Pennsylvania: 'Sticky,' cat found covered in duct tape in Philadelphia, finds new adoptive home

PENNSYLVANIA -- There's a happy ending for the cat found covered in duct tape and left in a yard in a residential section of Philadelphia,.

The cat, nicknamed "Sticky" by her interim caregivers at the Philadelphia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, has been adopted and is now safely at home with her new family.

Sticky was discovered Sept. 22 by the North Philadelphia woman in whose yard she'd been dumped, and reports of the extreme incident of cruelty spread quickly among fuming animal lovers.

PSPCA staff reported that it took an hour to cut all the duct tape from the cat's body. (Sticky had to be sedated in order to complete the process.)

PSPCA spokesman George Bengal told Philadelphia's ABC6 Action News that he'd never before encountered a case of animal cruelty like Sticky's, adding that "whoever did this took a lot of time. It was very methodical... [It is] a very sick individual that would do something like this to a cat."

 

In the days that followed, a number of people called the PSPCA claiming ownership of Sticky, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  None of the claims appears to have been legitimate, however, since each caller was given the opportunity to come to the shelter to offer proof that they were the cat's legal owner.  None of them showed.

With no owner forthcoming, the PSPCA offered Sticky for adoption -- and received more than 100 requests to adopt her. The group considered the requests on a first-come-first-served basis (Sticky's eventual adopters, who chose to remain anonymous, put in a request shortly after word of the cat's abuse broke), and the cat went home with her new family Tuesday.

Over the weekend, a 19-year-old Philadelphia man, James Davis, was arrested on suspicion of committing the crime.  According to Bengal, Davis has admitted to covering the cat in duct tape after finding her in his backyard on Sept. 21.

If convicted of animal cruelty charges, he could face up to two years in prison and a minimum fine of $1,000, the Associated Press reports.

Davis "did not have any previous convictions or complaints related to animal cruelty," Liz Williamson of the PSPCA told the Inquirer.

Beyond Sticky's new home and the arrest of her alleged abuser, there's more good news. The PSPCA says that the number of cats adopted from its shelter during the period Sticky was there nearly quadrupled the total number of cat adoptions from the same period last year, an increase staffers attribute to all the publicity.

Plus, the organization received more than $2,000 in donations from members of the public who cited Sticky as their reason for donating.

(LA Times blog - Sept 30, 2009)

Earlier:

• Pennsylvania: Cops say teen James Davis, 19, tortured cat by duct taping it like a mummy

Pennsylvania: Cops say teen James Davis, 19, tortured cat by duct taping it like a mummy

PENNSYLVANIA -- James Davis, 19, admitted to taping up the cat from neck to tail after he spotted it in his yard Sept 21, police said.

He was arrested on Saturday on animal cruelty charges, said a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

A woman spotted the gray tabby lying in the grass, covered in tape, and brought the animal to the human society.

 

The animal, nicknamed Sticky by animal welfare workers, was dehydrated and had to be sedated while the tape was cut off its fur.

But the cat is doing well, animal welfare workers said, adding that they are still looking for Sticky's owner.

 

Video of the cat after the removal of the tape shows a seemingly happy animal, purring and apparently unafraid of its human handlers.

"This is a very very very sweet cat," George Bengal, of the PSPCA, told Fox News. "I can't imagine someone doing this to this cat. I mean, this is a domestic cat. Obviously, it was owned, it can be handled very easily."

Davis faces up to two years in prison and a minimum $1,000 fine if convicted.

(Telegraph UK - Sept 28, 2009)

Wyoming: BLM employee Jason Hein accused of shooting and killing three horses inside their corral

WYOMING -- Authorities have arrested a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee in connection with the June shooting deaths of three horses at the agency's holding corrals.

BLM spokeswoman Lorraine Keith said Tuesday that Jason Hein was arrested in Billings on Friday. He was charged with seven felony and misdemeanor counts.

"It's good news that the process is working ... and hopefully we'll have closure soon," Keith said.

She said authorities aren't aware of a motive for the shootings.

Hein is still an employee of the BLM, but Keith said he has been on "administrative leave" from his job at the agency's Rock Springs Field Office. He has been employed by the BLM for several years.

Sweetwater County Sheriff Rich Haskell said that a joint county and federal investigation led to Hein's arrest on charges of aggravated cruelty to animals, unlawful killing of wild horses, and property destruction and defacement.

The Sweetwater County attorney's office filed charges against Hein in Circuit Court in Rock Springs. Haskell said Hein is free on a $50,000 bond set in Justice Court in Billings.

BLM personnel arriving for work June 12 discovered that three wild horses had been shot and killed by an unknown person sometime during the night of June 11 with a .22 caliber weapon.

Two of the horses killed were privately owned, and a third horse was a wild mustang that was being held at the corrals.

The wild horse had been gathered as part of BLM roundup operations and was being held at the Rock Springs horse corrals while up for adoption. The agency's corrals and wild horse operations were not closed as a result of the incident.

The June shootings marked the second time in nearly a decade that wild horses have been shot and killed in Sweetwater County.

In February 2001, more than 30 wild horses were shot and killed on federal rangelands northeast of Rock Springs in the Red Desert. That case remains unsolved.

ARREST INFO:
Full Name: Jason Edward Hein
Gender: Male
City: Billings, Montana
Height: 6'00"
Weight: 180 lbs
Arrest Age: 39
Arrest Date: 10/26/2009
Arrest Location: Sweetwater County, Wyoming
Charges
#1 CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
#2 PROPERTY DESTRUCTION
#3 PROPERTY DESTRUCTION

(Casper Star-Tribune - Sept 29, 2009)

Disgusting NJ police officer molests calves; gets away with it

NEW JERSEY -- Perhaps the Garden State should switch its nickname to the Barnyard State.

A New Jersey judge has dismissed animal cruelty charges against a cop accused of committing a sex act with young cows, saying a grand jury had no way of knowing whether the animals were "tormented."

Moorestown police officer Robert Melia, who is currently suspended, allegedly engaged in oral sex acts with five calves in Southampton in 2006.

Since New Jersey currently has no law explicitly banning such an act, prosecutors in Burlington county brought animal cruelty charges against Melia, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

Judge Morely said it was questionable that Melia's acts, though "disgusting," constituted animal cruelty.

"I'm not saying it's OK," Morely said.  "This is a legal question for me. It's not a questions of morals. It's not a question of hygiene. It's not a question of how people should conduct themselves."

The dismissal reportedly irked the prosecution.

"I think any reasonable juror could infer that a man's penis in the mouth of a calf is torment," a Burlington County assistant prosecutor, Kevin Morgan, said. "It's a crime against nature."

The judge's dismissal does not mark the end of Melia's legal woes.

He, along with girlfriend Heather Lewis, was arrested in April 2008 for sexually assaulting three girls over a five-year-period.

Authorities investigating those charges reportedly uncovered videos on his computer of a girl being "subjected to sexual activity" in addition to taped encounters between Melia and the calves.

(NY Daily News - Sept 25, 2009)

Florida: Tampa Teacher Charged With Cruelty in Starving Gerbil Cannibal Case

FLORIDA -- She says it was a misunderstanding. 

Tampa teacher Margaret Barthel claims that when she left for summer vacation, she left instructions with another employee to feed and water the pet gerbils in her classroom. 

But the employ apparently forgot, or Barthel is lying to cover her own forgetfulness. Who knows?

Either way, the gerbils were left for weeks over the summer without food water. They became so starved they went cannibal on each other. 

According to a police report filed by Officer Stephen Hiles, several Freedom High teachers said Barthel had a history of neglecting animals, including several finches that allegedly died in their cages, a ball python that died after being deprived of heat and frogs dissected alive by her students.

The conditions in the gerbil cages were deplorable, according to investigators, who were told of overcrowded cages, inadequate food and unchecked breeding practices.


"The gerbils were breeding so rapidly that they were eating their young and being born deformed," police Officer Stephen Hiles wrote in his report. "We were not able to determine the exact number of animals because they had cannibalized each other."

Now Barthel, head of the science department at Freedom High, has been charged with five counts of animal cruelty.

UPDATE TO STORY:

In Barthel's classroom at Freedom High, several class “pets” were abused and neglected: Nine gerbils died after they were deprived of food and water for more than two weeks, finches died of exposure, and a ball python froze to death.

As a result of the cruelty citations, Barthel has relinquished her (still-living) ball python to Hillsborough County Animal Services, paid a $1,000 fine, donated $500 to animal services, and committed to keeping animals out of her classroom permanently.

(True Crime Report - Sept 23, 2009)

Woman says pit bulls jumped fence before killing other dogs

NORTH CAROLINA -- A Wake Forest woman says two pit bulls, thought to have mauled and killed two other dogs, likely jumped the fence outside her home while she was away.

Susie Henley said Tuesday that she was watching the animals for their owners while they moved to the area. She left to go pick up some items on Friday to move.

That's when the dogs got away, Henley said, adding that she searched for them and put out fliers. She had no idea that they might have attacked Joyce Valentine's dogs.

Valentine said that she returned home from work on Friday to find her two Jack Russell terriers dead in the back yard.

Neighbors told her they had seen two dogs identified as pit bulls in the area. A neighbor later captured the dogs and took them to animal control.

Mike Williams, director of Wake County's Animal Control and Adoption Center, said Tuesday that the dogs' owners have since surrendered one of them to the shelter and has until Sunday to decide about the other dog.

He said the dogs likely won't be available for adoption.

"There is no direct proof, at this time, that these dogs had anything to do with the deaths," Williams said. "There is plenty of circumstantial evidence, which is why we will not be able to offer the one dog that has been surrendered for adoption."

Williams also said the owners also made clear that the dogs are American bulldogs.

"Pit bull" is a description applied to a number of specific breeds of dogs including the American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terrier and Staffordshire bull terrier, among others.

American bulldogs also meet that generic category, Williams said.

It's unlikely that the dogs' owners will face criminal charges, Williams said. They could, however, be fined by the county or subject to civil litigation.

Williams said the case serves as a reminder that pets should always be properly confined for the animal's safety, as well as the safety of humans and other animals.

(WRAL - September 22, 2009)

Florida: Maxwell Joe Bruner Accused of Feeding Cat to Dogs, Assaulting Witness

FLORIDA -- Our story begins in April of last year, when a janitor at Bruner Middle School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida found a mauled cat in the school’s rear.

When police checked surveillance video, they saw a man and woman arrive in an SUV with two dogs and a cat. The man teases the dogs with the cat in his hand, then throws it for the dogs to maul. 

The matter remained a mystery for more than a year. But Maxwell Joe Bruner’s wife just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

While at work on day, she mentioned that “Skip and Dink are wanted dogs,” according to the Northwest Daily News. A coworker didn’t know what she was talking about, so she showed him the surveillance footage on the Daily News website, saying her husband was the man on the video. Then a former employee of Bruner’s came forward, confessing that she was the woman with Bruner in the video, and that she’d witnessed Bruner 'sic' his dogs on cats and rabbits several times…

But Bruner didn’t like being ratted out. The former owner of Big Kahuna’s restaurant — he’s as unoriginal as he is cruel — became angry after apparently finding out that the man his wife told ratted him out. So he pushed him and hit him on the head, face and neck.

Now Bruner isn’t just charged with animal cruelty; he’s charged with battery as well. He’s also accused of besmirching the good name of his father.

Bruner Middle School, where he was caught on camera, is named after his father.

(True Crime Report - Sept 21, 2009)