- April 26, 2024
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A 21-year-old Palm Coast man beat and choked his roommate's 11-pound Yorkshire terrier, named Dixie, unconscious because he was mad the dog had urinated and defecated on a rug, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.
The dog's owner came home the evening of March 5 to find Dixie unresponsive and with severe injuries. He rushed her to Flagler Animal Hospital, where a veterinarian reported that the dog was in shock. The vet noted that the dog's injuries were consistent with asphyxiation. The animal hospital, suspecting animal abuse, immediately contacted the Sheriff's Office.
Dixie's owner told a deputy that he'd left the dog alone with his roommate, 21-year-old Brenden Geary. Geary also came to the animal hospital but "claimed to have no idea how the dog developed such injuries," according to an arrest report.
Neither man could explain the dog's injuries, which included "moderate to severe bruising on her ears, face, neck, throat area and on the inside of her legs," according to the report.
The next day, a Sheriff's Office detective, Elizabeth Conrad, visited the home on Winchester Place to see where Dixie had been found.
The owner told Conrad that he'd left Dixie on the house's large rear porch and that Geary was the only one there.
"While observing the back porch area, substances were observed on the wall consistent with what appears to be blood spatter and smeared feces," Conrad wrote in the report. There was more apparent blood on the dog's food bag and spots along a two-foot line on the carpet.
"The scene depicted a violent encounter, with the smudge of possible feces being located approximately five feet up onto the wall," Conrad wrote in the arrest report.
The detective contacted Geary, who agreed to speak with her and drove out to the county jail, where Conrad confronted him with photos of Dixie's injuries and the bloodstained porch.
Geary said, "She s--- and pissed all over that rug," and that he'd "walked in and really frustrated, picked her up by her ears, and I choked her," then "tossed her against the wall."
He said that he'd thrown her against the wall when she tried to run away from him. Then he grabbed her by the thighs — causing red marks — and sat her on the spot on the carpet where she was later found unresponsive, he said.
Geary "stated he doesn't know what is wrong with him but has no resources to find out at this moment," Conrad wrote in the report.
Geary is charged with aggravated animal cruelty.
