December 15, 2010 in City

Teen kills dogs after fight with mother, police say

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A Chattaroy teenager killed his family’s dogs after threatening his mother and grandmother with a knife on Monday, sheriff’s officials say.

Michael R. Shartle, 19, remains in jail on $20,000 bond after appearing in Spokane County Superior Court today.

He was arrested Tuesday after deputies found evidence of brutal slayings in his family’s barn, where the teen reportedly told his mother on Monday that he’d killed their two dogs.

Deputy Michael Beckham said in court documents that “the scene in the barn was not consistent with a ‘humane mercy killing’ of an animal.”

“The scene was more consistent with the animals struggling for life, trying to escape and being struck with an axe repeatedly,” according to the document. Deputies did not find the dogs’ bodies.

Shartle’s mother told deputies that her son threatened to “gut her” during a fight about money, then slashed her truck’s tires.

He threatened his mother and grandmother with the knife and wouldn’t let her up from the couch before he left the home, then returned and “described vividly in detail how he killed the dogs,” Beckham wrote.

Shartle told his mother “that he killed the dogs instead of killing her,” according to the document. He reportedly said the same thing to his grandmother.

Shartle faces charges of felony unlawful imprisonment, harassment, malicious mischief and two counts of killing pet animals, which is a gross misdemeanor.

Eight comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  boredstupid on December 15 at 6:35 p.m.

  what a $%^%^ing wackjob

• 

  misjustice on December 15 at 6:55 p.m.

  Well, isn’t he just a lil darlin’?

  Betcha this isn’t the first time that he’s killed a living creature, on purpose, brutally. It won’t be long till he kills a human.

• 

  DisplacedDetroiter on December 15 at 7:34 p.m.

  I wonder if he shartled himself when the cops showed up. How sick…

• 

  WTGorWTF on December 15 at 8:10 p.m.

  Shartle sounds like a really disgusting pokemon. Perfect prison name! Hope this kid gets put away for a LONG time.

• 

  lewis8457 on December 15 at 9:26 p.m.

  Only a true scum bag could kill a family pet, hope they stick this wack job with a stiff penalty.

• 

  lewis8457 on December 15 at 9:29 p.m.

  also he is not a teenager he is 19 the perfect age for the guys in cell block A

• 

  Radbooks on December 15 at 10:48 p.m.

  Uh, Lewis, he IS a teenager. Teenagers are those from the age of thirTEEN to nineTEEN. Yes, they become a legal adult (in some ways, since they can’t legally drink!) at eighteen, but it doesn’t change the fact of how you spell out their age. :)

  Regardless, he sounds like a very scary and totally sick guy.

• 

  Itsgodswill on December 16 at 11:26 a.m.

  “If animals believed in Satan, he’d look like a human being”