‘I can’t wrap my head around it’: Family in mourning after cat beaten, killed

A Mount Hope family is reeling after a neighbour allegedly beat their indoor cat to death in broad daylight Thursday.

Police allege the neighbour, a 68-year-old man who now faces charges for killing and injuring an animal, whacked the elderly cat repeatedly with either a glass or plastic bottle around 3:45 p.m.

Police say the cat had wandered into the suspect's yard. The beating left it without mobility, bloody and pale. A veterinarian later recommended it be put down.

She couldn't even stand up," said Kim Myers, the cat's owner.

The vet looked at me and said, She's not going to be going home.' I said, Yes, she will be. We're burying her in the backyard.'"

Beaullah was a 14-year-old long-haired tortoiseshell weighing about six pounds. She seldom ventured outside, save for the corner on the porch she fancied and the chair beneath the umbrella in the backyard.

She was the friendliest cat," Myers said.

Myers returned to her Mount Hope home from work at around 3:15 p.m. She opened the front door and let the dog out. Beaullah looked at her, then to the yard.

I said, Do you want to go out?' And she came in hot," Myers said. I said, Come on, Mommy will come out with you.' But I should've just closed the door, because if I had, she'd still be here."

While Myers sat atop a plastic bin overlooking the yard, Beaullah waddled to the family garden, then over to the neighbour's property.

He knows the cat," Myers said of the neighbour. He's been there for 15 years."

Then, suddenly, she says she heard a thumping sound followed by a screeching wail.

All I hear is this, Whack! Whack! Whack!' five times, and I heard my cat scream out loud. I got up and looked, and I saw her coming just by the rocks where the garden is. She looked back at him to say, like, What are you doing to me?'" Myers said.

She had enough adrenalin to get herself over about 20 feet and then collapsed right in front of me."

Myers picked up Beaullah and went to confront the neighbour. She asked what he did to her. She says he was incredulous.

I started yelling at him, What do you do to her?' And he said, I did nothing. I did nothing.' I asked him, Did you hit her with something?' He said, I didn't hit her with anything.' Three times I asked him that," Myers said.

Then he said to me, I thought it was a stray (cat).' And I said, You know this is our cat. You know!'"

Police arrived shortly thereafter. A dispute erupted between Myers' family and the neighbour, who denies the allegations.

My husband and I have been married 30 years. I've never seen him that angry. He kept asking (the neighbour) why he would take something from our family and he wouldn't explain."

Police say the suspect later told them he thought the cat had rabies and acted out of impulse. He has been released on the condition to appear in court on Aug. 10.

Myers teared up over a telephone interview Friday. She said the house isn't the same, and that Beaullah's sisters, two black cats, have been left without one of their own, she without a daughter."

We lived here 23 years. We don't bother with anybody. We wave, say hello - but we keep to ourselves," she said. For him to do something like this, it's just ... I can't wrap my head around it."

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com