SALT LAKE COUNTY — A Salt Lake County man was charged with torturing an animal after police say he struck his girlfriend’s dog multiple times with a hammer for eating his steak.
According to a probable cause statement released in 3rd District Court, Stanley Jocelyn sat his dinner down on his living room table, when his girlfriend’s dog, “Temper,” ate the steak off of his plate.
Jocelyn then made a “move” toward Temper, who bit him, the statement said.
Jocelyn then took a hammer and “repeatedly struck Temper in the head,” the statement said. When officers arrived on the scene they said the dog’s blood was on the sofa, in the kitchen and on the basement stairs of the home.
The statement said that Temper was taken to a veterinary trauma center by Jocelyn’s neighbors after they heard his girlfriend screaming “you killed the dog.”
Upon initial examination by veterinarian staff, the probable cause statement said that there was a large, visible wound on Temper’s skull and bleeding from one or both nostrils. Temper was diagnosed with blunt head trauma and was treated surgically for what was called a “crushing injury to his skull.”
Jocelyn was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for one count of torture of a companion animal, a third-degree felony. He was held on $25,000 bail.
