What is it about people who abuse their significant others' pets? A 24-year-old construction worker David Wrigley was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals after crushing and squeezing the cats.
The cats, tabby Madeline and black cat Jynx, belonged to his girlfriend Sara Sabol, whose Selden, Long Island home Wrigley moved into at the beginning of the month. According to police lieutenant Michael Murphy, "The cats didn't take to him. They didn't like him, wouldn't come over and crawl on his lap type of thing. So - and this is his version - he was trying to get them to like him...The cats were hiding under the bed. ... He pulled the bed out, then slammed it against the wall, crushing the cats."
Then, Murphy said Wrigley "grabbed, squeezed and tugged" them. When Sabol returned home on February 23 and found the "sluggish" cats, Wrigley wouldn't tell her what was wrong. Madeline, with a broken sternum and every rib broken, died and Jynx was found to have 13 broken ribs. Sabol told the Daily News, "I wish he would've hit me. At least I could hit back."
According to Newsday, Wrigley, who pleaded not guilty, said, "I never meant to hurt anything. It's bad enough that I lost a girl that I love." And Lt. Murphy advised, "If you don't like cats, you shouldn't get involved with a girl who loves her cats." Here's more information on fighting animal cruelty.
