Puppy deliberately hit by pickup truck
Willow Spring, NC (US)Incident Date: Sunday, Jan 2, 2000
County: Wake
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Willie Coy Riddle
Dog's death leads to felony charge. When Kevin Kain heard is 8 year old son screaming, he ran out the front door of his Willow Spring house to find his family's puppy writhing on the side of the road with a broken back.
The tiny dog had been struck by a pickup.
The next day, driver Willie Coy Riddle returned to Kain's neighborhood in southern Wake County. This time, he was arrested and charged with intentionally swerving to kill Sneakers, the Kains' 7 month old Yorkie poodle mix.
Riddle, 19, spent Monday night in jail on a felony cruelty to animals charge. The felony classification was created two years ago to deal with malicious offenses. Riddle was released Tuesday evening on $4,000 cash bond.
D. S. Booth, an off-duty Wake County deputy sheriff who lives on the street, said he was standing at his window when he saw Riddle's pickup streak down the street Sunday afternoon. Both said his wife then ran into the room and told him she'd seen the truck hit the neibhbors' dog.
Monday, Booth interviewed witnesess and secured an arrest warrant from the county magistrate. When Riddle returned to the neighborhood later that day, Booth arrested him.
"I've been shot at and been through some rough times, but I don't think I've seen anything as bad as this," Booth said.
At Riddle's first hearing on Tuesday, Judge William Lawton reduced bail from $10,000 but stressed to Riddle that the intentional maiming of an animal is a serious offense.
"The reason why we take this serious is because animals are defenseless," the judge told Riddle.
He was not available for comment. But friends and family of Riddle said they did not believe he hit Sneakers deliberately.
"It just wouldn't make any sense," said his mother, Pat Murray, who sat nervously waiting for her son to face the judge.
"He grew up with a dog, we now have a cat in our home, and he's overall an animal lover." She said her son had returned to the Kains' neighbhood to apologize.
A close friend who also attended the hearing said witnesses told her that Riddle tried to avoid the dog.
"He just wouldn't do something like this," Kelly Ellis said.
Some events Sunday are not in dispute:
About 4 p.m., Kain, Sneakers' owner, suggested that his sons, Bryce, 10, and Brett, 8, take the dog outside. Several minutes later, Kain said, he heard Brett running back into the house screaming. His first thought, he said was that his other son had been hit by a car.
"The next thing I know, my boys came running up the sidewalk yelling that someone ran over my dog," Kain said.
Sneakers was lying partly paralyzed on the road. Kain said neighbors told him the dog rolled about 20 times after the green Dodge truck hit him.
"It might have been one of my kids, for God's sake," Kain said.
At the vet's clinic, the family learned that it could cost as much as $3,000 for surgery, with a 10 percent chance of Sneakers ever walking again. They decided to have him euthanized, even though the two boys offered to take the money out of their savings to help pay for the operation.
Friends of Riddle said he was heading home after spending time with friends in the subdivision.
Riddle, who is on probation for a felony conviction of breaking into a car, works as a carpenter for the Mantel Shop in Fuquay-Varina and is studying for the GED at Wake Technical College.
Although he is out on bail, he is not allowed to return to the street where the accident occurred and is forbidden to handle any animals other than his own. His next court date is Jan 24.
Kain said he may take his sons to court for Riddle's trial.
The hardest part for them has already passed. But Brett and Bryce got a chance to say goodbye Sunday night before the vet put Sneakers to sleep.
"He was all scraped up and bleeding, and breathing real hard," Bryce said Tuesday night. "I kissed Sneakers and told him I loved him." References« NC State Animal Cruelty Map
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