Husky News

Arrest made more than 1 year after incident

Washington County Sheriff's Department investigators arrested a former town of Erin man who is accused of shooting his neighbor's dog with a high-powered rifle last year.

The dog, a then-3-year-old German shepherd/Alaskan malamute mix named Jade, was found on May 5, 2005 bleeding on the floor of her kennel by her owners, Jeanne and Brian Moore, who live on the 6700 block of Highway O in the town of Erin.

The Sheriff's Department is requesting a felony charge of mistreatment of animals, plus two misdemeanor counts of shooting at a caged animal and endangering safety by the intoxicated use of a weapon.

According to Capt. Dale Schmidt, operations officer for the Sheriff's Department, the 47-year-old suspect - who now lives in Hartland - was arrested on Friday after he was questioned about the case.

The suspect was a former neighbor of the Moore's, Schmidt said.

"He said he shot into the kennel to scare them into being quiet," he said. "He said he didn't mean to hurt them."

The wounded dog shared the kennel with a littermate, Roxy. They were both adopted by the Moores when they were 12-week-old pups, the Moores said at the time.

Jade was shot at least twice by the high-powered weapon, Schmidt said. The weapon was seized after the man was arrested.

Some people speculated that the shooting was an accident, Moore said at the time, that someone was shooting from a few miles away, but she said the dog had been shot two to three times.

Sheriff's Department kept digging into the case, Schmidt said, convinced it was someone who lived nearby.

"It was a case we always thought we could solve," Schmidt said. "And things came together for us when we developed new information."

Schmidt could not disclose how that information was developed.

The man was released from custody on Monday, pending formal charges being filed by the District Attorney's Office.

Source: GM Today