BIG PINE KEY, Fla. – Deputies in the Florida Keys arrested a woman on an aggravated animal cruelty charge after they said she “deliberately and callously” suffocated and drowned a 6-to-10-month-old puppy in a tote bag Monday afternoon.
According to an arrest report from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the 100 block of Palmetto Avenue on Big Pine Key at around 3:30 p.m. after a neighbor reported that Delaine Abee Lowry, 72, drowned the miniature Schnauzer.
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Authorities said she “forcefully submerg(ed)” the dog “beneath the murky rainwater” in a blue, 5-gallon plastic tote and suffocated it until it was “motionless and deceased.”
That neighbor told deputies that Lowry came to his home asking if she could bury the dog in his yard, the report states. Deputies said after he told her no, Lowry said, “I’ll just throw it over the fence.”
A deputy went to Lowry’s home and she “handed him a white plastic grocery bag” containing the dead puppy, it states.
That deputy said she told him she “had to kill” the 2-to-3-pound dog because it was “going to kill her.” Authorities said she then “tried to retrieve” the dog, claiming she was going to “bring it back to life.”
Deputies said Lowry’s husband told them he “had no idea” she drowned the puppy and said nothing “unusual” that day.
The report states that deputies entered Lowry’s yard, which was full of “garbage, damaged furniture and overgrown trees and shrubs,” and found the tote bag “filled with dirty rainwater.”
Lowry declined to speak with deputies, they said. An online profile lists her as a Schnauzer breeder.
Jail records show that Lowry was being held in MCSO’s Key West jail facility as of Tuesday morning; she did not have a bond listed.
She’s scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 5.