Alaska News

Bethel police investigate second suspected dog cruelty death

BETHEL -- For the second time this month, Bethel police are investigating what appears to be an abuse death of a dog.

The recent incident happened Thursday evening in Bethel's Mission Lake area, near the center of town. Jessica and Xavier Villon say that neighborhood children told them their 3-year-old yellow Lab mix, Luke, was stabbed by a man who "went psycho." But when the Villons saw Luke's lifeless body, they didn't see any wounds or blood.

Maybe Luke was bludgeoned and it looked like a stabbing, Xavier Villon said. The children said the man was with a small, dark pit bull. The man went after the children's dogs, the children told the Villons, but ended up attacking Luke, who had gotten out of the Villons' yard earlier that evening.

"The whole thing is just really weird," Jessica Villon said.

The couple went to the Bethel Police Department Thursday night to make a report and spoke with officer Sammie Hendrix, according to a case report. Police asked the couple to email pictures of their dog's body, but the Villons said that without visible injuries, they didn't see the sense of taking pictures and were already traumatized.

Luke was normally clipped to a runner, but Xavier had just last week improved the fencing around the home to keep the dogs in. That evening, Luke and the family's other dog, a small white one named Winter, were playing in the yard.

Somehow Luke got out and, according to the neighborhood children, was attacked. Luke returned home and lay down in the dirt at the yard's edge. The dog they had raised from a puppy died there, the Villons said. They didn't know anything was wrong until Jessica noticed Luke wasn't moving despite a sudden, heavy rain.

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"It's an empty feeling," Jessica Villon said. "Every time we walked out, he'd jump up, greet us, let us pet him."

Luke was a companion to their young daughter, Laina, too, Xavier Villon said.

The couple gave to police the name of a man whom others said had been hurting neighborhood dogs, but they don't know if he is to blame. The officer assigned to the case is off until Thursday so the investigation is on hold until then, Police Chief Andre Achee said in an email Monday.

Jessica Villon has rescued puppies before and her dogs were well treated, said Joan Dewey with Bethel Friends of Canines.

On Sept. 10, Bethel police arrested a man on charges of beating his sister's dog to death with a flashlight. James Whitman has been indicted on a felony charge of cruelty to animals and also faces misdemeanor charges. He is scheduled to appear in Bethel Superior Court Wednesday.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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