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Family mourns dog shot to death
Police: Penny was found in man's truck
December 19. 2006 8:00AM
Penny was a six-pound Jack Russell Terrier mix with a quiet bark and a tendency to shiver in the cold. She played well with children and cats and had a knack for falling asleep on her owner's pillow. On Friday, after wandering into a neighbor's yard, Penny was shot, killed and stuffed into a bag.
The Hill Police Department arrested the neighbor, Michael Donato, later that night and charged him with driving while intoxicated. The police - who say they retrieved Penny's body from the back of Donato's truck - are still investigating and have not determined whether to charge Donato, 52, with any other crime, said Merrimack County Attorney Dan St. Hilaire, whose office would handle any resulting criminal investigation.
The case, which involves the intersection of agricultural and criminal law, is hardly straightforward. It's a felony in New Hampshire to purposely beat, torture, whip or mutilate an animal. But state law also allows anyone to kill a dog that wanders onto private property and presents a threat to livestock. In addition, Penny's escape violated Hill's leash law. And Donato, who lives diagonally across from the MacArthurs on rural Currier Road, had called the local police at least once to complain that the dog had crossed onto his yard and posed a danger to his chickens, St. Hilaire said.
Penny's owners, Kyle and Kirsten MacArthur, are heartbroken by Penny's death and frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of swiftness and sensitivity from law enforcement. After suspecting that Donato had killed Penny and watching him drive off in his truck, Kirsten MacArthur called the police and Kyle MacArthur tailed Donato himself. After the police arrested Donato in Bristol, authorities invited Kyle MacArthur to collect Penny's limp body but seemed disinterested in taking photographs or collecting other evidence, the MacArthurs said. As of yesterday, the police had not interviewed them about their dog, they said.
The felony animal-cruelty crime carries a maximum sentence of 3½ to 7 years in prison, St. Hilaire said, but such sentences are rare.
The system leans toward the prosecutors in such cases, said Peter Marsh, a Concord lawyer who has worked with the Legislature on animal-cruelty issues. The livestock-protection law is largely a vestige, he said.
"Even if killing a neighbor's dog at some point, in colonial times, might have been acceptable, the day's long since passed," Marsh said.
The Hill police, a part-time department, did not return phone calls yesterday. But state law prevented the police from charging Donato immediately with any crime that did not happen in the presence of an officer, St. Hilaire said. A charge beyond the DWI count would require an investigation and arrest warrant, the county attorney said.
Donato could not be reached yesterday. No one answered the door at his home, a colonial at 316 Currier Road, but a man in a "Donato Tools and Hardware" shirt came to the door of the adjacent barn. With dogs barking in the background, the man said he did not wish to speak to a reporter and quickly closed the door.
The MacArthurs moved to Hill from Penacook in May with Penny and their two children, Aidan, 1, and Dylan, nearly 3. Kirsten MacArthur, 27, grew up in Concord. Her husband, 25, grew up in Boscawen. They lived in Arizona as newlyweds but returned to New Hampshire after she witnessed a drive-by shooting in downtown Phoenix, where she worked as a drug-addiction counselor.
"We came back to where we felt it was safer and smaller and simpler," she said.
The MacArthurs bought Penny, a young Jack Russell-rat terrier mix, for $75 from an internet seller in February. The dog was dehydrated and underfed at the time, they said. A veterinarian guessed that Penny was a year old.
A week ago, the police visited the MacArthurs to say that the Donatos had called to complain that Penny had run onto their property, Kirtsten MacArthur said.
Friday, Kirsten MacArthur's mother, Kathy Tremblay of Bow, dropped by to watch the grandchildren while her daughter went shopping. She let Penny out unsupervised, then took Dylan for a walk in the woods after Kirsten returned. In the woods, Tremblay said, she heard a distant squeal that sounded as if it came from a wounded Penny.
The MacArthurs grew increasingly concerned. Kyle MacArthur returned home from work after 4 p.m. and visited Donato, who at first said he didn't know anything about the dog, then suggested otherwise, MacArthur said. While walking home, MacArthur heard Donato start his truck. He climbed into his own SUV and followed Donato toward Bristol, where the police made the arrest for DWI.
Several hours later, Hill's part-time police chief contacted Kyle MacArthur to retrieve Penny's body - stuffed inside a Morton White Crystal salt bag - from Donato's truck, MacArthur said.
That night, after their children went to sleep, the MacArthurs buried Penny in their backyard, placing her in the grave alongside three plush toys - a stuffed bone, a small dog and a teddy bear that plays music when squeezed. As they tamped the dirt down to finish the burial, Kirsten MacArthur said, the weight set off the teddy bear's mechanism. The MacArthurs stood together in the gloom, with a tiny version of the R&B classic "Rescue Me" rising up from the earth.
