Hi and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host Dr. G and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. I want to warn everybody that today's episode is about a case of criminal assault on a dog. We're going to be discussing a traumatic experience that a dog suffered, a dog that did die from that experience. So I want everybody that's listening to take self care and make sure that they're not too affected by what we're going to be discussing. To discuss this case, we have Kelly Pocock from Sandusky County, and she's going to introduce herself and let us know, where she started and how she got to where she's at today.

Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm the Chief Dog Warden and, um, Chief Humane Agent for Sandusky County. We are located up in Fremont, Ohio. Um, I started as an animal cruelty investigator, um, I think I watched the first ever episode of Animal Cops and I was on my couch and I was just like woke up instantly. This is what I'm supposed to do with my life. Um, that was in like the year 2000. So, um, minus a couple of years that I've taken off, I've done this for the last 25 years. Um, we've seen a lot of legal changes, law changes, we've, we've dealt with a lot of this stuff. We've watched this grow into a much needed field over the last 25 years.

Thank you so much for being here and for sharing the story of this dog. I mean, it's a story that needs to be told just because it. It has a lot of issues as far as the link between human violence and animal violence and we want to let people know that sometimes the good guys win and the people that do bad things to animals do get to pay for it. So for anyone not familiar with this case, this new segment from ABC 13 Action News summarizes the initial findings.

It's a heartbreaking image of a dog, killed at the hands of abuse. Just from the evidence at the scene, it appeared that the dog had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Kelly Pocock is the Sandusky County Dog Warden. She posted this picture to the dog kennel's Facebook page with the hope of generating some leads. Anybody that saw anything, no matter how small they think it, of a detail they think that it might be, it could be a huge detail to us. Pocock says, Fremont police contacted her office after someone riding a bike called 9 1 1 about the dog. It was off the North Coast inland Trail near Roger Young Park. According to investigators, the person who spotted the dog's body came down this trail at about 10 o'clock Sunday morning and did not see anything. When that person returned around 11:45, they found a violent scene. Blood splattered on the pavement leading down the bank of the Sandusky River to the body of that dog. They did not see the blood splatter at 10 a. m. But they did see it at 11 45. So we know that it happened between those hours. The sign on the bridge states surveillance cameras in use. However, Pocock says they're not pointed at this area. She sent the dog for a necropsy at O. S. U. It will help determine how the dog died.

Kelly, can you tell us about that day, what was the call that you got and, and what happened after that?

So initially, our local police department, the Fremont police department, they were dispatched. Someone had called in that they were jogging along the bike trail and that they saw a deceased dog down on the rocks. They arrived on scene first. They immediately knew that there was foul play involved. They gave us a call. We responded. It was a Sunday. We responded due to the situation, and as soon as we saw the, the scene as well, we, we knew that there was, some malevity going on there. Just the, the layout of the scene, the evidence that was left there, the way the dog was laying, the amount of blood in certain areas, we, we knew that there was, um, something most probably illegal that had had taken place.

Somebody walked by that area, and didn't see anything. And then when they came back, then they saw the blood trail.

Correct. And then they followed the blood trail down and they could see the dog down about 30 feet on the rocks.

And the blood trail was underneath a bridge within the trail?

There's like, um, I'm not even sure what the tunnel is there for, but it's a bike trail, and then there's this there's a train trestle that goes over top of it. So there's this little tiny it's only maybe 50 feet long, but it is a little tiny tunnel that you walk under for the bike trail. Um, it's, it connects about a quarter of a mile back to one of our local baseball parks in the city of Fremont, and then it kind of comes over to an area where there's a bridge and I'll take you downtown so it's kind of a very busy area. So I was a little like, how did this happen? There's like 200 people at this baseball park right now, a quarter of a mile away. How did nobody hear or see anything is initially like somebody had to see something. So, I mean, before we ever even started to process the scene, I'm putting plans in my head about, like, how are we going to do this, um, we're going to have to get something out on Facebook so we can start asking people if you saw anything, if you were in this area, if you just think it was nothing, but it could have been something, call us and tell us, looking for any amount of, um, feedback from the community that we could possibly get because we knew it was going to be a struggle to prove who owned this dog. Once we got there, we immediately started to process the scene. We photographed everything. Fremont Police Department was amazing in their assistance to us. Um, they helped get the dog up. It was a pretty steep incline, very large kind of boulder type rocks. Um, easily your feet would slip out from underneath you. So they went down and even helped us get the, get her body up to the edge so that we could kind of take a better look at her and see what was going on. They assisted us in numerous other ways. They were pretty incredible throughout the whole situation.

What was your 1st impression of the dog?

So I would have walked right past her and I would have missed her because she was, um, like a grayish black, female pit bull, very young, probably somewhere between eight to 12 months old. But the way she was positioned down on the rocks, again, it was like probably a good 30 feet down, she was belly up. So her belly blended with all of those rocks. I had to literally like scan back and forth in order to even, they're like, she's right down there. Well, they didn't really walk over and point it out. So I like go to the edge and I'm looking and I'm trying to like, my eyes are scanning back and forth and it took me a minute to find her. So, um, you know, I mean, she was kind of, you know, I don't want to say like spread out like her arms, like her front legs were above her head her back legs were kind of stretched out, which would have been like if she had been in her belly would have been behind her. And then there was like, all the way down, there was like a blood trail, but then there was like one area where there was a large accumulation of a good amount of blood. And then the blood trail went down further, but there was like less blood in the trail as it went down from like that initial kind of large quantity of blood down to where the dog was where we, where we found her.

You collected the body, took pictures, which you took really great pictures. You know, you took pictures that showed the whole scene, pictures from a mid range, closeup pictures of everything, including the blood pooling, the, the trail. And, uh, and then as you mentioned in the rocks, there was an area that had more blood and then the area where, where she was at.

Um, we took her back to the kennel. We attempted to pose her in, in a way that we, because we know there's a lot of people that follow our Facebook page. So we, we try to pose them in a way, but we didn't, we had to be very, Careful with her because we didn't want to disturb any evidence. So, you know, we're trying to pose her in a way so that we can get a picture of the dog that was killed out there to the public. So if they recognize the dog, we're going to get that feedback as well. Um, but that was that proved to be a little bit more difficult because we didn't want to disturb any of the possible evidence that was on the body. So, um, yeah. That probably shows that photograph in the news feed that you just played so you can see like you obviously can tell that she's deceased. Um, there was definite injuries like we knew the cause of death before we sent her body in for a necropsy that was very evident, of course, the necropsy determined and then Dr. G can. Like continued on with that, like, um, exactly like how many times she was hit in the head. Um, additional injuries that occurred during that assault to her. Um, but we were able to kind of like, hey, we're looking for information on who possibly could have owned this dog and. You know, um, if anybody has any information, you can call this into us. You can remain anonymous. We're just looking for information. We got a couple like, Hey, I noticed this house over here, it had a dog and I haven't seen a dog there since that day. So we would like go follow up on every single lead that came in. We would go follow up on that. Um, again, Fremont police department was key in helping us trace down some of these they were getting anonymous tips as well that they were following up on their own. Nothing was really panning out. And, um, I had already reached out to the Humane Society of the United States. They assisted us in, um, getting that necropsy performed. They assisted us in getting in contact with Dr. G, um, so that we could get the forensic veterinarian knowledge put into the case. But they also offered to put up a reward, which was, I thought like for this small little rural community, like this is really going to be key. And getting people that are afraid to open up, they'll open up. Like, you can still remain anonymous. Like, we don't have to really share your name and information to anyone. Blah, blah, blah. No one wanted the reward. Every single person that called in an anonymous tip wanted to stay anonymous. They didn't care about the reward. They wanted justice for this dog. So, like, at the same time that, like, My faith in society is being destroyed. My faith in society is being rebuilt like in another on another level somewhere else. We had gotten numerous anonymous tips, um, a lot of these tips were coming in from family and friends. Um, they did not want to be named. They made it very clear to us that they were afraid of this person, but they're like, that dog was there the other day. That dog's not there anymore. Um, I went back over to make sure and that maybe the dog just, I asked what happened to the dog. Nothing's wrong, she's in the house, but you can't come in. So there were like multiple statements like that. So we had a, a lot of people pointing towards Leshawn Gilleland. I would say somewhere between probably seven to 10 different anonymous tips that pointed us in the direction of Leshawn Gilleland. So, you know, some of them came in and they were just, go check, I saw this dog, I haven't seen this dog. We did a couple of those, but the majority of the information that was coming to us was, um, this is what happened. And then as we got closer, you know, we just had a little bit, like his name's being mentioned in these anonymous tips to us. And then, the big, I guess, anonymous tip came in from the friend that said, hey, like, I know I gave him that dog when it was a puppy. This is what's going on. Like, I, he won't tell me why, but I know that he did it. I know that that was the dog. He's been acting funny ever since, like, we're not going to be friends anymore. And he was, I mean, I don't really want my name mentioned, but then again, I don't really care either. So, we ended up coming across this lead because the individual responsible for her death started to brag. If he would have never opened his mouth, I don't think we ever would have caught him. They had words in regards to the whole situation. Um, and I mean, like, lifelong friends and they're no longer friends because this person was adamant that you just don't treat animals like that. Um, he no longer cared if he knew. In fact, there was, they worked together. There was an altercation broke up at work because he was calling him out on what he had done. He wanted to know why Mr. Gilleland refused to tell him why. And like, it just so happened that that happened, and then the next day I got with, uh, um, and our investigator for the prosecutor's office, and he went with me to his place of employment so that we could do an interview and, um, so obviously we audio video reported that. So at that point, it was like, well, now we have enough evidence to move forward on at least going and bringing him in for questioning. Let's see where what he claims happened that day. If he, if he says anything, where was he that day? Does he have an alibi that he was with that can say "no, sorry, he was with me all day", "we weren't around the dog", "I don't know what happened to the dog", or he might be able to say, "Hey, the dog that, you know, they're all putting the finger at looks like the dog that you guys found". But, you know, I mean, we always try to give like, every possible, like, we could have a million options sitting in front of us and we're trying not to rule out anything. We want this to take us where the proof lies. So we know that, you know, we're going to show up. Most people deny this. So literally that's what I was expecting. I was expecting him to deny like, "I don't know, I've never seen that dog. No, I had a dog that looked like her, but I got that dog and I sent her to a friend's house over in so and so city". So that's kind of what my expectation was of going over and talking to him. Um, the investigator that we used, he is a, um, like 40 plus year veteran. He is, was amazing detective before he became an investigator for the prosecutor's office and he just really knows how to talk to people and he, um, sat down and I, I asked him to assist me with this because it's not something that I would normally question people about, and I want to do the best job I can on this. So I have no problem asking for help. So we sat down with him together and investigator Odo led the conversation with Leshawn and he, he never denied it at all. Yes. I know why you're here. I know the, yes, that was my dog. Yes, she is dead. I did kill her. Um, but then he went on to the, I had to kill her because she was suffering. He thought he had justification because he claims she was hit by a car. He's still to this day claims that she was hit by a car. So that was kinda like, okay, so now I had this other whole part of this case that I have to prove the intent to harm. And so that it, it wasn't like a, an act of ending an animal suffering. Um, so then, you know, we're, it's kind of like this whole rat race to get to the point that we're at, only to find out where're in another hole. But like, that's, that's the way it goes. So, um, he just, he never denied. He, he said he did it. My story's not going to change. I didn't talk to anybody about this. I've never spoken to anybody about this. If they tell you they talked to me, they're liars. He made that comment to us multiple times. If you make that comment to me once, okay. You make it to me multiple times, you told somebody. You just kind of get that gut feeling. You told somebody and you're trying to get out in front of that. That's human nature. Get out in front of the lie that you just said. So, you know, we just like we we told him we weren't going to arrest him the day that we were there to speak to him. We told him we want you to go back home, you know, to your family. We just need to know what happened to this dog. We need to know what's going on. We have to find closure for this case and for this animal. Um, if there was foul play, we have to find justice for this animal. Um, and we stayed good to our word, like we didn't, we didn't arrest him that day, we let him say his piece, we went back, we evaluated it, we went over the audio. We could find no scientific evidence of that. We could find no physical evidence. No video evidence of all of the cameras in the area of where he claimed the dog had been hit by a car. Um, he didn't see it happen. He didn't even see the car. He never saw the dog even fall down. Somebody told him, hey, your dog was just hit by a car and he turned around and the dog was already walking to him. So he didn't see any like. The story wasn't adding up where he's telling us the dogs been hit by a car. So we were pretty sure that, like, with all the video, um, the security footage we gathered from all of the local businesses and stuff that there, the dog was never hit by a car. Um, we sent it to you so that you could evaluate it.

So I, let's go over that interview because that was a, that was a really good interview. Like you mentioned, I mean the investigator did a really good job as far as the questions that he was asking. And what, and there were a lot of things that, that he said that he was kinda allowing himself to be led.

I'm just, I'm gonna be get real. 'cause I don't wanna bullshit. I don't do karma. Lauren, this, this, this is how it happened. I was having a week. I picked her up and I picked her up. Um, she came out the house. I was took her for a walk, there was he chewed up something and um,

What's dog's name?

Um, ganja dogs. That dog that it is that it wasn't my, it is my dog. Dog's name was ganja. Took her for a walk cause they wanted to get away. She talks some baby shit and kicking and we having fun. I'm taking her. She walked. Somebody's like smacks her like by the head, but she looks like she's fine. She looks like she's fine. So I keep walking her. I'm taking her on. You see where everything that was on the trail. She's on the trail. I'm walking straight. I'm walking, I'm walking, I'm walking on the trail and I'm walking. I'm like, she's not behind me. She's, she's, she's, so, she wasn't not a leash or anything? She wasn't, she was. No, I never, I've been, I, I've been training her how to walk. She's more friendly than my other dog. Mm-hmm. And I want, I got the dog, puppy from my daughter, like was for her like protection, just sense of security. That's why I got her in the first place. Mm-hmm. And so as I'm walking after that happened, she looked like she was fine. Like she was still walking when we were, when I got where the tunnel's at. Where the, where you seen everything at. I was walking and she wasn't following me. Mm-hmm. And I was like, so I went back, she was on the ground shaking. Mm-hmm. it looked like she was suffering. And I just didn't know what to do. She was suffering like it looked like she was mm-hmm. She was just shaking. When you say somebody hit her, somebody. Yeah. Well, I was walking across, I wasn't paying attention. Mm-hmm. I was walking across the street I was talking to somebody said hi. I was walking across, she just took off. Mm-hmm. boom. They kept going when she looked like she was fine.

So somebody in a car?

Yeah. In a car, yeah.

Hit her.

She looked like she was fine. I was like, I kept walking with her. When we got, when I took her up there, when we got to the fucking, where that, where that the tunnel's at. I kept walking because normally she's like right behind me. She's not too far. She's real playful. She just wasn't, and when I turned around, I walked back. I was all the way. It's the tunnel, and I got to, basically where on the trail where it wraps around like it's getting ready to come up. I stopped there 'cause I was like, normally I'd be like, God, she always woo she comes to me. She wasn't, she was there, where are you seeing it at? And then I did that 'cause I was like, I felt like she was suffering. And that's why I did it. And then I got nervous because, um, I was trying to put her peacefully, like down there by the rocks. And I put her, I tucked her, but then, then she fell. So I, I went back down there and I tried to move it and then I seen people coming and I just didn't want to

kind of freaked you out.

It freaked me out. So I, so I left. So it looked like I did some gruesome.

So did you, did you have to put your dog, I'm going to say put your dog down, did you have to, I don't know, put the dog down?

Yeah, yeah, because she was, yeah, but she was like, it was shaking and stuff was coming out of her mouth.

So how, how did you end up doing that then?

No, I just picked, I didn't, I panicked, I just picked up the thing and I just hit it.

With a rock you said?

Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. I didn't, I didn't want to do it as my, as opposed to my daughter. You feel me? But she was just,

she was shaking and shit. And I just didn't know what to do. And I didn't want to take her back to the house. Like, I didn't, I didn't know what else to do.

So you just took her down and put her in the rocks?

And then I just been having everybody like, It's like, and then I'm seeing like what they said on the internet. And I go, wait, like, no, but like nobody was there. Nobody, everybody made it sound like. That was my dog, you feel me? It was for my daughter. And I didn't want to do that. Everybody just... It was overwhelming. I would have been sad to death. That was my dog. But it just... I was like, ah, it's a potential situation in jail. And then I just had my daughter. I didn't want to talk about it. And then the person that I got the dog from, my friend, he's mad at me for it. I didn't want to explain it to him because I thought the law would get involved. And so I just kind of kept it to myself. I kind of been holding on to it. I damn near cried when I did it because I was, I wasn't, you feel me? But I should have been, I guess I should have said something, but it's a lot going on, man, I just didn't.

Did you think about maybe calling the police or anything, or taking the dog to a vet, or what?

Um, my background, I'm better now, but I don't like dealing with it. And I just felt like, what can they do? It was my dog, it was more sentimental value, I just felt like there's nothing there.

It just doesn't look good. Yeah, I know. The way it went down, I mean. Yeah, I know. People are saying that you just killed the dog because you didn't want it anymore.

No, I want the dog. Every day, I love the dog. I'm gonna take it. Her, she's the reason why my other dog... That like, calm down. Like, that was like his, you know what I'm saying? He was peace for me too. 'cause she's so, like, uh, she was so, I'm kind of like a ah, like a rah rah type of person. And her being around forced me to like, you know, like, relax, calm down. And the reason I got it was just like, for my daughter. And I don't know.

Okay. So I have to ask. Yeah. Because if I don't ask, my boss's gonna say, well, did you ask him this? So, you didn't kill the dog to get rid of the dog because... No. Okay. You went out to the hospital a couple weeks before that. Yeah. Was it that dog that bit you?

No, no, no. That was a random dog. They were both outside. It was like a white brownish, kind of like a pit bull dog. She was, um, I don't never put her on a leash. She doesn't need it. She knows where to go. I put the big dog on a leash. So, I was, um... I put her on a leash. I didn't, I put, I was putting him while I was putting him on a leash. The random dog came like he was running towards my dog. So I tried to run in there. He got me on my arm. Yeah, he did. He got me on my arm and I ended up falling.

Is that the scars there from?

Yeah, yeah. I have this too and this is already healing, but as I fell, he got, my other dog was chained. My other dog probably would have tore him up, but he was on, he was on the chain. And then, um, I was on my way to work. I just went, I ended up going to, it's right. It's feeling up. I can't, I'm going to take my pants off. It's healed up, but that's how that happened. It was just a random dog. Sometimes, it wasn't the neighbor's dog, but sometimes dogs would randomly come. And I was nervous. I'm like, oh, he's outside. I'm like, oh, he's gonna get my puppy.

Did you tell anybody what happen, that somebody would maybe misconstrue

I never, I never talked to anybody about it. I never told, I never, you're the first people I talked to about it. My friend was mad, I got, the dog was mad at me because I wouldn't talk to him about it. I just said I don't want to talk about it right now. I've never told, I've never...

Were people saying that you killed the dog on purpose because you didn't want it? I guess, I'm trying to figure out how we ended up hearing that.

Um, I, I, from what I, from what I heard recently, two days ago, I have a friend that's like a brother to me. Uh, we've been friends for years, they're my brother. We had a falling out. I basically... Cut him out of my life, even when I stopped talking to him, I just kicked him out. And I'm pretty sure he's the one that, cause like somebody told me that was Cause he told, he told people that he did, he told people that he did it, but he did that out of spite. I told him, you are the first person, people that I've told, that have told any of this to, like the whole way. Nobody else, not even the people I, nobody knows. Nobody knows how it happened, nobody knows why it happened, I just didn't want to talk about it.

Did you just tell anybody that you killed the dog, but you didn't...

I never told any, I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody anything. I have had people try to like get me to say it on like, ask me on the internet. I just, I ignore, I don't talk about it. I've never, I've never talked. This is the first time.

Did you see the car hit your dog?

No, I just heard it. I was turned around. Um, I, I happened by, um, I live. I'm there all the time on I'm walking like towards, uh, like towards the bars, like, uh,

Where do you get on the bike?

That, that little street. Um, I take it when I, I walk the dog the same way everywhere. I either, um, I come down where I'm at, or I walk all the way around. I usually take him like around the whole entire city. I go through the trail and go up Buchanan and then come back like a circle. And I'm walking, walking back.

You started to tell me and I interrupted you, um, where the dog got hit.

Um, it's like between, uh, I was coming around and like, uh, it's, it's the bars, not a little space. Then what's that street, uh, in between like, uh, where, where's, where, where's the Chunky Dunks place at?

Chunky Dunks?

Oh, um, it's, it's, it's like, it was, it was around that way,

Park and Napoleon

but it looked like when, after it happened, she was fine. Like, it looked like she just shook it off. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, yeah. Somebody was, look, get your dog, and the car just kept going. I kept walking her straight and it's like, I guess it must've been fatigue, but when, when we got, she started walking a little funny when we even know how you go to Roger Gun, that street, the straight park. Walking her right there and it was fine. And then I, after she said, we fine, I got to the trail. Told you I got to the tunnel. Yep. And I kept walking thinking she's behind me, she's not behind me. I turned around like when I get to the bend, she's just, That's when I did it. I figured I knew I felt like it was over with.

Kelly, what kind of injuries did the dog have then?

So the, the blunt force trauma to the head was the cause of death. Um, there was some bruising, uh, around the neck area. Um, mostly like right in this area. And then there was, um, multiple previous fractured ribs. And a little bit of bruising. Um, that was post mortem, um, on the one hip.

So, the ribs were old injuries, is that it?

Correct.

How long did you have the dog?

Um, I got her when she was 16 weeks. Mm hmm. 16, 13 to 16 weeks. Mm hmm. But I'm not there all the time either. Mm hmm. I'm work, I'm in, I'm there in the morning when I get off. Now that I have a daughter, I'm there all the time. But I'm not there, I'm not there all the time. But.

I wonder, do you know how the dog would, why the dog would have old injuries? To its ribs, or? I'm not there. Yeah, I'm not a vet, so I, I, I can't tell you.

That's, that's, that's what I thought when I, when I heard that. Cause sometimes I'm like, I'm like, oh, they're just trying to make it worse to get people to talk. I'm like, I didn't. So that, that's another thing I was making it worse. Like for me, not to say anything, but cause I'm like the picture that was painted, I'm just like, Yeah. It looks bad.

It does, it does.

So I just like, I didn't know what to do.

So the injury from the head, the dog wasn't bleeding. It just was shaking.

It was, she was, she was shaking like had like foam in her mouth.

So then you hit it with a rock and put it out of this misery. Um, and then just carried it down into the rocks.

I tried, I tried to tuck her like, uh, not at first, when you, the hill's like right there, it's all the rocks. And there was like a little space where like I could try to put her in like I could just lay her there. I put her there and I walked back up and I just heard it slide down. I was like, uh. So I tried to go back down and I was getting frustrated because I was sliding, I had sandals on, I was sliding and shit. It was just overwhelming. The whole moment was just, I was trying to... I was, I was upset about it and I just kept sliding, she kept sliding, so it just looked like I just left it, but I just didn't want to, people were coming and I just like, I just left.

Yeah. I don't know. Okay, Kelly, you have any, everything you're telling me is the truth and we don't have

nobody, for anybody to just call and say that I talked to them or told them, I never talked to anybody about it. I don't want to be in trouble with the law, I'm in a whole better place than I ever was like with my life. So I just like this, and then my daughter's coming, I just didn't want to, I wanted to say, Hey, that's my dog. But I just, I seen what I saw and how my friend's treating me now because he's, he's, he's upset with me because of the dog situation and the people just, I didn't want my family, my home where I'm at to be damaged because of what I did. So I just, I tried to just. Hopefully, hey, hopefully this will blow over.

Keep doing the right thing. I just keep working. You know, your life is about your daughter.

But I don't want my, I don't want my daughter. I'm mad that that happened. I didn't want that to happen, bro. My daughter was for my baby, so I don't, I don't know. When I say I've never, you were the first people I talked to. No one knows that. No one can give you that exact No one can tell you that. I didn't talk to anybody about it.

Did anybody, was anybody around when your dog got hit by the car?

Nobody. I was, I just turned around for a second. It was me not paying attention because she's friendly. That's the only problem I have.

What time was this?

She's, this is during the day. I want to say like, uh, Not evening, but 4 or 5 maybe, 4 or 5 evening. I was just winding down. I was sitting in the car.

On the, let's see, the 16th?

I don't, I don't remember, really remember what exactly happened.

So where she got hit, you're talking about where the state street goes like this and the road goes that way

Yeah, towards like, uh, in the area where that, uh, crossing the bars is in the area.

The Mexican bar right there on the corner?

Yeah, where that, those, the older. people stay at the apartments. Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was in that area? Mm-hmm.

So on that side of State Street or side?

The side. The other side. Yeah. Okay.

That's a bad intersection. Yeah.

I don't know, bro. And it was just, I took her, I was walking her, she left. She was fine. And then I went to keep watch, because I always take her on a chair. I take them both. I can't walk him without a leash, but she can go without a leash. But I'm trying to train her to walk with me, so I can't take them both, because they'll, they'll play with each other the whole time, you know they not disciplined.

Listening to the interview, first he said that somebody hit the dog on the head. Right. And then, right? And then it just makes it sound like, oh, random person came over and just beat the dog on the head for no reason. And then the investigator says, so like, it was hit by a car? And he's like, yeah, yeah, That's it. It was hit by a car. So at that point, to me, I was like, okay, clearly this dog was not hit by a car. When I listened to that, I'm trying to think of what he's saying. And in contrast with what, like, the necropsy report is showing to see what kind of, what kind of things, right? And when we see a dog that has been hit by a car, we are looking for certain injuries. We're looking for fractures. We're looking for scrapes. You know, they, they get pushed, they get trashed, they get bruised, like their nails get frayed. They're going to have different types of fractures. All sorts of things that this dog did not have. So, as you mentioned, there is no evidence that this dog was hit by a car. The other thing that was interesting was that first he was with the dog when it was hit on the head, but then he was talking to somebody, and then that person told him, Hey, your dog is about to get hit, and then the dog got hit. But at another part, somebody asks him, So, did anybody else see this happen? And he says, No, I was by myself. Well, which is it? You're by yourself or you're talking to somebody. Somebody saw it or somebody didn't see it. You saw it or you didn't see it. So, you know, he, he's just trying to, to create a narrative based on what he thinks you guys want to hear, right? Like he figures you guys have a story in your mind. So he's going to agree with that story so that then the end he can go home and everybody forgets about it. Then he starts saying about, well, the dog got hit in the head. by a car, which we would think it's going to be a really bad injury. But the dog was fine. The dog was perfectly fine. And it was walking behind him off leash because he had trained her to go off leash. And then all of a sudden he stops and he looks back and he doesn't see the dog. So,

That was after walking like over a half a mile, they walked another half a mile before he said, I turned around and she wasn't following me anymore. So I'm like, that's that's that doesn't make any sense. Right? Yeah,

because you're, you're going to think that if you're walking your dog, especially I mean not to pick on pit bulls because I like pit bulls, but you're walking your pit bull off leash and you're not paying attention to where it's at, like, you know, it's a dog that you have to, to keep under control. And definitely you want to keep at least eyes on it. So he's saying how the dog was just, you know, disappeared and he didn't notice it for a while. And then all of a sudden he goes back and then this dog that was fine a little bit ago now is shaking and laying on the ground and

foam coming from the mouth.

Yeah, foam coming from the mouth. Um, and, you know, clearly it was, it was suffering. So he had to do something. And anybody that has had an animal that's injured, the first thing that we think is, Oh my God, my dog's injured. I need to take it to the vet. I need to take it to the emergency room. You know, I need to call for help. Even call a family member to say, Hey, what, what should I do? No, this dude thinks that the best thing to do is to grab a rock and kill the dog to put it out of its misery. These dogs, their skulls are really hard. Like, the amount of force that you need to hit a dog on the head, to crack the skull, and get into the brain, that's brutal. That's not just, you know, I, I think that somebody that really cares about an animal would hesitate and would not be able to hit a dog that hard. As hard as this person hit this dog. Right. Like, this is definitely somebody that is being aggressive, somebody that's being violent, somebody that is angry at this dog. And, and at one point during his interview, he mentions the fact that the dog chewed on something. So he picked it up and took it for a walk. So, telling us, not telling us, he basically gave us the reason. It sounds like this dog chewed something, he got mad, and he took it out.

He kind of made himself sound like the savior. And when he was saying that, like, well, he chewed up, she chewed up one of the baby toys and everybody was mad at her. So I just wanted to get her out of the house. So I took her for a walk. So he kind of tried to make himself like he was the only person that understood this dog and he had to get away from everybody else because they were upset with the dog and like going back to the foaming at the mouth, the minute he made that comment, like I've watched and you've probably seen more so than I, but I've seen numerous dogs have seizures. They don't, you don't normally see like actual foaming of the mouth. That's something you heard somewhere and you think it's credible in this situation. That is, that is not something that you would normally, you might see drooling, but you're not going to see actual foam, foaming at the mouth. So that was kind of like the, Oh yeah, that never happened. That was my, my rock solid. And it's in my gut now that that isn't the dog did not have a seizure. The dog was not hit by a car at that point when he's, he made that comment. Like I was convinced that that part never happened.

Yeah, and then he's like saying about, well, why didn't you call for help? Why didn't you call the police? Well, because he has a bad history with the police, and we're going to talk about that, talk about that in a second. But, you know, he, he has an excuse for everything, trying to make it sound like the decision that he made was a kind of spur of the moment decision, but something that he had to make, do, because the, the words that he used really bugged me. He said, The dog had sentimental value and there was nothing there. So when we talk about sentimental value, what do we think about? We think about objects, right? Like I don't talk about my, my family members as having sentimental value. Like I love my family members. Uh, my pets, I love my pets. They don't have sentimental value. Like I am attached, emotionally attached to them. We have sentimental value against objects. Like a picture has sentimental value. So it was clear that he was trying to sound like he cared about this dog. He was trying to sound emotional about this dog, but he had no emotion for this dog. And the best that he could come up with was to use the word sentimental value, which is a measurement of an object, right? So all of those things from this interrogation, it just shows how he just changes the words, even when, when he talks about the rock, he says, yeah, I grabbed the thing and hit it. And then the investigator says like the rock, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the rock. So he's, he's painting a story as he's going along based on what he feels that, that people want to hear. So listening to that, to that interview was very enlightening because it really gave me, uh, an insight on what You know, kind of what was likely what happened in this case and the fact that what this guy was saying was not, you know, was not true. But then also my part in the investigation was to see if the crime scene matched his story because maybe I look at the crime scene and it does match his story and then, you know, he's just bad at telling his story. So while you were interviewing him, there was, there was something that was noticeable to you the way that he spoke that gave you an idea of if he was telling the truth or if he was not being truthful. So can you describe that a bit?

He was very like the standard like eye contact and you like if his and then if he told when we would get to the point he's like, yes, I did it. It's my dog. We went for this walk. And he kind of like he's sitting up. He's sitting straight erect. Um, good posture. He's looking at us. He's putting his hands down like in adamant that this is what happened. Until you get to the point where he tells you that the dog was hit by a car, the shoulders come forward, the chest concaves, he's not looking at us anymore, his arms are now on his lap, his hands are on his lap, there's no, like I speak with my hands quite a bit, but like he had stopped doing that. His hands went into his lap just for that segment. And I noticed it immediately. But then the minute we got past the hit by a car, he came back erect. He was not concave. His shoulders were back. He was adamant. He was speaking with his hands again. And I went noted, like that was huge. So that was like my first clue. Cause initially it's kind of like. Oh, well, I mean, you probably could have found a more humane way to end the dog's suffering than to make it suffer further. But if it truly got hit by a car, I can understand if you're backed into the corner. Like, we can try, we can try, we have to try really hard, but we can try to get there. We can try to get to that mentality where I have to make my dog stop suffering. I have to end this right now. But immediately with his body posture, I never, because it was the very initial conversation that we had with him. I never believed the dog ever got hit by a car because of the way his posture changed during us speaking to him in that point. It was so different. It was almost like speaking to two different people. The way he was before and after and the way he was during talking about the dog getting hit by a car.

So when he was saying things that were likely truthful, he was up and confident. Yes. And then when he was saying things that he was not confident about, he was showing it with his body.

Yep. There was submission, the shoulders forward, like protecting the core. Yeah. It was, it was textbook. I mean, along with the no eye contact, we lost eye contact during that bit, like that textbook, he's lying thing that you get, but there was a drastic change in his body language just during that part. Um, and the investigator, who obviously has way more experience than I do, even remarked on that once he left the room, you know, and we were back in the vehicle leaving that facility, the investigator even remarked on that, that's the only part of the story that I'm not 100 percent on. I think he's telling the truth about the rest. And I said, there's no way he's telling the truth about the dog getting hit by a car. Like, I noticed that there was a huge difference. And he said, you noticed that? And I said, yeah, yeah, I did.

We mentioned about the fact that he had bad run ins with the police and that is an understatement to say the least. So, uh, what are the, what are these runnings that he had with the police before?

So he had previously, um, had felony aggravated assault charges placed against him and convicted of them. Um, he did do prison time. I don't recall the amount of time he actually did in prison. Seven years. Seven, yeah. So he, it was, it was quite extensive. Um, he does not, he doesn't, like, he really does not want to speak with law enforcement. When we did the interview with him, we kind of went to his work and asked his boss to bring him in to speak with us. So we kind of cornered him, um, but we also knew, like, that would be the only way that he was actually going to speak with us. So, um, while I do believe, like, he was going to work every day, he was trying to, like, do better things with his life, I don't think that that violent streak went out of him. I think it just got shifted to different areas of his life. So he was, you know, he's got, he's got a new family. He's trying to make sure he goes to work every single day and great. That's awesome. But we still have this violence taking place in your life. It's just maybe not at this point towards humans because you've already been in trouble for that.

And I think that that's one of the, that's one of the big issues that, that myself and a, and a lot of people that have with, with the way that the, uh, prison system is, is that this individual is kind of warehoused for seven years, for a period of time to pay for a crime that he committed, which, yes, he needs to serve time for the crime that he committed, but there needs to be some form of rehabilitation because if not, we're just in jail for seven years. Um, you know, figuring out how to get stronger and how to, how to not get caught instead of actually working on these clear anger management type issues that he has because if he, you know, he went to prison for assault and then now here he is, he's assaulting a dog, clearly he has a, a difficult way of expressing his anger in a very negative way. So, yeah, you know, that, that basically, again, as part of the link, people that are, that are going to commit abusive actions against humans are likely to commit abusive actions against animals and vice versa. So, identifying these, these cases of animal cruelty and animal abuse are very important in protecting animals, but then also protecting community in general.

And we got kind of feedback on all of these other things, and that's when we contacted the prosecutor's office, and was like, I think that we definitely have enough to do felony animal cruelty charges, and we want to move forward with this, Um, let's go into the next phase of getting the arrest warrant. I think his, the arrest warrant went out on a Tuesday. He was arrested on Friday, arraigned on a Monday. So he did spend those two days in jail over the weekend. Um, and then we go through the long process of the court hearings. Which this one actually moved along quite quickly compared to some of them. I've been involved in.

She went to the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine to have the necropsy done. by a, by a pathologist and from, from what they found, I'm going to, uh, go over their comments and interpretations. So she had multiple fractures to the frontal bone that, uh, that were focal. So basically, uh, small holes that were formed on the top of the head. And then the other thing that they found was a fracture of her jaw on both sides of her jaw. And this is going to be important by the time we're looking at the blood spatter evidence. So, the, the interpretation from the pathologist was that the lesions of the bones and soft tissues of the head and face are consistent with blunt force trauma and are the likely cause of death. The primary lesion is a large comminuted fracture of the frontal bone with extensive bleeding into the surrounding soft tissues, subdural space and brain. And there are several areas of subcutaneous hemorrhage and edema in the prescapular and pelvic regions, which may be consistent with antemortem soft tissue injury. She also had multiple nodules on the ribs that are consistent with healing bone from previous fractures. That's also something that's super important, because that tells us that this is not the first time that this dog has been victim of violence. Right, like this tells us that this dog likely has been kicked, punched, hit in some way or another in the chest, and she had These fractures on both sides, so most likely she had been attacked multiple times. Going back to the, to the blood spatter. So, you know, it, the, the idea of blood spatter is not a perfect science and you can't always say what happened or what didn't happen. You sometimes can get an idea of things that likely happen, where the blood's coming from, how many strikes something has received and, and such. This is a case where, to me, the blood spatter said so much, right? So looking at, at all of that blood spatter evidence, all those pictures that you sent me, it literally painted a picture, and it was a really horrific picture because we could see Two large, um, streaks of blood that were consistent with the two holes that were on top of the head of the dog. So we know that, yes, this dog was hit at least twice in the head. Cause the first time that you hit something, you don't really create a spatter from it, right? You have to hit blood to splash blood. So we know that there was at least twice that, or at least three times that he, that this dog was hit in the head, but the one thing that painted the picture is the fact that there's a puddle of blood, um, running on the ground, but then there is spatter that is consisting with spitting out blood, like, high velocity from the ground. And we can say that getting hit in the head was the, was brutal. The most brutal part of this is that the blood evidence shows that after he hit this dog, and this dog is laying on the ground, probably agonal, that he stomped on the head of this dog, on the face of this dog, hard enough that he broke the jaw of the dog on both sides. And that's where that blood spatter is coming out. And then what tells us further that this is what happens is that there are no large blood pools anywhere, but close to where the blood is, there is one single footprint in blood. And the only way that that really could have come about is from him putting his foot on something that was covered with blood, which, based on everything that was found, the dog's head was covered in blood. So it again shows that he stepped on this dog's face as hard as he could hard enough to break the jaw of a pit bull, I mean, a very powerful jaw. And then he put his foot down and left that single footprint that tells us the story of what happened. Then we can follow the blood trail, the two blood trails from the two holes on the, on the head. And it's clear that he threw this dog onto the rocks. And at that point, where the dog was laying, the heart must have still been beating. Because there was a large amount of blood in that area. And clearly it was, and I think he even makes, makes mention of it, that Well, he says that the dog fell, like it slipped as he was trying to place it further down. The evidence looks more like he threw the dog and it just didn't land far enough to be out of eyesight. So, he's doing all of this to a dog that we're hoping is unconscious at this point, that it doesn't feel anything, but a dog who's heart was and then he picks up the dog and sends it further down into the into the rocks Basically to try to keep it from people seeing and it almost worked if it wasn't for all the blood pooling that he did, like you said like it was hard to see the dog So if that all of that blood evidence had not been there Who knows how long it would have been before somebody would have noticed that the dog was was there You know days weeks could have passed and then a lot of this evidence could have been, could have been damaged. So,, he gets picked up on his warrant. And then he goes to the arraignment.

It appears in court in orange. Mr. Gilleland, is English your native language?

Yes.

You read and write the English language?

Yes.

Have you ever been declared incompetent by a court?

No.

Have you had any recent injuries to your head or your body?

No.

You're in orange. How long have you been in jail?

Since Friday.

Okay. So over the weekend, three days? So you're aware, you have, from the time that you get a copy, you get served a copy of that, you have 24 hours until you have to appear in court for your arraignment. We can come back tomorrow. 945 so that you have that 24 hour notice or we can continue today with your arraignment. That's up to you.

Continue.

The arraignment will continue based on the waiver of any defects in service by the defendant and we now have service complete. By indictment, a file stamped October 6th, 2023, case 23 CR 892, State of Ohio vs. Leshawn Gilleland. Count 1, the jurors of the defendant, jury of the State of Ohio, defendant for the body of Sandusky County on the rose, and named by the authority of the State of Ohio, divinely present, Leshawn Gilleland owner by the 16th day of July, 2023, in the county of Sandusky, a force that did not only cause serious physical harm to a companion animal. To wit, defendant did not only cause serious physical harm to an American Pit Bull, dog resulting in the death of the animal in violation of a higher violence code 0959.131C, 959.99E2. Cruelty to companion animals, a felony of the fifth degree. Penalty, a term of imprisonment of 6 to 12 months and up to a 2, 500 fine. Do you understand the single count of the indictment, Mr. Gilliland?

Yes.

Court order not guilty. Please assign the matter for trial. Bound to be set by separate entry. What are you going to do about a lawyer for this, Mr. Gilleland?

Um, lawyer, I already admitted there's no point of, I already told her what happened, but I did it. I'm trying to figure out what the, that's why I'm confused. Like, what do I need to, you know, I already said I'm already guilty. I already said I did it and why I'm confused. I'm just confused by the whole thing.

Okay. And you've, you've been served with a felony indictment and you are entitled to counsel. My question to you is what are you going to do about an attorney?

I don't want one. It's going to be over with bro.

Okay, I'm not your bro. Don't address me as such. But you, you're waiving counsel?

For what? I'm already guilty. I've already admitted to it. There's nothing I don't understand. I don't understand none of this.

Mr. Gilleland, I'm going to give you this one advisement. I'm going to call it a piece of advice. I'm not sure what your attitude is or why you are presenting in this manner in my courtroom.

So at the arraignment, the judge released him on his own recognizance. he gave him like strict alcohol drug free, stay, obviously stay in this area. Don't take off. We did discuss, that there was another dog in the home that he was currently living in They were not willing to remove that dog because that dog did not technically belong to him, although he said that he was the only one that could handle it. They could not take the dog away from the actual owner of the dog. So the dog was allowed to stay. He just was required to be supervised. He was never allowed to be alone with the dog. So those were really like the, he ended up, um, I think he tested positive for marijuana at one of the check ins with his probation officer and they gave him like another warning, we don't want to see this again, and I think after that, all of his, all of his drug testing was negative. Um, but the, the released on his own recognizance, and then just those, those simple few things is what happened at the arraignment.

And he, from the get go, when he got there, he immediately said, I'm guilty. I did it. Let's get this on.

He was, he was very upset the minute he saw me, because there was a special family thing that had happened that weekend and he missed it. So he, he looked right at me, told me he would never forgive me that he missed that. Um, okay. But when, like, they come out, like, the arraignment is not the time where you, you know, it's the time where you give your plea, it's not the time where you confess your sins. And he instantly, um, with kind of very, like, I don't want to say, like, attitude y, like, um, the court had to remind him to choose his words wisely in how he addressed the court. The court had to remind him to, um, kind of calm down and follow the rules. But, it was. I did it. I already told her I did it, bro. I don't know why I'm here. I already told her I did it. So, you know, that's when the judge, like, the judge said, you will not refer to the court. You will not refer to the judge as bro. You will not. But I truly believe he didn't understand. Like, he, he really thought that, well, I gave them the excuse that I ended the dog's life for its own good, um, because it was suffering and I admitted to it. So why am I here? So there was kind of like a disconnect there for him, like not realizing that what you did is truly illegal, regardless of why. But he, yeah, he can, he was confessing all of his sins. He was highly upset at that first arraignment. Um, he did calm down in the following court proceedings that we were, had scheduled, but that, that initial court hearing, he was, he was highly upset, irritated, um, you know, kind of that, that slang terms that he was using in the agitated voice and stuff. And, you know, the judge had to remind him like. You need to sit down. You need to calm down. You don't address the court in that manner. Um, so, I mean, it was. I guess I had never personally seen such disregard, disregard for a court. I'm sure other courts see it every single day, but I had never personally seen that. So I was kind of taken aback by that behavior. Um, but then, you know, it just, it goes on to pre trial, pre trial and all of that.

And, and part of it may be just the fact that he didn't realize that at that point, you have put together a picture of what actually happened. And he's thinking, you know, well, I'm here because I killed my dog. Well, I killed my dog to put it out of its misery. And he doesn't understand, no, you're here because you brutally murder your dog and we know what you did. So he, he goes through his arraignment. He, um, he says that he did it, but then he actually has his pretrial date in which he came in and he pled guilty. Okay. Right to criminal, animal cruelty, uh, which is a felony under 959.131 of the Ohio revised code. So something kind of cool happen and it's that they asked for, for a victim impact statement.

Well, I was, I was actually kind of surprised because that has never ever been requested of us before. and not ever anywhere else that I've heard of, like they always, dogs are considered property in the state of Ohio. So how can property be a victim? Property can be damaged, but it can't be a victim. So I was kind of like, they want a victim impact statement on behalf of the dog? And the prosecutor was like, yes, can you get that? And I was like, yeah, I know exactly who to ask to write that because she would be able to speak from every aspect and cover every, every part of what we would need to be covered to make sure that it is the absolute best that we, you know, we can submit to the court, especially, you know, we might be setting precedence on victim impact statements being part of these animal cruelty cases, especially the felony ones. So, I was surprised, but I was, I was excited about having that opportunity.

Yeah, when you asked me to, to help write this victim impact statement, I was really excited because I even started doing searches just to get an idea of how to write a victim impact statement on behalf of an animal. And there's not that many. Because as you mentioned, animals are property. Property is not a victim. But this is really nice because we are acknowledging that an animal can be a victim of a crime. And even though this dog is dead, this dog still deserves a voice. So the, uh, the victim impact statement, the other, the other part of it that I was pleased to write this, was the fact that because he pled guilty and there was no trial, I didn't have an opportunity to be on the stand and explain what happened to this dog. What, what this dog went through. What was the horror that, that this person did to this animal. So through this victim impact statement, I got a second opportunity to tell the dog's story. I called in some attorney friends and I reached out to the Animal Legal Defense Fund and to David Rosengard, who is brilliant at, at this kind of stuff, and I said, can you help me do the best that I can to speak for this dog. And he helped me create this statement. February 10th, 2024. Reference Leshawn Gilleland. Case 23 CR 8 9 2. Victim Impact Statement. To the honorable judge, Jon M Ickes. Sandusky County, Common Pleas Court. On July 16th, 2023, the body of a dog was discovered on the Northcoast Inland Bike Trail. The Fremont police, and soon after this Sandusky chief dog warden, arrived at the scene where a blood trail led to the lifeless body of a young female pit bull type dog. After months of hard work, the perpetrator of this crime was identified. Defendant Leshawn Gilleland. And the deceased dog initially known as "river dog" could finally be referred to by her name, Ganja. This statement represents a narrative of the violent actions against Ganja that led to her death to help the court understand what she experienced and how she suffered at the hands of her owner. There is evidence that prior to her death Ganja was the victim of abuse. The necropsy performed at the Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center revealed multiple healed, broken ribs. This is a common finding in animals who are the victims of abuse, who have been kicked about the chest hard enough to result in broken ribs. These fractures were healed and thus not a result of trauma near or on the day of the incident. That trauma would have been painful, and the broken ribs would have resulted in extended pain until healing occurred. During an interview. Mr. Gilleland said that Ganja was chewing on stuff, so he picked her up and took her on a walk on the trail. He then said that she was hit by a car on the head, but seemed fine afterwards. He continued to walk on the trail with her behind him off-leash because she was trained to follow him. Eventually he realized he wasn't behind him and, when he walked back, he found her laying down, shaking with foam coming out of her mouth. So he hit her on the head to end her suffering. He then tried to set the dog on the rocks, but it fell, so he had to climb down and carry her further down. He said he did not consider taking the dog to the veterinarian for care because it was sentimental value and there was nothing there. The necropsy exam and the blood found at the scene revealed a different series of actions that were premeditated, unnecessary and brutal. The pathologist did not find any evidence of trauma from a car accident. If Ganja had been hit by a car, she would've had other injuries and bruises on her body. And she would have been showing signs of trauma at the time of the incident. The pathologist did find two fractures of the skull consistent with at least two forceful hits to the head that resulted in breaking of the skull and trauma and bleeding of the brain. This brutal attack is likely to result in death, but death did not appear to be immediate. The exam also revealed a fracture on both sides of the face, consistent with a smashing injury to the head from side to side, which does not coincide with being struck with a rock. The blood spatter helped put together the actions that resulted in the injuries Ganja suffered during the attack. There was spatter of blood drips, consistent with multiple strikes to the head. The most disturbing finding was spatter and a bloody footprint that indicates that, after Ganja fell on the floor following the attack, Mr. Gilleland forcefully stumped on her face causing the facial fractures. While we can not know if Ganja was conscious at the time, we know that she was still alive and it is possible that she underwent pain and suffering up until she lost consciousness and died. When Mr. Gilleland threw her body onto the rocks, Ganja still alive based on the blood pooling that is consistent with her heart still beating. The second location where her body was moved to did not have blood pooling, indicating she had passed. It is painful to know that Ganja trusted her owner enough to follow him off leash to a trail. This demonstration of betrayal, in addition to the vicious attack on a young dog that he himself owned shows that he does not demonstrate empathy towards living beings under his care. If his initial story holds any truth, it seems that he became angry with Ganja after she chewed something up. So angry at his dog, that he walked her all the way to the bridge under the trail to kill her and throw away the body animal cruelty is not acceptable, and Mr. Gilleland must be held accountable for his actions. We ask the court to sentence him to the maximum allowed by law. We also request a permanent ban on ownership and access to animals. We can not help Ganja, but we can help protect other dogs from the violence we know Mr. Gilleland is capable of inflicting. This was not an active impulse. This was premeditated animal cruelty, unnecessary and violin. We hear by ask the court for justice where ganja.

So, when we first got to court for the sentencing hearing, we've now updated the public. We've released the name of the individual. I'm really stoked about this victim impact statement that's going to be read in the courtroom. Um, because this is just leaps and bounds as for the animals that are victims of abuse. And as soon as we got there, I have my copy of it. I'm assuming the prosecutor is going to ask me to read it out loud. Um, or if they would like, if the judge would prefer the prosecutor to read it out loud, I'm okay with that too. Here's the, here's the copy of it. And she kind of looked at me and she said, they're not going to let you read that in court. And I'm like, then why did you have me write it? Like, why did you want it to be wrote if it wasn't going to be in court? She's like, well, we got the next best thing. The judge is going to read it in his quarter. So he will read the victim impact statement, but it is not going to be read aloud. And I'm like, well, he's the one deciding the sentence. So at least we have that. But then the defense as we're going into the sentencing aspect of this. It was pretty much, I mean, I'll just repeat exactly what was said. My client didn't make a good judgment call. He made a mistake. He knows he shouldn't have done that. It was a stupid decision. My client was stupid when he did this. He was stupid when he made the mistake that was the other felony that's on his case, he paid for his crime, he did his time, you know, he paid back his debt to society. But my client was stupid and he probably repeated that at least three times. I honestly, I just couldn't really even believe what I was hearing. Of course, then we have the, well, feel bad for my client because he's got this going on in his life and there's kids involved and there's this involved and there's that involved. And, you know, hey, you know, if you commit a crime, like those are all things that the defendant should be keeping in the back of their head. That's not just a defense. That's also should keep you from committing the crime to begin with. The judge then, he really hashed over, verbally out loud, like how to get where he needed to be working through this felony and, you know, how do we like not spend a lot of money on this and, you know, the citizens are, you know, they put the bill for this, so we need to make sure that the punishment is swift and just and we're not overdoing it, underdoing it, um, and he even, you know, made a comment about that in the hearing, like he doesn't normally or take all of this out loud. He's just trying to be perfectly clear, like, how he's coming to his decision on what he's sentencing him with. So, as he's kind of mumbling some of this stuff here and there, he's reading some of it out loud and we're kind of following along, then he gives Leshawn Gilleland a chance to stand up and speak for himself. And he's like, do you want to address the court? And the attorney told his client to stand up and address the court. He did. And then he said, I was stupid. I made a dumb decision. I will never, looking back I wish I could do it differently. I will never make this mistake again. I, I truly am sorry for what I've done. But again, there was that whole lack of, now it's just a how, how do I get through this on the easiest path? Not a true apology. It's a, well, if I, they want to hear me say, just like before, they want me to be emotion full about my dog. That's how I should feel. So that's what I need to portray like an actor. And I got that same feeling as he was giving his, his statement to the court. It's just a, well, what's done is done. I admitted my guilt. If I am just forthcoming and I tell them what I think that they want to hear, then they're going to go easier on me that, you know, I can't speak for someone's intentions, but that was the feeling that I got sitting in the courtroom that day. It just, he continued on with his calculation of what was going to happen. And I mean, we were all sitting on the edge of our seats, you know, throughout this time. Waiting for what the judge's determination would be. So the sentence was 90 days in jail. He was to receive credit for 2 days for the weekend that he had gotten arrested on Friday and wasn't arraigned until Monday. There was no fine. Um, he, once he's released from jail, he is on probation for 3 years. During that probationary period, he is not allowed to own, harbor, keep, nor care for any animals for those three years. So then the conversation came up, what about the dog that belongs to his girlfriend that's in the home that they live in together? And the judge said, do you want to try, do you want the opportunity for your girlfriend to find a new home for that dog? Or do you want the dog warden to take that dog? What would you like to do? And he said, neither. She shouldn't have to get rid of her dog, I'll move out. And the judge commented back to him, so you're going to leave your girlfriend and your children and move out so they can keep the dog. Yes, I will. And nothing else was said about that. So the order was never given for that. Um, I'm, I'm assuming, like, if we later on, once he's released from jail and he's on probation, if the probation officer finds that he's staying at home with the dog, that they can violate his probation, and then he has more time hanging over his head for that. But there was never a direct order given. In fact, it was very unclear what's to happen with the dog in the home. During his bond time that he was out of jail on his recognizant bond, he was not allowed to be left unsupervised with that dog. Well, we didn't talk about supervision and we didn't come up with a concrete answer of the dog had to go. The dog had to, you know, go to a new home or the dog had to be euthanized. This dog, by the way, was the sweetest puppy. we had interacted with it on numerous occasions. Once Mr Gilleland became a part of this household, this dog's behavior drastically changed. You cannot walk down the sidewalk near this house. This dog is extremely aggressive. If he does not know you, he will bite you. Um, we have had, at least 12 to 14 non reports where people don't want to come forward. We just find out that they've been bit, but they won't name the person because they're afraid. And then we've had three confirmed bites that were the person reported it, and we had to do the follow up through the dog warden's office, you know, on making sure they did the 10 day quarantine and all those laws that go with Ohio. So, um, that was kind of another indication to me, like that drastic behavior change from a puppy who, if we approached him and he was tied out, he would roll over on his back and expose his belly to us immediately. To now this uber aggressive dog, and I'm sure maturity had a little bit to do with that, but the environment probably had the most to do with that, to where you don't approach the house if that dog is out you, they had, they couldn't tie him out where they used to they had to put them over on a different area so that he wasn't as exposed to people out walking. And he's a, he's a big he probably weighs 100 pounds. So it was kind of like, well, what are we going to do with this dog? If that dog ends up at the dog warden's office, I can't put that dog into another home for the safety of the community. I would have no option but to euthanize. So for the sake of the dog, if she can find somebody that can handle this dog, let's give that dog the opportunity to be rehomed, which is probably not the most responsible thing for me to do as the dog warden, but as the animal cruelty investigator, like that's constantly a. You know, the justice scales of weighing it back and forth. Um, but I don't want to just put down a dog. Under different ownership, we might get different behavior. Somebody could rehabilitate that dog and it could make a great dog and it could have a really good chance of being rehabilitated once they got the correction it needs and it boundaries are established, et cetera. So. You know, I was like, well, do the, give them the option when the prosecutor asked me, give them the option to rehome or euthanize, they can take it to the vet and have it euthanized. That way they're there with the dog when it, when it passes. And his option was no, we're not doing any of that. I'll move out.

So we'll see once he is released, what happens. Because I mean, yeah, it it doesn't sound like he has any kind of respect for the law. So I, I see him, you know, again, saying what what people want to hear so that they leave him alone and then figuring that there's not going to be much consequence, even though I mean, he has spent a very large majority of his life in prison behind bars for bad decisions that he's making, you know, this brings Back to, again, like the, the link and everything else, but also the importance of mental health evaluations, and just, he's going to jail for 90 days, he's gonna come out, is he gonna be rehabilitated? Is he gonna make good decisions? You know, all we have is hoping that he makes good decisions because he doesn't want to go back to jail, but, yeah, it's, if it's in his nature, something needs to, to happen to cause some positive effect in his behavior, like just, just sending him to jail is not going to do it. I want to congratulate you for the work that you did. You know, we wish that he would have gotten more time in jail. And realistically, I mean, the most that he could have gotten is a year. So it's not like he got three months and he could have gotten three years. No, the penalty, the sentencing guidelines are three months to a year. But I think that, you know, these are cases that it's very difficult to find out what happened, who did it. Most animals that are found dead on the side of the road, like nobody ever finds anything out and your hard work and dedication to this case clearly, paid off. And that you were able to find somebody to hold them accountable for what happened to this dog and then look through all the information, get help because we were all not perfect, and we can't do everything. So reaching out and getting help to try to evaluate everything. So you got all this information and built up a really strong case that got this guy charged with felony animal cruelty. So that's, that's something really good. And hopefully, we don't want animals to get harmed, but unfortunately, there's a lot of bad people out there. So, you know, hopefully this is an indication that as we move forward, people are going to be held accountable for their actions.

We try to pull the positive. Um, I mean, we have, we've had, um, one of our detectives made the statement to my deputy, like these, these are the ones that go unsolved. Like you guys did a great job on that. And I mean, it was, He, he pretty much got himself caught up in this because, without him speaking to somebody about this situation, I'm not sure that we ever would have caught him. It was the fact that, you know, these people, these people did like, I don't want to tell you who I am, but I have information. I'm afraid of the person that did this, but I have information. If you can leave my name out of it, I'm like, I don't need a name. Tell me, you know, like point me in a direction. We'll go there and find the proof if this person truly did it. But that, that finger point in that direction is really, truly what got us there. And it's that finger point may not have ever happened had he not been discussing what happened to this dog. I mean, he kind of has himself to thank for the trouble that he's in. He also has, I mean, like he got caught because of himself too. So, we were disappointed with the 90 days, But we're trying to look at the positive, you know, We almost, we got a judge to read a victim impact statement. So the next time maybe it'll be right on the stand whether it's this County or any other County if we can get it to the point where, um, these dogs can be victims, even though they are considered in property, they're still living, breathing creature, you know, like she finally can rest in peace because we have found justice for her. The small amount of justice. But we found justice for her so she can rest at peace and that's, that's how we lay our heads on our pillows at night. You know, we just, we do what we can do and that's all we can do and we don't stop until we know that that's all we can do.

This was an excellent case from beginning to end and it's almost something out of a TV show, right? Like we have the crime scene, we have the investigation, we have the interviews, we have the autopsy, we have blood spatter, and then we catch the guy and sentencing and then he goes to jail. So it's almost like something that you see on, on television, but in real life. I do want to thank you for involving me in this case, because it was a good feeling to be part of something like this, where, you know, we were able to get justice for this dog and find this person, getting him sentenced so that he can pay for the crime that he did.

And your help in this like was amazing because I just had all these puzzle pieces and you said send me everything and I did and you send me back this picture and I'm like, it's the puzzle is almost complete, you know, and it gave us like, we can confidently go to him and say, I did attempt to interview him a second time. And ask him and tell him, like, the forensic evidence does not show that this dog was hit by a car. Um, he refused to speak to me and hung up on me. Um, so I did give him the opportunity, but he didn't take it. Um, so, I mean, you'll have that, but, I mean, you putting that puzzle piece together and telling us that there's, there's no evidence whatsoever that this dog was hit by a car, I can confidently tell you this dog was not struck by a vehicle that was the key, but just, we have all these pieces and we're trying to, and you just like effortlessly put this puzzle together for us and it was that part, like we don't have. We do the groundwork, you have this brilliant way of putting all that stuff together. And the fact that you give that help, you know, to anyone that asks you for that, that's just, it definitely speaks volumes for where you stand on, on these issues and on what an advocate you are.

It takes a team. So we were, we were a really good team, everybody involved in this case. If somebody sees a crime, thinks that their crime has been committed against an animal, what should they do?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's, it kind of goes along with the whole, the whole mantra that is happening across the United States anywhere right now. If you see something, say something. Um, I would much rather go and check on an animal and have it be absolutely nothing, than to find out three days later, it's dead because nobody said something and we could have prevented it or that it's injured or abused or anything. So, you know, if you see something and it concerns you and it makes you take that second thought of what did I just see call it in. I mean, every county in Ohio has someone that investigates this. If they don't have an animal cruelty investigator that's dedicated specifically to, you know, animals, then you have a dog warden that can investigate cruelty to dogs. They just have to do it in a different way. If you don't like if they're not willing to do it, you go to your sheriff, you go to your local police department, there's somebody to investigate animal crimes. So, um, like if you see it, say it, turn it in, tell him you have a concern. Hey, my neighbor's dog has been outside. It doesn't have a dog house and it's 10 degrees. Well, is it a husky or is it, you know, a pit bull? There's a difference. We try to educate our law enforcement officers. So like, if we're not on duty at the time, they, they have my cell phone number. They can call me anytime. They can call me two o'clock in the morning. I'll answer any question for you. But I would much rather check and find nothing than not check and end up that an animal suffers because of it. so it's, it's just that simple. Like, even if you're not sure of what you saw, call us. We'll go check it out. We'll go check. We'll make sure they're okay. We'll make sure like if there's neglect on. We are huge in Sandusky County on education. So if there's a few simple, like, educational tips that I can give to you, that's going to help you raise your animal better, or you don't realize that this one thing that you're doing is, is neglectful, well, let's correct that. We can put like a plan in place where we're working on, um, we have unsanitary living conditions. Okay. Well, this week, you need to hit this goal. You know, I'll work with you for three weeks. If you're not making any progress after that, then we're going to have to go a different route, but week one, this is what I want you to do. Week two, we're going to work on this. Week three, and then we'll get you there. If I have to come and help, we've done that before. But the key is that they are victims. Every animal can be a victim, and they don't have a voice to speak for themselves, so we have to speak for them. So, if you're, if you are out there and you're wondering, should I have said something, next time you see something, just speak up. There's somebody that can go check and just be a voice for that animal that it might not ever have that opportunity again. You might be the only person that saw a glimpse of something, you just weren't sure what it was. So give your gut the benefit of the doubt of calling that in and letting somebody that has the knowledge to go and check, go check it out. You know, we'll, we'll stay involved in cases with people I've had, you know, up to six months, up to a year. There are people that we go check on every two months to make sure that everything's still going well. There are people I check on once every one or two years just to see how they're doing. But in being huge on education, I mean, obviously if it's a heinous crime like this one, there's nothing, there's nothing I can do to educate him. He just needs to pay for his crime. So there's a line. But being as big on education is what we are, we've developed some pretty amazing relationships with the people that we've worked for, like worked with to solve an issue. I have had numerous volunteers come to us and say. Hey, I'll foster for you. Hey, if you need, if it's a horse case, I have a horse trailer and a truck. I'll trailer a mountain where you need them to go. Hey, I have three extra stalls. Hey, I have this to give. Hey, I don't have anything to give, but I have time. Do you need somebody to help feed? If you get a big case, these, I mean, these are the relationships that we're making and it makes everybody be able to be a, be a part of saving these animals.

And again, we're, we're doing it to help the animals and to keep these animals from being harmed. And then we're also doing it to save the community because these people are not just a hazard to the animals, but they are a hazard to the community at large.

Oh, very much so. Very much so.

Well, thank you so much, Kelly, for, for giving us your time and to going through this case and for all the hard work that, that you've put on this. To provide more information about the role of the H. S. U. S. In this case, we have Laura Koivula from the Humane Society of the United States. Welcome, Laura. Thank you for joining us at the junction.

Thanks so much for having me, Dr G.

So can you start by letting people know about your role at H. S. U. S.

Yeah. So, um, my name is Laura Koivula. I'm the Director of Animal Crimes and Investigations for the Humane Society of the United States. My role here, I have a team of several case managers and the Animal Crimes and Investigations Department is part of the Animal Rescue Team. We're one of the branches. And our role is mainly to work with law enforcement to provide them with information that we get from the public and our own research on investigations and potential crimes in their area, but also to provide them guidance and resources to investigate and prosecute these kinds of cases, um, all the way through to physical assistance.

How do you help with these animal cruelty cases? What kind of services do you provide?

Yeah, so we provide a bunch of different things. So anything from just a conversation, right? So if a law enforcement officer is working a case and they have some questions or maybe, you know, they haven't seen this type of crime before or this particular species, they can reach out to our team and one of us will hop on the phone with them or shoot them an email and talk about just the facts of the case in our experience, what steps we would take, provide some guidance. If they need any kind of paperwork, we offer tons and tons of templates, so if they need a search warrant template or a warning letter or, um, they have a species that they've never intaken into their shelter, we have lots of different species intake forms that agencies and officers can put their own agency logo on and kind of make their own, but we have templates for all of that stuff. So we share that. We also can provide financial support for cases. So, from any kind of forensic testing, necropsies, bone marrow, fat content testing, species DNA sequencing for blood types, things like that. A lot of times, As you obviously know, law enforcement agencies don't always have it in their budget for that kind of testing for these crimes, especially in places where there might be, um, no animal control or humane law enforcement specifically and it falls to the sheriff's department. They likely don't have a budget line for animal crimes, forensics or animal crimes cases. And so we're here to help out with that and mitigate some of that cost if needed. We also can provide financial assistance if animals are seized. So if a law enforcement agency has to seize or intake animals and it's, maybe more than they're used to where they don't have the space and they need say, maybe they're taking in some miniature pigs and they've never done that before. So they don't have miniature pig food. Um, we can help them by purchasing that, having it sent to the shelter. If they need help maybe housing some extra dogs and an open space they have, and they need kennel panels. Sometimes we can help with that. Um, all the way up to, um, what we call a full deployment. And a full deployment is usually when there's a large scale case so a lot, a high number of animals that need to be seized, and the need for resources outstrips the resources in the local area so if it's a large case where law enforcement, local animal services or humane agencies don't have the space, the staff, the money, the resources to do a seizure of that level, our team will actually, depending on a number of factors, but our team can actually come out, assist on the warrant with documentation, handling, removal of the animals, transport, care, housing, and placement, and those are, are, those cases are, are few and far between in terms of we do a lot more assistance like we did in this case, for Sandusky, we do that all the time, but every once in a while, you know, there's a really big case where we're needed to go out physically and help. And yeah, that's kind of the range. We also have a couple rewards programs. So, one is for egregious cruelty, like was in this particular case. We have a standing reward also for information leading to arrest and conviction of, of animal fighters for animal fighting. And then we also have, there's a third reward program that's a standing reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of, uh, commercial animal breeders for neglect or abuse.

How did you get involved in this case? How did Kelly reach out to you?

Yeah, so Kelly and I have worked together before on another case. And so she, she had my phone number. She reached out to me. My team also does a lot of teaching. So we teach for the law enforcement training center here and pass out tons and tons of cards all year. So officers sometimes just reach out on our phone. So Kelly gave me a call and she told me about this, this really egregious case they had, um, just to see, you know, what it was that we could potentially help them with here.

And at the time that she contacted you, it was really early in the case, right? It was like before they knew much other than just they had a dead dog.

Yeah, exactly. They had just, um, I believe it was, you know, the day either that same day they found the dog or it was the next day when she got the case from, um, the officers had gone out, found the body, they, um, really just had photos of the scene, they didn't know anything yet, and so she reached out at that point.

And then, I know that, you reached out to me to help them as far as with the blood spatter evidence, but then you also helped them secure a necropsy, or dog autopsy, from an actual pathologist at Ohio State.

Yeah, correct. So, you know, when I talked to her about the case, she, she knew that, that, that was one of the things they were going to need. So, one of the first things I asked her was if they had preserved the body and if they were going to be taking it for necropsy and if they needed any help with that. Um, and, and they did. So, yeah, we gave them the finances to be able to take that dog to OSU for necropsy.

And that was really important because, I mean, this, as she describes, it was a puzzle. And all of these things, parts of the puzzle is what came together to put everything together. The interrogation, the investigation, she took great pictures of the scene. So then the, the forensic side of it and the pathology, everything came together to show that the story that Mr. Gilleland was saying was not what actually happened to the dog, and it was really a much more brutal scene.

Yeah, exactly. And without each one of those pieces, it's possible and even likely that they wouldn't have been able to make the case, right? So yeah, the photographs were really essential, because it showed all of the evidence, all of the blood evidence that you helped analyze all of the, um, you know, the positioning of the body and where it was found and, um, the conditions, but then also the blood trail that led to it. Yeah. You know, from the location where the incident happened to where the body was. So all of that is really important. Plus, without the necropsy, you don't have a definitive cause of death. You know, you need those things for court. You know, one can look at the scene, right, and hypothesize what happened, but we really need all of those pieces to prove that in a court of law. And so, yeah, she took all of the right steps and each piece was was important in making this happen.

Yeah, I told her that humane officers like her make my life easy, right? Yes, I get so many people that will come to me and say, we need help with this case and there's not good pictures or they're blurry or they're incomplete. Or, you know, there is no necropsy. They'll ask me, what do you think happened to this dog? Well, where's the dog? Well, it's already been cremated. Well, there's nothing I can do about it, but she she took every step. So she's a huge part of why, you know, this case got solved So I I think that a lot of humane officers need to take note of everything that she did because she did an amazing job with this From your side, what is the importance of providing assistance to these organizations that have low resources, like rural communities like Sandusky?

Yeah, well, I mean, like you just said, without each piece of this, um, the case probably wouldn't have been successful. The individual wouldn't have been found, potentially, or prosecuted, put on the radar for law enforcement and other social agencies in the area. This is a big red flag for human violence. We know now, you know, after decades of research that violence towards animals, especially this degree of, this was an extremely violent, um, you know, crime. And so this degree of violence really, what the research shows us, right, is that this individual is much more likely than you or I to commit violence against people. Um, so it's really important, you know, even if not for the dog, you know, of course we all want justice for the animal, but also for the community, um, in terms of keeping the community safe and, you know, preventing future crimes against, against people from happening.

Yeah, I think he was still on probation from, uh, seven year prison sentence for assault. For a very vicious assault on an individual. So, clearly, there is a link as far as somebody that's going to commit violence on a human is going to commit animal assault on an animal and vice versa. So, you know, a lot of concerns as far as having somebody like this not be caught.

Right, and like you said, you know, um, Kelly did everything right here, which was essential to the case. But in so many jurisdictions that may not have the resources, they might think, Oh, well, we don't have the ability to send the animal for necropsy, so why take the photos, right? Or why, you know, why do the investigation? Um, and, you know, that's why our team is here because it is so important and law enforcement, humane law enforcement really needs that support because their job is so, so important in keeping the community safe. And, we just want to make sure that if they're able to do their best investigation, we're able to help them with the pieces. Um, you know, the other pieces to make, uh, make a difference.

One of the things that you brought up is about how you guys help with rewards and you did help with a reward on this. But then Kelly mentioned that pretty much everybody that called nobody actually wanted the reward and just wanted the, the animal to have justice. So are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, you know, that's so interesting. The so yeah, in this, the first thing actually that Kelly and I did together was to get that reward going because they didn't have any leads. This was obviously a really violent crime. We knew we, you know, they needed the necropsy. So we offered that. But the first thing we did was work to get the reward out because, you know, the faster that happens, the more, you know, closer to the incident is the more likely you are to get good actionable information from the public. Um, so we worked together. She gave me a short synopsis of what happened that they were comfortable releasing, you know, the details that they were comfortable releasing to the public. And we had our communications team push it out to local media sources. And so, yeah, you know, it's interesting, and there are statistics around like the amount of the reward doesn't necessarily matter. Right. So we know that the amount of money or increasing, adding to the reward doesn't necessarily increase the number of tips, but what it does do, right, is like this press release goes out and the news, um, agencies pick it up. And so it's on, you know, the local news or the nightly news. And then people might not want the reward money, but they see, they see it. Right. So they see the incident, they see that law enforcement is looking for help trying to identify this person. And maybe, somebody that sees that, uh, reward press release recognizes the dog and says, oh gosh, you know, I, my neighbor, you know, this dog belonged to my neighbor or, I've seen this dog in this yard before this address. So yeah, you know, even if the money is not the thing that makes someone come forward. It's really helpful in terms of getting the information out there. So, that's definitely a plus, but it is interesting, right? That gives me some hope for humanity that the altruistic part of people is what they, you know, they just want to do what's right, which is awesome.

In this case, uh, one of the things that I found was good is that he was charged with felony animal cruelty. So many of these cases are treated as misdemeanors. And some, some jurisdictions will do that because it's easier. Some jurisdictions will do that because it's the only way that they can do it. But then with misdemeanors, those are crimes that can be removed from the record, whereas a felony cannot. So, uh, here in Ohio, based on the Ohio law, the most that somebody can get for this type of felony cruelty to animals is three to twelve months. And Mr. Gilleland was sentenced to three months in prison and then three years probation with no ability to have or harbor or live around animals. So what, what are your thoughts as far as the sentence?

Yeah, I've I've been doing this work, for, not for a super long time, you know, but, for, over, over a decade, and, um, prison sentences are actually relatively new. So, you know, when I first started doing this work, no one was ever sent to jail for animal crimes. And so, I do think that this is a super light sentence for the egregiousness of the crime that was committed. This dog was murdered really brutally, you know, and I think three months is not much, but what bothers me more than the prison sentence, because the actual prison sentence, I don't think, you know, three months versus twelve months, right? Like, I'm, I'm not sure that there's a huge difference there, but what really bothers me in this particular case is that the ban on contact with animals is not longer. Because we know, right, that, uh, ban on contact with animals and supervised probation where they have unannounced inspections so law enforcement can verify that there's no animals in their possession. That's what really makes a difference in terms of recidivism or in terms of the person re offending in this way again, or having the ability to cause suffering in another animal. And so, whether or not someone goes to prison, I, I would prefer to see the longest ban on contact with animals possible. Um, some states you can do a lifetime ban and some states, you know, it's only the amount of the probation, but, you know, uh, we always recommend that, that the prosecutors seek that longest probationary period with, you know, unannounced inspections that they can, and then they seek the longest ban on ownership and contact with animals that they can as well.

Yeah, I think that, that would, uh, I would have preferred even up to five years, which is I mean, I see five years probation with no animal ownership on cases of animal hoarding people that that were neglecting their animals, but they had every good intention and then you have somebody that actually acted purposefully. Because one of the one of the things about this case is not just the fact that he killed the dog, but the fact that it was so premeditated. He took the dog all the way from the home. He took it down to this trail and then he killed it. So it wasn't an act, you know, like we would think an act of passion or a heat of the moment, like the dog did something right now and then I acted and then that was really stupid. No, he thought about what he was doing and he knew what he was going to do. So, you know, hopefully, based on this case, other cases can be prosecuted and people can start, especially like judges and prosecutors can understand the link and the importance of, of not just prison sentences that are longer, but also rehabilitation efforts just to try to prevent these people from, from doing this again.

Exactly. Yeah.

If a humane organization or law enforcement wants to obtain more information about how you can help them, how can they go about that?

Yeah, so you can reach out to the animal crimes team directly at animalcruelty@humanesociety.org. So that's one of our email addresses. We also have animalfighting@humanesociety.org. So if law enforcement shoots us an email there, somebody from our team is always watching that email address and, uh, responding to and kind of filtering through those emails. So if they reach out to us that way, that's usually the fastest response that they'll get.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Laura, for giving us this information and for sharing what you did. And then also thank you so much for helping in this case, because without you, this guy may still be loose.

Thank you so much, Dr. G. I appreciate it.

And to everybody who is listening, thanks for listening and thanks for caring.