Dog stolen, hung to death in city park
Sheboygan, WI (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Nov 6, 2008
County: Sheboygan
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: James M. DeGroff
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
Sheriff's deputies say someone kidnapped a resident's dog, brought it to a park and hung it from a swing.
Smoky, a German shepherd mix, vanished from this home after his owner let him out.
Hours later, workers at a nearby park found Smoky. The dog had been hanged by his collar from a swing until he suffocated.
Scratches on the ground showed Smoky struggled for minutes before finally suffocating.
"No one should do this to an animal. The dog did nothing wrong," Sheboygan County Sheriff's Captain David Adams said.
The suspect also slashed the tires of someone at the home. Police are asking the public for information.
"I think he should be fully prosecuted for what he did," Cascade resident Bernard Kovacs said.
Sheriff's deputies say they do have a person of interest they are speaking with. They have not made any arrests. They do believe this person knows the dog's owner.
Anyone with information should call the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department.
Case UpdatesA 21-year-old Cascade man accused of hanging a dog on a park swing goes on trial today.
James M. DeGroff, of 101 North Ave., is charged with felony mistreatment of animals causing death, which carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison.
Authorities say DeGroff took the dog when an acquaintance let it out in the middle of the night in November 2008 and hung it from a swing at nearby Cascade Memorial Park.
Public works employees found the dog dead the next morning, its front legs suspended in the air with its collar tied to a child swing, a criminal complaint said. There was a circle in the dirt where the dog had run on its hind legs, and a veterinarian testified in a July preliminary hearing that the dog died slowly of strangulation, possibly over several hours.
DeGroff is scheduled for a three-day jury trial beginning today before Judge Terence Bourke. He was charged in July after an eight-month investigation.
The trial will likely include testimony from two acquaintances of DeGroff who testified at the preliminary hearing that they heard him reference the hanging. One said DeGroff twice admitted stealing and killing a dog while talking with groups the witness was part of, and the other said he overheard DeGroff telling people at a park that he could hear the dog yelping from two blocks away.
DeGroff’s DNA was also found on the dog’s collar.
The criminal complaint says DeGroff committed the crime because he was upset his ex-girlfriend was spending time at the home of the dog’s owner, Jacob Odekirk, but the acquaintance that information was attributed to had trouble recalling what DeGroff said on the subject when questioned at the preliminary hearing. Odekirk’s tires were slashed the same night the dog was killed.
DeGroff was originally freed after posting a $5,000 cash bond, but he has now been in jail since April after charges were filed in two unrelated cases, court records show.
He was charged in January with repeatedly choking his girlfriend after she confronted him for kissing another woman at a bar. He was also charged in April for briefly fleeing police when they attempted to pull him over for driving with a revoked license. Charges are pending in both cases. | Source: Sheboygan Press - June 29, 2010
Update posted on Jun 29, 2010 - 11:17PM |
References |
