Saturday, August 28, 2010

A Tri-Cities pastor admits to killing a neighbor's puppy

Story Published: Aug 27, 2010 at 11:31 PM
He says the dog was getting into his chicken coop and killing his hens.
KEPR Action News got both sides of the story, including the pastor who explains why he did it, and the dog owner who calls it cruel.
"I don't understand how someone could be so cruel and inhumane," Christy Rose said.
Christy Rose says her 6 month old Siberian Husky named "Jack" got out of the yard when she wasn't home.
When she got home, she had a note on her door from her neighbor. It said that her dogs had killed some of his chickens and that she should keep them locked up.
Christy went to her neighbor's house to get the dog.
"He looked at me and said your puppy is no more, he's dead. I looked at him. I was dumb founded and I didn't know what to say or do and I said so you shot my puppy? And he goes no , I used a knife on it, that's all I had," David Rea said.
Christy says her dog's throat was slit.
KEPR Action News went to talk that neighbor.
He is David Rea, Pastor of Tri-Cities Baptist Church.
He wouldn't go on camera, but he spoke to KEPR Action News for 30 minutes outside his home.
This is the story he tells: he says his children saw Jack and another dog jump his fence and start killing his chickens.
He told KEPR Action News he tried to get the dog off the chickens and when that didn't work, he says he had no choice but to kill Jack.
David wouldn't tell KEPR Action News exactly how the dog died, but he says he says it didn't die from a slit throat, he says he put him down "humanely."
David says if he was to do it again, he'd let the dog kill the chickens.
Christy showed KEPR Action News pictures she took of Jack's wounds.
The images are disturbing and were too much to air on TV.
She believes his throat was slit.
David Rea showed KEPR Action News the damage the dog did to one of his chickens.
He had to bury 9 of them.
"He claims to be a preacher for the Tri-Cities Baptist Church, he claims to be a man of God, a man of God would love the animals and respect nature, not horrifically kill something," Christy Rose said.
However, David says he's also lost animals.
He says he had a problem with dogs running loose in the neighborhood.
Christy says this is the first time her dogs had gotten out.
"Before I got home, my puppy was taken care of, without even the option of righting the wrong," Christy Rose said.
Christy says her children are devastated and she's hoping that something will be done before it happens to another family.
David Rea spoke to our partners at the Tri-City Herald on Thursday about a dog he shot that was on his property earlier this year.
When Action News spoke to David Rea on Friday he appeared to tell a story about a third dog he said he killed a couple years ago, when he found it on his property and didn't know where to take it.
He felt shooting it was the humane thing to do.
KEPR Action News went a step further and called the Benton County Sheriff's Department to see if he could face charges, but we have not heard back.



2 comments:

DizziNY said...

This man is a monster and should be in jail. He is an affront to God. God doesn't advocate animal abuse.

Anonymous said...

He's got a right to defend his livestock from predators that are killing them. And that includes dogs on the loose.

That said, it's too bad that he couldn't find other options. If he could get close enough to it with a knife, he could have also grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and put it in his car. Better to take it to the pound for them to deal with, than cut its throat. Obviously it wasn't posing that much of a threat if he could have gotten that close to the dog.

Obviously an awful situation all around. Responsible animal ownership -- be it dogs or chickens -- is hard to do.