A man has been arrested on felony animal cruelty charges after allegedly beating a dog to death behind a DeSoto shopping center.
Police say Paige Armani Franklin was caught on surveillance video punching and stomping something near a dumpster behind a shopping center in the 900 block of North Hampton Road Friday. An employee of the security company monitoring the video called police.
Franklin was still at the scene when officers arrived a short time later. Police say a small puppy was found dead in the dumpster with “severe wounds to its head.”
“Cruelty of this type is not only criminal, but despicable,” DeSoto police Sgt. C.D. Williams said in a media release Friday.
Franklin was arrested for cruelty to animals, a third-degree felony, and taken to the Tri-City Jail. Animal control officers took the dog to an animal hospital for a necropsy – an autopsy performed on an animal.