Animal cruelty arrest in starving dogs case
By DEUCE NIVEN
tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com
A warning: Descriptions in this story involving the conditions of animals found by Tabor City police may be upsetting to some readers.
Charges of starving two dogs to death and animal cruelty involving nine dogs or very young puppies have been served on a Ray Street man, the Tabor City Police Department reports.
Christopher Bryan McNeil, 22, who also shows an address on Pireway Road, was arrested after Officer Nick Forster a gray, apparently stray and “extremely malnourished” female dog at several locations, including the IGA and Marathon convenience store.
Charged with two counts of killing animals by starvation, nine counts of animal cruelty, McNeil was booked at the Columbus County Detention Center in Whiteville and released under a $15,000 unsecured bond.
Followed home
Forster followed the dog to McNeil’s Ray Street home, where he found another female dog chained to a metal boat, laying in the mud next to five three-day old puppies, one that was dead, the Forster’s report said. The other four puppies “were huddled together in the mud just under the cover of the metal boat,” the report said.
Another “extremely malnourished” male dog was found chained to a tree, “appearing skinny and boney,” the report said. Three “small adolescent dogs approximately four months old” were also located, one dead, its head sticking out from beneath a shed “his face having been eaten,” the report said. The other two were described as malnourished.
In total 11 dogs or puppies were found, two dead “as a result of poor living conditions and neglect,” the report said. The newborn puppies “were intentionally neglected, as they had not yet opened their eyes and were left in the mud to fend for themselves while the mother dog was on a small chain next to them. All animals had been intentionally deprives of necessary sustenance.”
Look for more on this story in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.
