to put an animal down".
Gerarden's roommate, Justin Page, was also charged with felony animal cruelty. His trial is scheduled for June.
(WTKR - May 24, 2016)
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