FL Press: Boy feeds neighbor's cat to alligator
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Posted by W von Papineäu on May 16, 2003 at 18:44:07:
WBBH TV NBC2 (Fort Myers, Florida) 15 May 03 Boy feeds neighbor's cat to alligator (Todd Jurkowski)
Cape Coral: A horrible case of animal cruelty happened off Southeast 24th Avenue in Cape Coral Thursday night. A 14-year-old boy threw his neighbor’s cat into a canal where it was killed by an alligator. Andrew Castor was arrested on felony animal cruelty charges and is now in the juvenile detention center.
Thursday evening Aurea Maldanado’s cat was thrown into a nearby canal. After hearing what happened, Maldanado's daughter Jennie Weiland went to the canal hoping to find her mom's cat alive. But she showed up just a few seconds too late. The cat was dead - killed by the alligator.
“We started to walk up and the gator got scared. It grabbed the cat and went back into the water,” said Jennie Weiland.
Pictures show the cat, named Homeboy, locked in the alligator’s jaws.
“He had it by the tail and you could see Homeboy's collar floating up,” said Weiland.
Telling her mom what happened wasn't easy because Homeboy was a part of the family.
“12 years. He was like a son. I feel like a lost a son,” said Maldanado.
She claims Castor fed her cat to the alligator. Police have arrested the boy.
The family claims the boy snatched Homeboy from his favorite chair in front of Maldanado’s house and tossed the cat into the water. Then as the cat tried to the get out of the water, the gator attacked.
“I want him to pay, to suffer. Get help for this kid. It's not normal, that's not normal,” said Maldanado.
While Maldanado remembers Homeboy, her daughter worries the suspect or the gator may strike again.
“I don't think this was the first cat. And now that he has been feeding him cats, I'm afraid this alligator will come into the neighborhood and feed on more,” said Weiland.
Castor faces felony animal cruelty charges and misdemeanor charges providing a false statement to investigators, petit theft for stealing the cat, and unlawful feeding of wildlife.
Photos, video and police report can be found at URL link
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