Jaime Arturo Garcia—who pleaded guilty last month to setting fires inside his Stanton home and killing his dog Dexter by poisoning the 7-year-old dachshund mix and slitting his throat—was sentenced today to five years in state prison.
The 31-year-old had copped 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.
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. And when that failed to poison the dog to death, 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.
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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.
Ha ha, I love how it makes no mention of undiagnosed mental illness. I mean, why would someone do something like this?