Jaime Arturo Garcia pleaded guilty today to setting fires inside his Stanton home and
killing his dog Dexter by poisoning him and slitting his throat.
The Stanton 31-year-old could get four years and eight months in state prison at his May 7 sentencing after copping to felony arson of an inhabited property, felony animal
cruelty, misdemeanor unlawful causing a fire to
property and a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly
weapon.
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The afternoon of July 24, 2011, Garcia closed all the
doors and windows of the house he shared with his sisters, who were out, and set several small fires by lighting piles of
clothing on fire.
When the fires burned out without spreading, Garcia fed various pills to Dexter in an attempt to poison the 7-year-old dachshund mix. When that didn't work out, Garcia picked up a large kitchen knife and slit Dexter's throat. The bleeding pooch ran around the house and into Garcia's bedroom,
where he died on the bed.
One of Garcia's sisters returned home to find the house filled with smoke and called 9-1-1. Orange County sheriff's deputies, who arrived at the scene with Orange County Fire Authority personnel, found Dexter in the bedroom, his blood spread on the floors and walls throughout the home.
Garcia was hospitalized with self-inflicted injuries.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.