Teen charged over cat killings could face 158 years in jail
An 18-year-old accused of being the Florida cat killer could face up to 158 years in prison, a spokeswoman for South Miami-Dade said after the teenager was arrested over the weekend.
Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18, is being held pending payment of a $249,000 bond on 19 counts of animal cruelty, 19 counts of improper disposal of animals and four counts of burglary, CNN.com reported.
Police had initially been investigating the brutal deaths of at least 34 cats in the area but they confirmed that some of those were killed by dogs.
Investigators arrested Weinman at a party in the early hours of Sunday morning after monitoring his postings for several weeks on Facebook and MySpace. He was among thousands of people who had joined a “Catch the Cat Killer!” group on Facebook.
Detectives believe he could be the ringleader of a group that stalked, captured, mutilated and killed neighbourhood cats, according to local news station WPLG.
Weinman appeared in court Monday morning wearing a bulletproof vest. The judge ordered him to undergo psychiatric evaluation before he can be released. He will also have to wear an electronic tag while on bond. He is currently on suicide watch in jail.
But defence lawyer David Macey said Weinman was innocent and accused the court of a “lynch-mob mentality” in setting the bond amount so high.
“My heart and my sympathy goes out to the owners of these pets, but unfortunately it won’t provide them any relief that Tyler is in custody. Tyler is innocent,” Macey said.
Paul Vrooman, the mayor of Cutler Bay where several attacks occurred, called the killings a “plague in South Miami-Dade.”
“The cruelty of these crimes were horrific for the animal victims, but there were many human victims as well,” Vrooman said. “Let’s not forget the children and the families who found their pets mutilated. These awful scenes inflicted a human toll.”
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