Case Details

Dog dismembered
Romulus, MI (US)

Incident Date: Friday, Oct 19, 2001
County: Wayne
Local Map: available
Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Name Undisclosed

Case ID: 381
Classification: Mutilation/Torture
Animal: dog (non pit-bull)
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A suburban Detroit teenager was charged as an adult with animal cruelty Wednesday in connection with the killing and mutilation of a dog that was found inside Romulus High School in October. 

The 16-year-old is accused of luring a stray dog into a wooded area and stabbing the animal to death. Investigators said that the teen then dumped the dog's head into a toilet at the school and placed an eye in a drinking fountain. 

The boy is reportedly a special education student at the school. His teachers identified the 16-year-old as a possible suspect after discovering graphic pictures and poems the teen had.

The teen allegedly confessed to the crime earlier this week. He is being charged with animal torture, animal cruelty and causing a disturbance in a school. The suspect's trial is scheduled to begin March 25.

The boy had been in counseling but it was discontinued when his parents could no longer afford it. 

"I wanna hear your neck snap crackle and pop, just like the cops . . . cause I'm smoking bud in the living room," reads one poem he left behind in a classroom.

"I may be a little insane ya' think but I don't think so I just go with the flow of the blood," reads another.

Teachers almost immediately identified the boy as a suspect, but he denied the allegations, according to a report filed in Wayne County Juvenile Court.

The boy had left drawings of people with their heads cut off with a knife, heads blown off with a firearm and an eyeball with a knife inside in a classroom, but there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime until last week, when the boy admitted killing the dog with a knife, the court records said.

"I got high off cough medicine and weed," the boy wrote in his statement to police.

The boy, whose name is being withheld because of his age, was charged Tuesday with animal cruelty, a 4-year felony. Juvenile Court Referee David Perkins set a $12,000 cash bond pending a March 22 preliminary examination.

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office is asking juvenile court to consider sentencing him as an adult if he is convicted. Animal cruelty is not a crime that can be considered for automatic juvenile treatment.

The boy's parents were at Tuesday's court hearing and said they could not afford to bail their son out of the juvenile detention facility.

"He got messed up on drugs a couple of years ago, and we got him help with that," his mother said after the hearing. "You know, he was starting to do better recently. . . . It was like a group thing - him and some of his friends. I guess they got bored and were just having fun."

Romulus Police have charged only the one youth with the crime.

The boy said the dog was a stray he had befriended and took into the woods. Ownership of the animal has not been established. The boy is a sophomore at the school and has been getting failing grades, his mother said. "We have a cat and we have a hamster, our pets, and he's never hurt them," the mother said. "For a while there, he was getting suspended" from school, she said, "but he hasn't for quite a while."

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References

Knight Ridder Newspaper, March 12, 2002
WISCTV

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