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Case ID: 17152
Classification: Mutilation/Torture
Animal: dog (non pit-bull)
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Dog skinned in bathtub
Hopkinsville, KY (US)

Incident Date: Tuesday, Dec 28, 2010
County: Christian

Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Marc Teodorci Staley

Case Updates: 2 update(s) available

A Fort Campbell soldier has been arrested for allegedly skinning his wife's dog in a bathtub on Tuesday, according to a Kentucky media report.

Marc. T. Staley, 47, of Denzil Drive in Hopkinsville, Ky., was arrested at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday by Hopkinsville Police, an official at the Christian County Jail said Wednesday night.

The official at the jail confirmed Staley is a soldier at Fort Campbell.

Staley is charged with second-degree cruelty to animals, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by one year imprisonment and a $500 fine. A Kentucky judge, however, raised Staley's bail to $5,000, a felony bond amount, the official said.

A $5,000 bond in Kentucky is the equivalent of a $50,000 bond here in Tennessee, the official said, because Kentucky doesn't have bail bond industry and requires somebody charged with a crime to post the full amount before being released.

The Kentucky New Era reported Wednesday that Staley is in custody after allegedly skinning his wife's dog in a bathtub.


Case Updates

A U.S. Army soldier stationed at Fort Campbell accused of butchering his wife's dog has been charged with a felony.

Marc Teadorico Staley, 42, had initially been charged with misdemeanor cruelty to animals after the December 27 incident. But on Wednesday in a court appearance the charge was raised to torture of a dog, a felony.

Staley remains in jail on a $5,000 cash bond.

According to the arrest warrant, "the dog had been butchered with an incision from the scalp down the back."

The warrant said Staley gave his wife, Ismelda Staley, the dog in a bag when she asked where the animal was. Staley admitted to killing it, the warrant said.

Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne, is located about 60 miles northwest of Nashville, Tenn.
Source: reuters.com - Jan 12, 2011
Update posted on Jan 13, 2011 - 11:26PM 
Marc Staley, the Fort Campbell soldier who allegedly skinned his wife's dog last week and gave her the remains in a garbage bag, has a trial slated for Wednesday morning. He faces a misdemeanor charge of second-degree cruelty to animals.

To convict him of a felony, which would make him eligible for one to five years imprisonment, a prosecutor would need to show that he tortured the dog before it died.

But Hopkinsville police passed up the chance to have a veterinarian perform a necropsy, or animal autopsy, which would pinpoint the dog's cause of death. Detective Randall Greene said that when he arrived at the crime scene, a patrolman had already delivered the dog's remains to the Christian County Animal Shelter for disposal.

For the misdemeanor, Staley faces a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment and a $500 fine.

Wife seeks protection

Staley, 42, has worked for the U.S. Army for 19 years, according to court documents. Property records show he belonged to the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Bragg, N.C. before he came to Fort Campbell.

He now belongs to the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, but in another file his wife indicated that he was preparing to retire.

He has no prior criminal charges in Christian County, and a background check only yielded records of two misdemeanor theft charges from the 1980s.

Staley's wife, Ismelda Staley, 22, filed for an emergency protective order the same day her husband went to jail. In her application she outlined the events that led to the dog's death.

On the evening of Dec. 26, Marc Staley "picked on" her Jack Russell, named Baxter, while Ismelda talked on the phone with her brother, she wrote.

The dog bit Marc's hand.

He started choking the dog, and when Ismelda rushed to stop him, she noticed its tongue turning purple.

Marc pushed her onto the couch, then took the dog to the bathroom, drenched it with water and chained it up outdoors, she wrote.

He hardly spoke to his wife that evening or the next morning, though he talked to himself, she wrote. When he dropped her off for work at Dollar General, he said he planned to find her an apartment in Mobile, Ala. He would move to San Antonio, he said.

When her work shift ended in the evening, Marc never arrived to pick her up, and he wouldn't answer his phone, she wrote. She called a friend to drive her home.

She found the apartment empty, though a door was unlocked. Two of her dogs were missing.

Marc soon arrived with a single dog in tow. She believes he was drunk.

"… he asked me in a mocking tone of voice if I had found Baxter and if I had any last words for him," the file reads. "At this point I was scared and knew something was wrong. I asked him what he had done and simply smiled and said he killed him."

He dropped a black garbage bag at her feet. She saw the dog's bloody remains inside.

He laughed and told her the dog had it coming, and he threatened to kill another pet, she wrote.

The next morning she called the police, and Patrolman Mike Platero came and picked up the garbage bag. Greene arrested Marc in the afternoon at Fort Campbell.

The next day Marc received a court order to stay at least 300 feet away from his wife.

Best place for abusers?

Sheriff's officials arrested an Oak Grove woman in November for allegedly letting her dog die of a heat stroke or starvation. They charged her with the same misdemeanor Staley faces.

In June, deputies seized a horse from a property on Woodburn Hay Road because they noticed that it looked "very thin," and because it had no hay and very little grass to eat. They charged the owner with the same offense as Staley.

Under Kentucky law, every form of animal abuse and neglect �" except torture of a dog or cat that ends in the animal's death, and pitting animals against each other in a fight �" falls under the same misdemeanor charge.

Because of the same laws, a Hopkinsville man was sentenced to one year imprisonment in 1999 for teasing two pit bulls, then letting them loose to fight. One of the dogs reportedly suffered scratches in the fight. The offense qualified as a felony because it involved fighting.

Every year the Animal Legal Defense Fund ranks all 50 states by the strength and comprehensiveness of their animal protection laws. It has ranked Kentucky the worst state in the country for the last four years.

"Kentucky is just devoid across the spectrum of meaningful laws when it comes to animal protection," said Stephan Otto, the organization's director of legislative affairs, in a phone interview.

"By and large, you stack Kentucky against any other state in the country, and its laws are much weaker."

Many states make it a misdemeanor to neglect or abandon a pet, but they draw the line for felonies at "affirmative acts of cruelty," such as beating a dog, Otto said.

At a minimum, most states have felony provisions for extreme cruelty, such as skinning a dog, said Martin Merserau, director of cruelty investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

In Kentucky, a person commits a felony if he tortures a dog or cat, but torturing any other kind of animal is a misdemeanor. On the first offense, torturing a dog or cat is a misdemeanor unless the animal dies.

Kentucky does not require offenders to forfeit their animals, does not restrict offenders from acquiring more pets, and does not require health evaluations or counseling for offenders, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund's study.

A 1997 study showed that 71 percent of pet-owning women entering women's shelters reported that their abusive husbands or boyfriends had injured, killed or threatened family pets, according to the American Humane Society's website. In a 1999 study, 68 percent of battered women reported violence toward their animals.

"Study after study shows a high correlation between forms of animal cruelty and other kinds of violence towards humans," he said. "If we want to make our community safer for everyone, we should have animal safety laws."

Otto said Kentucky's legislature sees a push every year to strengthen the animal protection laws, but the bills never succeed.

Except for a 2003 change that added some exemptions, the statutes on first- and second-degree animal cruelty have not changed since 1992.
Source: timesleader.net - Jan 09, 2011
Update posted on Jan 10, 2011 - 9:13PM 

References

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