A North Carolina landlord is accused of shooting and killing his tenants’ cat while they were away on vacation, leading to felony charges for breaking and entering and animal cruelty.
Morganton resident Dustin Timothy McCormack, 37, was caught on surveillance video firing a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun at Harmony Chezem and Preston Finley’s beloved pet, a striped tabby named Frank, according to police.
On Thursday, a defiant McCormack insisted he was “only trying to scare” the animal, which he said had “peed all over the house.” He said he had gone to the home to pick up some tools he kept there, and that when he arrived, he saw Frank had “sprayed” the walls and furniture, which “stunk like hell.”
“I’m a man’s man, dude,” McCormack told The Independent. “We’re taught to take care of shit.”
McCormack, a construction contractor who owns several rental properties in the area, claimed Frank had impregnated a neighbor’s cat, had urinated into one of his air conditioners, and made the home smell. He said he “normally charges a pet deposit” of $250, but that Chezem and Finley never told him they had gotten a cat.
“I was pissed off, so I kicked the cat out,” McCormack said of the deadly July 10 incident. “I kicked it off the porch, and when I kicked it, unfortunately, it didn’t run, so I just shot at it so it would leave.”
He insists he did not mean to kill Frank, but simply scare it away. He also pushed back against the breaking and entering charge, arguing that he owns the property and still keeps a bedroom in the home.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, man,” McCormack went on. “And, I mean, I’ve never been in a situation like this before… I did like I think a lot of people would have done. I’ve had people reach out to me [since my arrest] and say they would have done worser [sic] than what I done.”
Chezem, 19, and Finley, 20, were unable to be reached for comment on Thursday. However, Chezem laid out the couple’s side of the story in a July 15 Facebook post, in which she called McCormack “a monster.”
When the two, who began renting from McCormack about a year ago, went to the beach for a few days earlier this month, they paid a friend of Finley’s to keep Frank and their pet rabbit fed and watered, Chezem wrote. But when the pet sitter found Frank underneath a car, badly wounded and near death, he called Finley in a panic, then rushed the animal to the vet. But, according to Chezem, the vet was unable to save him. It was unclear what exactly had occurred—until the pair returned from their trip.
“The first thing my boyfriend did when we got back home was checked [sic] the cameras where we found out what really happened,” Chezem said in her post. “He went through our back door with a 40cal smith n wesson, called our cat to come outside, kicked him off the porch, then shot him. The saddest part is that after he shot him he wouldn’t even take him out of his misery[,] he left my baby there to bleed out and suffer.”
Chezem and Finley reported it to police, and shared the video with investigators, one of whom “immediately identified Dustin Timothy McCormack as the person in the video,” according to a press release issued by the Burke County Sheriff’s Office.
“The investigator was also shown footage from a live Facebook video made by McCormack, in which he appeared to be referring to the incident,” the press release states.
McCormack on Thursday blamed the situation on his tenants, saying they were brought up with “bad parenting,” and claimed an angry ex was largely responsible for publicly amplifying the allegations against him.
Far from expressing contrition over Frank’s death, McCormack — who is also facing unrelated charges of cyberstalking, assault on a female, resisting a public officer, reckless driving to endanger, and violating a protective order — justified his actions by saying he’s “a responsible person… that got caught in the crossfire [while] trying to save my s**t*”
McCormack is currently free on $20,000 secured bond and is due back in court next month. The Burke County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
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