A 21-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly mutilating and beheading his roommate’s dog as she moved out of an Arizona home they shared, according to a police statement.
Jose Vega Meza was arrested on Sunday, June 16 and charged with three counts of animal cruelty after the victim reported the incident to police.
Authorities said the victim was moving out of the house in the 500 block of west Baseline on Saturday when she noticed her dog had gone missing. Hours later, she and her friends noticed that Vega Meza was trying to load a small box onto a truck.
The woman and her friends, who were helping her move, noticed Vega Meza was trying to load a small box onto a truck without anyone seeing him. That’s when the victim confronted Vega Meza and asked him what was in the boxhttps://t.co/erJ4hhfSP8
— FOX5 Las Vegas (@FOX5Vegas) June 18, 2019
The woman then decided to confront him about it and the “suspect reportedly just smiled,” police said. “When the victim opened the box, she found her dead, mutilated, headless dog inside,” police said in a statement. She told police that she only reported the incident the morning after because she was “so distraught and upset.”
Victoria, who is a resident in the area, told KTVK that she had seen a girl “crying and screaming” after coming out of the house. “The other day there was a girl walking out of that house, she was crying and screaming saying he did something,” she told the news broadcaster. “She had like 4 or 5 people outside trying to calm her down and she couldn’t calm down.”
Police were only able to locate Vega Meza late Sunday afternoon in the Valencia Neighborhood in Buckeye. He was subsequently taken into custody. Police said the 21-year-old admitted to having involvement in the crime and knew why he was arrested.
Moreover, he was charged for misdemeanor assault on a separate unprovoked attack on another prisoner upon arriving at Maricopa County 4th Avenue Jail. According to court documents, Vega Meza said he killed the dog because the victim owes his mother money, reported KTVK. Vega Meza’s mother own the property where both Vega Meza and the victim lived, reported AZ Central, citing a police spokesperson.
The woman told police she found remains of her beheaded dog in a box as she was moving out of a house in Buckeye. https://t.co/tyG9m6DRJF
— azcentral (@azcentral) June 17, 2019
Vega Meza also told investigators that he killed other animals around his neighborhood, including a cat he said he drowned, police said in court documents.
Court records did not list a lawyer who could comment on behalf of Vega Meza, who was still jailed Monday for lack of $20,000 bond. Efforts to find a phone number listed for him were unsuccessful.
This comes after a woman from New Hampshire was arrested for pushing her 11-year-old dog into a lake and watching it drown. Nancy Bucciarelli was arrested on June 14 and charged with animal cruelty. She was accused of bringing her golden Labrador Retriever to Wasserman Park in Merrimack before pushing the animal from a dock. The dog struggled to swim and eventually drowned, police said in a news release.
Police added that the 66-year-old also made no attempt to rescue her dog. Merrimack Police Department described the incident as “disturbing” and called on the community to use “restraint when commenting on social media.”
“We are imploring the public to allow the justice system to work and to refrain from comments which are cruel in nature. We teach our children to not bully and some of the comments contradict what we teach. Please set an example for everyone,” the statement said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
