Pet-Abuse.Com - Animal Abuse Case Details: Kitten cooked alive in oven during break-in

Kitten cooked alive in oven during break-in
Belle Glade, FL (US)

Incident Date: Monday, Aug 28, 2006
County: Palm Beach
Local Map: available
Disposition: Convicted
Charges: Felony CTA

Abusers/Suspects:
» Harold Smith
» 15 year old boy

Case Updates: 2 update(s) available

Case ID: 9847

Classification: Mutilation/Torture

Animal: cat

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Detectives say a group of juveniles in Belle Glade broke into a home when the owner was away, vandalized the house and tortured a small kitten � throwing it into the oven and baking it alive.

Detectives say two juveniles broke into the home, located at 424 S.E. Fourth St., and ransacked it. The suspects turned furniture over, trampled through the house without care or trouble before setting their sights on a single, small kitten inside the home.

�They put it in the oven alive and turned it on,� said Detective Sgt. Trevor Cayson.

The owner of the home, Mona Shows, came home to find the horrific scene.

On the walls, the juveniles left messages to the owner, apparently due to an earlier incident between her and them. Painted on the walls were: �Mind your own business b�� and �R.I.P.�

The woman also reported her DVD player and DVDs missing, according to the sheriff�s office report.

Working off of a tip from a witness who claims to have seen some of the juveniles leave the home, the sheriff�s office arrested two juveniles, ages 16 and 17, in connection with the crime.

The juveniles will face charges of burglary, grand theft, criminal mischief and cruelty to animals. One of the juveniles was arrested on the additional charge of tampering with witnesses after returning to the neighborhood to threaten neighbors who might have been willing to provide information to detectives.

Earlier this week investigators were looking for a possible third person in the case, until records proved the suspect was in jail at the time of the break-in.

Sgt. Cayson, who heads the investigations unit for the District 5 sheriff�s office, said the discovery of the cat in the oven is certainly the first of its kind in his over 20 years in law enforcement.

Case Updates

On May 11, sixteen-year-old Harold Smith was sentenced to 3 years incarceration and 30 years probation in connection with an animal abuse case.

Detectives say the teen, after being warned to stay off a neighbor�s property, came back two weeks later, ransacked the house and killed the owner�s pet cat while she was away.

The incident occurred in September 2006.

Responding to the report of a burglary, officers opened the kitchen oven to find the source of an unusually strange smell � a small cat burned alive in the oven.

According to Detective Joseph Scarso, the victim, Mona Shows, had told Smith to stay off her property.

Detective Scarso said the house was vandalized, with cereal and detergent littering the entire home and items were tossed about as the vandal or vandals went through the place.

The intruder wasn�t believed to have been in the home for very long, according to witnesses, but long enough to grab the kitten from inside the home and burn it alive in the oven.

An additional charge of tampering with witnesses was leveled against Smith after officers learned he had attempted to intimidate possible witnesses from talking to police.

At first, witnesses were reluctant to work with officers who canvassed the area for information, fearing retaliation. In the end, the community was so �shocked� by the crime that the leads started trickling in.

The teenager pled guilty last week to the charges of tampering with witnesses, burglary of a structure and animal cruelty and was sentenced to three years in jail and 30 years probation. For the first three years after his release, he will be required to serve at least 30 hours of community service each month.

In addition, the teen was ordered to write a letter of apology to the victim.

The veteran detective said he was personally shocked with the case.

�My whole line of work, working around animal abuse cases, I�ve never seen anything so cruel or vicious,� Detective Scarso said. �I�ve heard of someone putting a cat in a microwave, but to put something in an oven ��

Source: Newszap.com - May 16, 2007
Update posted on Jun 2, 2007 - 1:38AM

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Harold Smith walked around his Belle Glade neighborhood like an irreverent king. No one could touch the 16-year-old; he ruled his land with threats, authorities said.

After his Sept. 20 arrest -- on charges of burglarizing a woman's home and killing her kitten in the oven -- he was released the next day, along with his 15-year-old co-defendant, to his family while awaiting trial.

Smith was angry with the witnesses who betrayed him.

'He told them that `snitches die young' and that they were going to die,' Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Detective J.D. Scarso said. 'When this happened, those witnesses called me.' Smith was booked Sept. 27 on felony charges of witness tampering. Because of his age and second arrest, the State Attorney's Office charged him as an adult in both cases. A judge denied him bond Tuesday.

In the first case he and his co-defendant are charged with burglary, animal cruelty, grand theft and criminal mischief. Smith faces a maximum of 25 years on the charges.

Because his co-defendant was charged as a juvenile, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is withholding his name. He remains in his family's custody.

In the witness-tampering case, Smith faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Assistant State Attorney Rob Shepherd said Smith's last arrest cinched the adult charges. Smith's court-appointed West Palm Beach attorney Christopher Haddad fought to have his client placed under house arrest and said the adult charges were unwarranted.

'When you first meet him, he comes across as someone that would never do something like this,' Haddad said. 'He looks you in the eye when he talks to you and he's respectful and courteous. He seems like just another 16-year-old kid.'

Smith was arrested in 2002 on a burglary charge in Belle Glade.

On Aug. 28, authorities said, Smith and his co-defendant reacted to Mona Shows warning them to stay off her property in the 400 block of Southeast Fourth Street two weeks earlier. They broke into her home, poured vegetable oil, cereal and laundry detergent in the kitchen, stole DVDs and jewelry and wrote threatening graffiti on the walls, according to Scarso's report.

In the kitchen, the oven read 'R.I.P.' Inside was Shows' kitten, baked to death.

The crime prompted the advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to write the state attorney urging that, if convicted, the teenagers undergo 'psychological evaluations followed by mandatory counseling' since youths who hurt animals have been known to turn into violent adults.

PETA spokesman Dan Paden said the group heard about the case from outraged Belle Glade citizens.

Shows, 30, is among them. She's going to move in with her mother, explaining the attack left her feeling vulnerable. She has since fielded a series of questions from her three children.

Where's the cat? 'It ran away.' Where's my Xbox? 'It's in the shop.' Shows stopped home after lunch on Aug. 28 and saw the kitchen in disarray. She thought the kitten had gotten into the cereal boxes again. Then came the smell.

'There was this smell, a smell you can't even imagine,' Shows said. 'I opened the oven and I saw my kitten in there.'

Source: Sun-Sentinel - Oct 4, 2006
Update posted on Oct 23, 2006 - 5:20PM

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Newszap.com - Sept 29, 2006

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Kitten cooked alive in oven during break-inBelle Glade, FL (US)

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Kitten cooked alive in oven during break-in
Belle Glade, FL (US)