Palm Coast Man Accused of Kicking and Killing Playful Puppy For Interrupting Masturbation

Wesley Jackson, a 28-year-old Palm Coast resident with a history of violence and abuse, was jailed Friday on a felony charge of animal abuse for allegedly kicking and killing a 4-month-old puppy chihuahua.

Jackson admitted to police that he kicked the dog while Jackson was trying to masturbate, because the dog was trying to play with him. But Jackson, who has a 2005 conviction for battery, at first denied knowledge of the brutality and took a roundabout way of eventually owning up to what happened.

The 4-month-old Chihuahua puppy called Little Man was dead on arrival at Florida Animal Hospital in Flagler Beach on Sept. 16. The dog was severely bruised. It had a broken back right leg. Blood was seeping from its mouth and nose. There was little question that it had been either brutalized or been the victim of a terrible accident.

Little Man’s 50-year-old owner, Mark Mitchell, was very upset. He requested a necropsy, the term applied to autopsies of animals.

The death appears to have been no accident. The veterinarian determined that the dog had died of “severe pulmonary contusions caused by blunt force trauma,” a police report states. It’s possible that a dog could have received such injuries from being stepped on, a Flagler County Sheriff‘s investigator was told. But a person would have had to step on the dog with significant weight. Without treatment, Little Man could not have lived more than an hour after being injured.

It appears, the veterinarian told police, “that the dog could have been forcefully kicked or possibly thrown against something like a wall.” The veterinarian suspected abuse.

Mitchell had left for work Friday morning (Sept.16) at 7, when Little Man was in good health. Mitchell’s 12-year-old son left at about 8 a.m. when the dog was also fine. Mitchell’s 13-year-old daughter got home from school at 2 p.m. Jackson was at the house. Jackson is the boyfriend of the girl’s older sister. He was standing over Little Man in the computer room, just looking at the dog, the younger girl reported. Little Man appeared to be choking and bleeding from the mouth.

The girl asked Jackson what happened. He’d just come to the house to get on the computer, Jackson told the girl–according to Jackson’s arrest report–and the dog was just lying on the floor by the front door. He said he picked up the chihuahua and brought it to the computer room to figure out what was wrong with it, and that’s when the dog started choking and bleeding.

The girl spoke with her parents by phone and conveyed Mitchell’s message to Jackson that the dog was to be taken to the animal hospital immediately. Mitchell would meet Jackson there. At first Jackson refused to go, the report states. He had to be urged several times to do so before he complied. Jackson, on the way to the hospital, told Mitchell by phone that the dog had died in his arms.

A Flagler County Sheriff’s detective intervened, and had an interview with Jackson, who spoke voluntarily.

That day, Jackson told the detective, he’d gone to the Mitchell residence in the C-Section to use the bathroom and the computer. It was about 11:30 A.M. He was in a hurry to get to the bathroom. Running down the hallway, he stepped on the dog with all his weight. The dog yelped, screamed and ran off to a bedroom.

Jackson did not check on the dog subsequently. He got on the computer. Then he left to have lunch with his girlfriend. When he got back to the house at 2 p.m. he saw the dog lying in a pool of blood. That’s when Mitchell’s 13-year-old daughter got home from school and saw him there. He said he didn’t want to admit to the girl that he’d stepped on her dog, so he didn’t tell her what had happened.

But as the interview proceeded, the details Jackson provided were “inconsistent,” according to his arrest report. The detective and the deputy told Jackson that his explanation of stepping on the dog was not consistent with the severity of the injuries observed: he is not a large man. He wears size 9 shoes and weighs just 160 pounds.

Only then Jackson owned up to what had happened to Little Man.

Jackson told the investigators that he’d gone to the Mitchell house to “relieve some stress.” He was at the computer–masturbating with a sock. Little Man kept jumping on Jackson’s leg. Jackson got “very annoyed” at him. He reacted angrily. He kicked the dog. The details of the reaction, two lines’ worth, are redacted from his arrest report. But he told the investigators to look for the sock as proof that he was telling the truth. The investigators documented the sock’s presence.

He never checked on the dog. When he returned to the house at 2 p.m., he saw the dog lying in a pool of blood. He tried CPR by performing chest compressions (but not mouth to mouth resuscitation, he said), and he “admitted” to doing something else that may have aggravated the situation: the detail is redacted. That’s when the dog became unresponsive.

“Because Wesley Jackson intentionally kicked the 4 month old puppy to cause it harm and caused great bodily harm and death to the puppy,” the arrest report states, “he will be charged with felony animal abuse.”

He was released on $2,000 bail.

Other than his 2005 battery conviction, for which he served probation (he violated probation but that case was dismissed), Jackson was again charged with battery in 2009. That case was dismissed. He was charged with domestic battery, criminal mischief and obstructing an officer without violence in 2012. The battery charge was dismissed. Adjudication was withheld regarding the two other charges.

In 2013, he was charged with abuse of 911 when he repeatedly called the sheriff’s office and abusively complained that deputies were not showing up at his house so he could report damage to his property. He cursed and insulted the dispatcher as he called 911 five times. That charge was dismissed. Two months later, he was charged with dealing in stolen property, a second-degree felony. That charge was dismissed. He was also charged with fraud, a first-degree misdemeanor, and was found guilty but assigned to pre-trial diversion, which means the charge would be dismissed if he behaved for a period. Other than a half dozen traffic violations since, he’d behaved.

Until Friday.