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A 40-year-old man from Vancouver was sentenced to 300 days in prison Monday for stabbing his family’s dog.
Forty-year-old Richard T. Halls has been detained in Clark County Jail since December 13th on suspicion of first-degree animal cruelty. He pleaded guilty on Monday. According to court records, the prison calculates the time he has already served and includes it in his sentence.
State Halls’ prison records have “identified, reported, or observed mental health problems.” His mother told the police that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.
Vancouver police were sent to the shared dorms in the Mountain View neighborhood on December 13th. Halls attempted to kill the family’s black Labrador Retriever by stabbing him in the back between the shoulder blades according to an affidavit.
Halls reportedly told police he was upset with the dog because he wouldn’t love him back but was loyal to his mother. He said he was becoming increasingly aware of the dog’s “evil nature” because it barked at him every time he moved, the affidavit said.
Halls’ mother wrote in a victim impact statement to the court that his actions forever changed her life and the lives of his children aged 5, 10 and 17 as the incident resulted in her being out of her 12 year old Moved home.
She wrote that Halls “showed signs of (a) mental health problems, and I was extremely concerned that he was mentally absent. When I tried to call the crisis line, he broke into my house and stabbed my dog, ”the mother wrote, adding that she had tried to help him for almost four decades only to turn him down.
The dog named Abby, who was a great support to the family, did not survive his injuries, according to a testimony.
