A Dacula man is behind bars after deputies said they found some disturbing evidence of animal cruelty. Investigators said Tye Hilmo, 21, was using neighborhood kittens as bait for his pit bull.
Hilmo is no stranger to Gwinnett County authorities. They said he has been in and out of the Gwinnett County Jail eight times in the past four years.
Deputies got a tip that some sort of animal cruelty had been going on at the Hilmo's house in Dacula, involving the pit bull there. They found two pounds of marijuana, a sawed-off shotgun and other weapons, and two dead kittens. How those kittens died is what brought the cruelty charges against Hilmo.
"He was getting the kittens and cats from the neighborhood," said Stacey Bourbonnais of the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office. "And he was injuring those kittens and cats before he was giving them to the pit bull to maul and kill."
One more piece of evidence from the case was on Hilmo's cell phone. He had a picture on his phone of his dog, with parts of a kitten in its mouth. The caption on the picture read, "Good Dog."
John Haye lives in a neighborhood with a lot of cats, and when the sister of one his neighbor's cats, Gangster, went missing, Haye said her owners knew it immediately and called the authorities.
"The cop called and said they found a cat that fit that description," said Haye. "Whether it is or not, I don't know."
Their missing kitten matches the description of one of two dead kittens found when they searched Hilmo's home.
It's the cruelty that it takes to do something like this that disturbs neighbors the most.
"Just horrible, heart-wrenching to let that happen, or to encourage it," Haye said. "Someone needs to put an end to it."
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