Man gets prison sentence for killing 11 pets

A man who killed 11 pets “because he was stressed out” was sentenced to prison and taken into custody by an appellate court, a ruling that overturned a suspended sentence handed down in the initial trial.

Animal abuse dog illustration [JOONGANG ILBO]

A man who killed 11 pets “because he was stressed out” was sentenced to prison and taken into custody by an appellate court.

The Uijeongbu District Court overturned the initial suspended sentence and sentenced the man to one year and six months in prison for violating the Animal Protection Act, according to legal sources on Wednesday.

The man was indicted on charges of killing five dogs and six cats between October 2023 and February 2024 by slamming them to the ground or strangling them.

He had posted messages online claiming he wanted to “find a friend for my dog” or that his previous cat had “died from illness and I want to adopt a new one,” and continued to adopt pets under those pretenses.

“The defendant adopted or fostered 11 cats and dogs, claiming it was to relieve stress, then abused them and killed them all within a short period,” the appellate court said. “The brutality of the acts and the way the corpses were disposed of show a complete disregard for life.”

In June of last year, the lower court sentenced the man to one year and six months in prison with a three-year suspension.

At the time, the court said, “The defendant caused trauma to all pet adopters by cruelly killing the animals under the excuse of relieving stress,” but added that it took into account that the defendant “showed remorse and had no prior criminal record.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY KIM EUN-BIN [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]