ORANGE CITY, Fla. – A 22-year-old Orange City man was arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing a family's pet cat with a pellet gun.
William Stroud was arrested Friday, about two weeks after the incident was first reported to the Sheriff's Office, on a charge of animal cruelty.
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According to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, on Nov. 9, Stroud drove in front of a house on 6th Street near Orange City, pointed a pellet gun out the window of his vehicle and fired at the cat while it sat in the driveway.
Stroud drove away as the cat scurried off, and the animal's owners didn't immediately realize that it had been struck, deputies said.
The cat was found dead in a sewer drain a few hundred feet from the house two days later.
The pet owner said his son had witnessed the shooting and had recognized Stroud as the culprit.
Deputies initially searched for Stroud, but they ended up obtaining an arrest warrant because they couldn't immediately find him. The deputy noted in the charging affidavit that the owners weren't able to "give the cat proper medical treatment for his injury or humanely put it down because they were unable to locate it. Because of this the cat suffered unnecessary pain and death."
The warrant was issued on Nov. 20 by Circuit Court Judge Margaret Hudson, and Stroud was arrested Friday morning at his house and booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach on $3,000 bond.