Photo: H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP
A hunter who allegedly killed a family’s two pet German Shepherds with a crossbow and then skinned them told authorities he thought they werecoyotes.
Michael Konschak faced criminal charges at theDanbury Superior Courtin Connecticut on Wednesday, where he saidhe was ashamed of what he did, the Associated Press reported.
“Please know that it was never my intent that morning to harm the victims' pets,” Konschak, 61, told the court. His lawyer, Brian Romano, said it was a “hunting accident,” according to local outletNewsTimes.
The pets' owners, who searched for their missing dogs for weeks without knowledge of what had happened to them, were in court, along with animal rights activists.
H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP
The two German Shepherds — who were both 10 years old and named Lieben and Cimo — escaped from their yard in Ridgefield on Nov. 18, 2021, after a fence was damaged.
Konschak was then arrested in February, and after an investigation, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection charged him with tampering with evidence, forgery, interfering with a law enforcement officer and other hunting violations. Danbury State’s Attorney David R. Applegate said the incident was still under investigation and more charges are possible, per the AP. Activists have pushed for animal cruelty charges to be made.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Erin Caviola said her family is heartbroken over what happened to their two pets. “We live with the emotional pain as we think about what they felt in their final moments lying beside each other dying,” she said.
Caviola added that the dogs' heads were removed and are still unaccounted for, according to the AP.
Applegate asserted that there were inconsistencies in Konschak’s version of events and his claims that he thought the dogs were coyotes, even after he had killed them.
Konschak is due back in court in April.
source: people.com
