Dog killed, skinned, mutilated for barbeque
Peoria, IL (US)Incident Date: Friday, Jul 31, 1959
County: Peoria
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged:
» Frederick V Malek - Dismissed
» Andrew P O'Meara
On a Friday in August 1959, five men in their twenties were arrested about 2 a.m. and held in the county jail all day after sheriff's deputies found a blood-spattered, unoccupied car about 1:15 a.m. at the entrance to Vicary's Park on Kickapoo Creek Road near Peoria, Ill. Joined by Sheriff Harry P. Backes, two deputies had found two men walking toward the park entrance; the two men told the deputies that they had struck a dog and were going to bury it.
Further investigation revealed three others hiding in some weeds, the sheriff said. Because the men's car was saturated with blood and they gave conflicting stories at the time of their arrest, Sheriff Backes thought there might have been a connection between the dog incident and a strong-arm robbery earlier in the evening. After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it." Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the evening at a West Bluff tavern.
One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill. Charges of cruelty to animals were later dismissed against Malek and three other men after Andrew P. O'Meara testified that he had struck and killed the dog with a piece of 2-by-4, and that he alone had skinned the animal and tried to cook it. O'Meara said he was trying to show Malek and the others something about living off the land. This account is based on two 1959 news articles, one on Aug. 8 and one on Aug. 11, in the Peoria Journal Star newspaper. Before obtaining the articles from the Journal Star, I spoke with Malek by phone yesterday. He said he and O'Meara went to Peoria in the summer of '59 to visit friends at Bradley University. They got drunk out of their minds at the time. He said he didn't know why O'Meara had killed the dog, that he was not a participant and that he was in no position to stop it. References |
