Florida: Ernest Martin arrested after being caught on camera last year shoving puppies stuffed into pillowcases down a storm drain

FLORIDA -- A Florida man caught on video last September putting puppies into pillowcases, throwing them over a fence and then shoving them into a storm drain finally has been arrested.

Seven months after doing the deed, Ernest Martin, 39, was arrested by Jacksonville, Florida police on April 22, reports News4Jax.

Martin now faces six counts — one per puppy — of abandoning an animal in public without providing for its welfare.

According to police, Martin was caught on a surveillance camera last September, cramming pillowcases containing puppies into a culvert at a cross street in Jacksonville.

'It just breaks my heart to see someone hurting animals like that,' the unidentified surveillance camera owner told News4Jax, proceeding to describe what Martin did with the puppies.

'He throws them real high into the air and over the fence and they're hitting the ground,' the man said. 'He came back outside with some pillow cases, grabbed the puppies up one by one, came out here to the drain and started shoving them into the drain.'

Unable to fit all six of the puppies into the culvert, he walked over to another culvert and tried to cram the canines into that one, the camera owner said.

'When they started moving around, he was kicking them, trying to shove them back into the drain,' he added. 

After Martin left the area, police say that a passerby saw the pillowcases in the culvert. The dogs were then taken away to be cared for by other people.

The investigation determined that Martin had stolen the six puppies — all of which survived — from his stepfather, who has not been identified.

Martin's stepfather kept one of the puppies and doled out the remaining five puppies involved in Martin's attack to members of his family.

When speaking with News4Jax, Martin's mother, who requested anonymity, claimed that her son suffered from schizophrenia.

'When he saw the dogs, he thought they were little demons,' she said. 'He goes through little spasms, but he put them in there. He put them in the ditch.'

Martin is held on a $90,000 bond and awaiting trial, according to jail records.

(Dailymail.com - April 27, 2017)

Minnesota: Libby Osterbauer, 24, who runs Close to Home Canine Rescue is accused of breaking into a woman's home, stealing her Miniature Pinscher named Ducky Momo, stuffing him into a pillowcase and then stomping and drowning him at a wildlife refuge

MINNESOTA -- A Minneapolis pet rescue worker who has a fixation on another woman broke into her home twice and kidnapped, tortured and killed her dog, authorities say.

Elizabeth Osterbauer is accused of torturing, drugging and drowning Shelly Byzewski's little pet named Ducky Momo, according to court documents.

The victim in the case, Shelly Byzewski, said Monday that she had met Osterbauer at a dog rescue agency where Osterbauer worked, and that Osterbauer developed romantic feelings for her. Byzewski said when she did not reciprocate those feelings, Osterbauer began stalking her.

“She just got obsessed with me,” said Byzewski, 41. “She’s crazy. She’s mental.”

Byzewski said that when her dog, a 3-year-old miniature pinscher named Ducky Momo, disappeared last year, “I suspected her immediately.”

Byzewski searched for months for her little dog.

"She [Osterbauer] helped me hang up posters,” said Shelly Byzewski. “She told me things like, ‘we gotta keep looking’, ‘somebody has got to have him’, ‘people get attached quick’, ‘hang posters’, which I was already doing.”

Osterbauer burglarized Byzewski's home in December 2015 and in June of this year, according to authorities.

During the first break-in, Osterbauer entered Byzewski's home by using a hidden key, according to a witness. It was then that Osterbauer allegedly took little Ducky Momo, and she is believed to have taken another dog belonging to Byzewski as well.

Osterbauer, 24, took the dog to a state park or wildlife refuge, where she stomped on Ducky Momo and drowned the canine, according to authorities.

That witness told police she was present with Osterbauer during the killing of the dog, which Osterbauer “tortured, drugged, and killed.”

Another witness told police she was present during the dognapping and said Osterbauer took the dog to a state park or wildlife refuge and killed him by stomping on him while he was tied inside a pillowcase and then drowning him in a marsh, according to the complaint filed Friday in Hennepin County District Court.

Yet another witness said Osterbauer offered him and other friends $1,000 “to do a job” at the house, the complaint said, but the witness told police they refused. That witness said Osterbauer took “a blanket, vet records and other things that meant something to her” in the burglary.

Following the second break-in, a friend of Byzewski's, who was checking on the Minneapolis home, found kitty litter "strewn all about," according to the court documents. In the bathroom, the toilet had been "plugged" with the kitty litter, and water from the toilet poured onto the floor and all over the home.

Byzewski had been out of town at the time of the second break-in because she "had to get away," according to the Star Tribune.

A friend of Byzewski told authorities that Osterbauer had "romantic feelings" for her, and Byzewski never returned them.


"I told her I was never going to feel the same way," Byzewski told the Star Tribune. "She'd say, 'That's OK. That's OK.'"

Osterbauer, who runs Close to Home Canine Rescue, according to the Star Tribune, was charged with multiple counts of burglary and cruelty to animals. She was ordered held in lieu of $200,000 bail, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Court records show that Osterbauer was convicted of a misdemeanor charge in 2015 of having multiple dogs at large in Sherburne County.

(NY Daily News - Dec 19, 2016)