A Brooklyn man was arrested November 9, 2005, after beating his mother and tossing the family dog out the window of a fifth-floor apartment, authorities said. The dog, a 55-pound pit bull mix named Gemini, was killed.
Police said the suspect, Alan DeCosta, 35, attacked his 48-year-old mother with a vacuum cleaner before hurling the dog. Charges against him were pending.
Officers responding to a report of an emotionally disturbed person found Gemini at about 8 a.m. on the sidewalk outside the home in the Crown Heights section. They arrested DeCosta after his mother told them he had assaulted her; she was treated for bruises to her neck, head and back.
DeCosta was being held by police the night of November 9, 2005.
Gemini's body was turned over to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to determine a cause of death. Case Updates| Alan Decosta pled guilty and will serve the maximum for the animal cruelty count allowed by NY law - 2 years. | | Update posted on Apr 26, 2006 - 5:33AM |
For the past week, Alan Decosta had been vowing to kill the family dog, claiming his mother cared more for Gemini than for him. November 9, 2005, convinced his mother wanted to give his cereal bowl to Gemini, Decosta, 35, snapped, police said, beating his mother, then flinging the friendly pit bull mix to her death out the fifth-floor window of their Crown Heights apartment. Frantic, his mother, Sonia Reyes, 52, ran down to the street and cradled the dying dog in her arms. "She was trying to get up and she couldn't get up," Reyes said. "She just started spitting a lot of water and she died right there."
Decosta, who never left the apartment, was arrested by police and charged with assaulting his mother. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will conduct an autopsy, with Decosta expected to be charged with animal cruelty.
"He's not going to come back here," she said of her older son. "I don't care what he says. I wish they lock him up and throw away the key. This comes from my heart now."
Decosta, she said, lived with his wife until she threw him out more than three years ago. He moved back in with his mother and was known to lounge around, smoking marijuana, the mother said. "My mom took him in because he had nowhere to go," said Sean Reyes, 29, Decosta's brother. About four months ago, the mother had Gemini, 10, treated for a tumor. She still owes $366 on the $1,366 bill, but wouldn't consider euthanizing the dog. "We could have put the dog to sleep then, but you know, I have human feelings," said the mother, a home care attendant. "I said no."
On November 9, 2005, she and Decosta started arguing, with the suspect at one point convinced she wanted to give his cereal bowl to Gemini, even though the dog was sleeping. The tensions were nothing new, the mother said. He has hit her in the past and she has responded by throwing him out of the apartment. She said the suspect often complained her love for Gemini, who was brown with white patches and weighed 40 pounds, was greater than her love for him. As the tensions increased Wednesday Decosta slugged his mother with a vacuum cleaner, bruising her back and head. Then, he set his sights on the sleeping dog, grabbing her, running to the living room window and tossing her to her death.
The mother said she wasn't surprised, noting his anger toward Gemini increased dramatically about a week ago. "Since last Monday he told me he was going to decapitate the dog's head," she said. "This is something he was planning."
Sean Reyes rushed home from work when he heard the news and saw police leading his brother away in handcuffs.
"'The -- -- dog is dead now,"' Sean remembers his brother saying. "'What are you going to do now?'" | Source: NY News November 10, 2005
Update posted on Nov 10, 2005 - 12:41AM |
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