 Barked: Tue Apr 11, '06 2:16am PST |
 | |  | | A Weissport man has been charged with beating and shooting to death a dog, then threatening to kill a teenager who saw him kill the animal, police said.
Police also charged a Weissport woman with ordering the animal's killing and giving the man the pistol he used because she said the dog bit her baby.
Randy Miller of 230 White St., was charged on April 4 with terroristic threats and cruelty to animals, both misdemeanors, state police at Lehighton said.
Wendy C. Kneller, 32, of the same address, was charged March 27 with conspiracy, police said.
Miller was carrying a shovel and walking the black chow mix into the woods in the borough about 3:15 p.m. March 24 when a group of teenagers at a nearby basketball court saw him and were curious, according to an arrest affidavit filed by state Trooper Francis L. DeMatto.
The teens followed Miller along a path between the Norfolk-Southern Railroad tracks and the Lehigh River, according to the affidavit, which was filed with District Judge Edward Lewis of Jim Thorpe.
One teen told police he watched Miller beat the dog to death with the shovel, ignoring the yells of some girls in the group to stop hurting the animal. After the dog collapsed, Miller then fired a bullet from a .40-caliber pistol into its body and buried it in a shallow grave, the affidavit says.
As he left the woods, Miller yelled to the teenager, ''If you don't keep your mouth shut, I will find out where you live and I will come and kill you,'' the affidavit says.
The teenager ''took this as a threat,'' according to the affidavit.
DeMatto says in the affidavit that he went to Miller's home at 8 p.m. that day and was met at the door by Kneller, who told him she gave Miller the pistol and ordered him to kill the dog because it ''bit my baby today.''
But when DeMatto asked to see the child, Kneller did not provide one, DeMatto said. He wrote that he did not ''enter the residence due to a number of other large breed dogs, and at least one pit bull, being on the premises.''
The affidavit says that when DeMatto asked to speak with Miller, Kneller said he had gone to his brother's and she had no way of reaching him.
DeMatto said he told her to come to the state police barracks with Miller at 3 p.m. the next day to be interviewed about the incident, but neither showed up.
Police said they recovered the dog's body and gave it to Lehighton Animal Hospital, which properly disposed of it. |  |  | |  |
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