(November 2017) Canada: Family horrified after pet cat allegedly drugged, abused on Snapchat; Josh Lemire charged with Animal Cruelty

CANADA -- Mounties are investigating a possible case of animal cruelty in the Cowichan Valley after a family's cat was allegedly forced to take illicit drugs and abused in videos shared on Snapchat.

Sharline Haglund says her daughter was sent disturbing Snapchat videos of the family's one-year-old cat Gigi by a former friend in the middle of the night Tuesday.

"[Gigi] got outside and because the people know my daughter, and probably the cat knows them, she would've went there with them or somehow ended up at their house," an emotional Haglund told CTV News Tuesday.

"It sounds like they gave her MDMA and then tried to shave her. From the post you can see that he has a razor that he's looking like he's going to shave her hair, and said he wanted to give her a mohawk or something."

A Facebook post created by a friend of Haglund's daughter's Tuesday accuses several people of taking part in the alleged acts of cruelty.

It also includes a screenshot of one of the alleged Snapchat messages, appearing to show a cat being shaved with a razor.

"Your cat loves molly," part of the caption reads, referring to the party drug also known as MDMA or ecstasy.

The Facebook post, which had been shared more than 700 times as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, also alleges the cat was thrown out of a window after it was fed drugs and shaved.

Haglund said her daughter notified her of the videos early Tuesday morning and they immediately contacted RCMP, which has launched an investigation.

Since going to investigators, Haglund said she's also heard the cat was given a "bleach bath" in the incident but is unsure what's true and what's not.

Gigi was missing for the majority of the day Tuesday, but was finally located around 7:30 p.m.

Haglund said everything the people in the video said they would do was done to the cat: she was shaved, the number 666 was written in her ear, and there appear to be bleach marks on her back.

 

 

She took the cat to the veterinarian Wednesday morning and said the family hoped to know more later in the day.

The BC SPCA says it is aware of the allegations and is assisting the RCMP investigation however it can. An RCMP update was expected Wednesday.

Animal protection officer Tina Heary says the organization is extremely concerned about the missing cat and the effect any illicit drugs could have on it.
"If it's been forcibly given some type of drugs and it's experiencing the effects of that, and it’s a cold rainy day – my understanding is it was also abandoned in an area away from its home – it's put into a very unfortunate and dangerous environment," said Heary.

Haglund said she has no idea why the former friends of her daughter would take part in the alleged acts, but that she considers it a form of cyberbullying.

No charges have been announced in the investigation. Mounties are appealing to anyone else who has information on what happened to contact them at 250-748-5522 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Update: Josh Lemire, 20, has been charged with Animal Cruelty. Others deemed to be minors under the age of 18 are also involved. 

Future serial killers? Jeffrey Dahmer, the Night Stalker, the Boston Strangler and others have confessed to torturing and killing animals for fun before even that became mundane and they moved up to human beings.

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(CTV News - November 22, 2017)

North Carolina: Teens Jared Rose and Kalob Hubbard torture and burn opossum alive and are so proud of themselves they post on Instagram

NORTH CAROLINA -- It’s difficult to know which was worse: the crime, or the fact that a trio of teenage knuckleheads decided it would make for a funny video to post online.

Last December — it’s not clear exactly when — the three trapped an opossum, doused the poor thing in gasoline and lit it on fire.

One of them used an iPhone to record it. Then, for further kicks, the video was posted to Instagram, a social media device that allows friends and acquaintances to view pictures and videos.

Collectively, the three are neither Albert Einstein nor Alfred Hitchcock. The Three Stooges might be the better description.

And that ill-advised and sickening video is precisely why two of them were standing Thursday in front of a Superior Court judge wearing their Sunday best.

“Three young men tortured and burned alive a possum for sport,” said prosecutor Matt Breeding, who interrupted a family vacation to see that the case was handled properly. “You can hear them snickering and giggling in the background.”

Disturbing video
The two young men in court Thursday — 18-year-olds Kalob Hubbard and Jared Rose — were there to plead guilty to felony cruelty to animals. Hubbard also pleaded guilty to two additional misdemeanors related to trapping the opossum.

The third is a juvenile and is being treated as such by the court system.

As part of their plea agreement, they would be allowed to enter a deferred prosecution program. If they comply with all the terms and conditions, the charges would be dropped after one year. Screw up even a little, and they get hauled back into court and sent directly to jail for up to three years and three months.

The case came to the attention of investigators with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office last December when an anonymous caller informed them of the video and provided names of the suspects. That set off a chain of events that resulted in the indictments of Hubbard and Rose.

“I won’t show the video today. It’s pretty disturbing,” Breeding said.

But he did describe its contents. And he likely did everyone in the court a favor by not showing it.

[The video] opens with a shot of a foot on the back of the opossum’s neck. Some sort of ignitable fluid — investigators later learned it was gasoline — was poured on the animal before an extended arm appeared, holding a long grill lighter.

“The possum, now on fire, runs into the forest before it was euthanized,” Breeding told Judge Richard Stone.

When confronted, the young men admitted their involvement. Hubbard and Rose — or more likely, their parents — also retained the services of Mike Grace, a highly regarded local defense attorney.

That set into motion another negotiation: What do you do about it?

The Sword of Damocles
On one hand, you have video of three teenagers who lit a live animal on fire, laughed about it and circulated the video on social media. By any standard, that’s deviant behavior and, many times, a predictor of future violent behavior toward human beings.

On the other, you have teenagers with exactly zero encounters with police or the court system.

Hubbard and Rose were seniors at Calvary Christian School with plans to join the Marine Corps after graduation. According to Grace, they were kicked out of Calvary after they were indicted and had to be home-schooled in order to graduate.

And like it or not, the animal was a varmint — an opossum and not a family pet. Setting it on fire was a twisted and mean act, but is it worth forever changing the course of two young lives?

That’s where prosecutors decided to offer a deal. If Hubbard and Rose, who were indicted as adults, complied with the terms of 12 months of supervised probation, completed 100 hours of community service and submitted to a complete psychological evaluation — and follow through with all recommended treatment from it — the felony charges get dismissed in a year.

“We have to balance the severity of the event with the age, maturity and culpability of the defendant,” Breeding said. “There are collateral consequences to their futures. As felons, they might not be able to go to college or get a meaningful job.”


Grace agreed, and he said so when he rose to speak on behalf of his clients.

“We have to be as concerned about the behavior as much as the charge,” he said. “I think this is taking an enlightened position without pooh-poohing this kind of cruelty to animals.”

Stone, too, agreed and reminded Hubbard and Rose that “the sword of Damocles hangs over your heads. One stupid mistake, and you’ve already entered guilty pleas to felonies.”

(Winston-Salem Journal - July 3, 2014)