MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Miami Beach Police said they have arrested and charged a man for allegedly beating a dog that was later found left to die in a parking garage.
Earlier Wednesday, MBPD said they were interviewing a person of interest, now identified as 40-year-old Sigman Hernandez, who had been captured by surveillance cameras near the Publix parking garage where his dog, Lily, was left to die, earlier this month. Hernandez has been charged with animal cruelty with intent to injure/kill and abandonment.
Hernandez bonded out of jail, Thursday morning, on $6,000.
According to the arrest report, Hernandez, who is the dog’s owner, “confessed to slapping and possibly choking his dog because she had vomited in his car.”
The police report also said Hernandez “admitted to pushing his dog with his feet while the dog lay on the garage floor.”
However, after he bonded out, he refused to answer questions from the media.
Police released the surveillance videos less than 24 before Hernandez turned himself in, Wednesday evening.
Surveillance video from Friday, April 7, shows a red Toyota Yaris pulling into the Publix parking garage off West Avenue. A man, now identified as Hernandez, then gets out and appears to be taking something out of his car, police said, before setting it on the ground.
Detectives believe he was handling the 4 or 5-year-old Yorkshire terrier.
Further video showed Hernandez walking to an elevator with his face clearly visible. Police said, before he drove off, after going to the restroom, he may have stomped on Lily.
A Publix employee would later make the gruesome discovery.
“Someone basically had to have beaten and strangled her and then literally just took her body and left it there,” said Dr. Joy Carter, the veterinarian who treated Lily.
Lily died two days after being found.
“It had like seven fractured ribs. It had indications that it had been strangled with some type of leash or collar or rope,” Carter said, “and then had pretty severe head trauma; the dog was actually pretty much comatose or unconscious when it came in.”
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