PALM SPRINGS, Fla. – A South Florida man is accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend's father's two dogs and then burying them in the father's backyard.
Kyle Santos, 19, of Palm Springs, was arrested Saturday on a charge of animal cruelty.
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According to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office report, Santos and his girlfriend were at her father's home near Delray Beach on Jan. 12 when they decided to kill the two Chihuahuas.
"I really wish we could get rid of those dogs," Santos told his girlfriend, according to the report.
Santos' girlfriend told deputies that Santos dug a hole in the backyard, placed the dogs inside and shot them.
Deputies said Santos' girlfriend told them she had initially agreed that Santos should shoot the dogs, but she changed her mind after they put the dogs in the hole. She told deputies that she turned around and started running back to the house when she heard the gunshots.
Santos' girlfriend said she could hear one of the dogs crying after the shooting stopped, so Santos picked up a shovel and was hitting one of the dogs in the hole, the report said. Santos later told her that he was hitting the dog "because he was still moving," the report said.
After the dogs were dead, she covered them with a trash bag and helped Santos bury them, the report said.
The owner, concerned about his dogs, asked his daughter if she knew what happened to them. At first, she told him that she gave them away and then said they had been struck by a car, so she buried them in the backyard. However, she later admitted that Santos shot and killed the dogs two days earlier, the report said.
A necropsy report later confirmed that the dogs had been shot.