- April 19, 2024
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A 25-year-old Palm Coast man shot his dog, locked the injured animal in a kennel, dug a large hole in his backyard and was trying to clean the dog's blood off his lanai when Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputies checked his house in response to concerned neighbors' phone calls.
"To the neighbors who contacted us to report this incident — you may have very well saved this dog’s life. This was a great team effort [from] everyone involved, and I hope this guy never gets the privilege of owning a pet again.”
— RICK STALY, Flagler County sheriff
The suspect's family members then lied to hide the injured dog when deputies arrived at the house, according to deputies' reports.
Multiple people had called 911 at about 7:40 p.m. on April 4, telling dispatchers they'd heard a gunshot and then dogs crying from the home in Palm Coast's Seminole Woods neighborhood.
When deputies arrived at the house at 21 Seaman Trail East, suspect Jamier Lee-Bright, his 24-year-old girlfriend Candace Brice, her mother and a friend who was at the home all said they didn't know why deputies were there, according to an FCSO case report.
When deputies told the four about the 911 calls reporting the gunshots, Lee-Bright said he'd heard shots from the other side of the canal. That contradicted the callers' reports.
But deputies noticed that Lee-Bright was sweating profusely, and thought that was odd.
When deputies mentioned that the caller had heard dogs yelping, the four "all stated there were two dogs in the residence, and one may have yelped when it was playing outside earlier," according to the report.
Deputies asked the homeowner to show them the backyard. When she led them there, deputies saw Lee-Bright spraying the lanai with a hose, a jug of bleach by his side. He quickly set the hose down and stepped away when he noticed a deputy watching him.
A deputy who checked the yard found a freshly dug hole in its rear corner, with a shovel and mound of dirt still beside it.
When a deputy asked Lee-Bright about it, he said he was planting a new tree, and that it was out front. "I did not observe any new or unplanted trees anywhere on the property," a deputy wrote in the report.
Deputies asked to see the family's dogs.
The family members showed them two dogs, both uninjured, and denied that there were any more in the house.
Deputies, suspicious, called in detectives.
A detective interviewed Brice, who, "after initial attempts at deception," said the family had three dogs, not two, and that she believed Lee-Bright had shot the third, a 1-year-old named Rocky, after Rocky had bitten her on the hand when she tried to take a toy away from the dog.
She said she'd screamed repeatedly that the dog was biting her, and that Lee-Bright then took the dog out to the backyard while she and her daughter went to the front yard. She said she'd heard a loud noise, but hadn't known what it was.
"It should be noticed that Candace did not sustain any injuries from 'Rocky,'" a deputy wrote in an arrest report.
Lee-Bright, questioned separately, at first denied that anything had happened. But when a detective confronted him, Lee-Bright said, "Yeah. I shot him," according to the report.
He said that he'd been awoken earlier by Brice yelling that Rocky was biting her. He said he'd grabbed the dog, taken him outside and shot him once in the head, then dragged him back inside, locked him in a kennel and tried to clean up the blood.
Deputies asked if the dog was dead, and Lee-Bright said no: He was still alive, inside the house.
When Lee-Bright let deputies inside, they found "a large amount of blood smeared across the ground," and the dog laying in the kennel in a back bedroom.
"The dog, a medium male brindle shepherd/terrier mix, was covered in blood," a deputy wrote in the report. "Some of the blood had begun drying into the fur as mats, and there was blood fresh blood coming from the dog’s face and shoulder. The dog was trembling and crying."
The deputy removed the dog from the kennel and found a gunshot wound near his nose, and another in his left chest and shoulder area.
The dog had been locked in the kennel for more than two hours before deputies discovered him.
"At no time did Jamier display any remorse for his actions," a deputy wrote in the arrest report.
Deputies took the dog to Flagler Animal Hospital for emergency care. He lost consciousness several times on the way.
At the animal hospital, deputies found that one bullet had entered the dog's snout, passed through his left upper lip and top left canine tooth, and exited through his lower left jowl. There appeared to be a second entry wound on the front left side of the dog's chest and an exit wound through his upper left leg, which had been broken. It was not clear to deputies if the wounds were from one bullet, or two.
The wounds narrowly missed the dog's carotid artery and all vital organs, and the dog is expected to make a full recovery, according to the news release.
A deputy noted in the arrest report that the wounded dog had displayed no aggression to Lee-Bright or to deputies when they removed him from the kennel. A city Animal Control officer told deputies that if the dog had aggressive tendencies, he likely would have shown them when deputies tried to move him.
“This is a sick and twisted individual to try and reprimand an animal and leave it to die,” Sheriff Rick Staly said, according to the news release. “I’m glad the dog is doing well and expected to make a full recovery. I’d like to thank the detectives who were able to gather enough evidence to arrest this animal abuser, along with Animal Control for helping get this dog to safety and taking care of his medical needs. Also to the neighbors who contacted us to report this incident — you may have very well saved this dog’s life. This was a great team effort [from] everyone involved, and I hope this guy never gets the privilege of owning a pet again.”
Lee-Bright is charged with felony cruelty to animals and tampering with evidence.
