PETA Ups Reward to $10,000 for Help Nabbing Dog Killer

For Immediate Release:
May 23, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

PETA is offering up to $5,000 in addition to the now $5,000 reward offered by Crime Stoppers and Pasado’s Safe Haven for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for abusing, killing, and dumping five dogs in the Lower Valley area. The bodies were found between March 16 and May 11.

According to the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office, four of the dogs were male and one was female. They were a Doberman, a Rottweiler-type, a German shepherd mix, a heeler-shepherd mix, and a pit bull mix. All the bodies were found around the Lower Valley area, primarily in Grandview and Sunnyside, and showed signs of severe abuse, including starvation and injuries consistent with blunt force trauma and being dragged behind a car and tied up with a massive chain.

Due to the varied causes of death, multiple culprits may be involved. The sheriff’s office is investigating but has yet to make any arrests, so PETA is asking for the public’s help.

“These dogs suffered in terror and agony before they died, and others are in danger as long as the culprits are walking free,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “PETA urges people to keep their dogs indoors, where they’re safe, and leashed when on walks and and asks anyone with information to come forward immediately before someone else gets hurt.”

Tips can be submitted through the tip line at 1-800-222-TIPS or on the Yakima County Crime Stoppers’ website at www.crimestoppersyakco.org using case number #23C03867 and including as much detail as possible.

PETA points out that companion animals are safest when kept indoors to prevent them from being hit by cars, poisoned, infected with fatal diseases, or tortured and killed by cruel people.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.