John Michael Wimmer, 27, was charged with beating a canine to dying (Photograph: Police/WVNS)
A pet killer who bludgeoned a canine to dying subsequent to an elementary faculty has been jailed for 10 years.
John Michael Wimmer, 27, pleaded responsible in August to animal cruelty in Princetown, West Virginia, and was handed the jail time period at a listening to on Tuesday.
He beat up the pet within the yard of his house complicated in January, which was in full view of an elementary faculty the place kids had been attending courses.
Wimmer positioned the 8-week-old pet onto a log and bludgeoned it to dying with a chunk of firewood, police stated.
He then fled the scene and led police on a high-speed chase round his neighborhood.
The pet’s proprietor and Wimmer’s cousin, Justin McKinley Mitchelson, was additionally charged with felony animal cruelty. He’s at present being hunted by police after failing to look earlier than a courtroom.
Justin McKinley Michaelson, Wimmer’s cousin and the pet’s proprietor, was additionally charged with a felony animal cruelty (Photograph: Police)
Wimmer later informed police that the pet had consumed Lysol and needed to be put out of its distress, however after performing a necropsy, a veterinarian stated that the pet had not consumed something poisonous.
Wimmer’s grandmother, Louise Wimmer, spoke on behalf of the pet killer in courtroom and stated he had a fantastic affection for animals.
‘John loves animals,’ Wimmer informed the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, ‘He didn’t do that out of meanness.’
Mitchelson additionally has a historical past of arrests and drug habit, and he stated in courtroom that he wished to show his life round after this incident.
‘I’m not a foul particular person,’ he stated. ‘My best achievement in life goes to be overcoming myself.’
Decide William Sadler, who presided over the listening to, stated he was ‘suspicious’ that Wimmer beat the pet to dying as a substitute of taking the canine to a veterinarian.
‘One other factor I discover disturbing is that this was carried out in view of the college,’ Sadler stated.
Wimmer was sentenced on for a felony animal cruelty cost and for fleeing police.
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