OFFICE OF THE STATE ATTORNEY

By DENNIS W. WARD
STATE ATTORNEY

KEY WEST, MAY 3, 2018 – What started out as a complaint of a pet bird squawking ended May 1 with a woman’s conviction on a charge of cruelty to animals for inflicting harm on a dog.

With Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Marisa Rosa Faraldo Tedesco prosecuting, Monroe County Court Judge Mark Wilson found Shirlee Christine Hiller, 55, guilty of the misdemeanor and set sentencing for Sept. 23. She faces up to a possible 364 days in jail and a fine up to $5,000.

Early evening Nov. 4, 2016, Key West police were called to a house on Patterson Avenue in reference to the allegedly cruelty. A police report says Permelia Smith told Officer Kristopher Bouvier that she and her neighbor, Hiller, argued earlier in the day because Smith’s bird was squawking in the yard. Hiller allegedly imitated the bird’s sounds and told Smith to put the bird inside.

Later in the day, around 3 p.m., Smith let the dog, a rescue mix named Trotter owned by Elam Thornbrugh, outside. Trotter started barking and Hiller “began yelling and barking at the dog,” Bouvier wrote in his report.

Moments later, Smith heard a “bug-zapping noise,” looked outside and saw Trotter “going nuts” barking and attacking her yard fence, the report says. Smith also reported seeing Hiller put a black stick through a hole in the fence and “saw electricity flowing through the end of the stick as it touched the dog,” Bouvier wrote. Smith reportedly saw Hiller “jabbing it at the fence again” and ran to Trotter to bring him inside the house, then called police.

Upon later questioning by Bouvier, Hiller reportedly denied harming Trotter but said the dog “is always barking” and admitted having an “electric weapon or device” in the house. Bouvier took it as evidence as he continued to investigate.

After speaking with Smith again, Bouvier went back to talk to Hiller and told her he believed there was probable cause she harmed Trotter and planned to apply for an arrest warrant. Two hours later, Thornbrugh called police back and reported “several bumps, welts and red marks on the inside of the dog’s legs, hips and groin area.” Bouvier wrote they were “consistent with [being] exposed to an electric weapon.”

Hiller was arrested on Nov. 14, 2016.

Contact: Public Information Officer Larry Kahn, (305) 289-2899.

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