A 19-year-old man who tortured and killed two rabbits and a tabby cat was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday following a guilty plea in Miller County.
Devan Taylor Diltz appeared with Managing Public Defender Jason Mitchell before Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson in a courtroom at the Miller County jail complex Tuesday afternoon. Diltz pleaded guilty to a single count of felony animal cruelty involving Socks the cat and two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty involving rabbits Huckleberry and Aurora.
The animals were family pets kept by Diltz's father, stepmother and stepsister when he lived with them last year in Texarkana, Ark., according to a probable cause affidavit used to create the following account.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell said Diltz's plea agreement includes four years in an Arkansas prison followed by two years suspended imposition of sentence on the felony charge. If Diltz commits a new criminal offense while free under the suspended sentence, he could be ordered to spend more time behind bars. Mitchell said the plea bargain includes six-month county jail sentences for each of the misdemeanors that will run concurrently to the prison sentence.
Arkansas law allows for felony animal cruelty charges when the allegations involve a dog, cat or horse. Maltreatment of other animals is a misdemeanor offense.
Diltz allegedly threw the Socks out the window of a moving car Dec. 10 as he traveled on Jefferson Avenue in Texarkana, Ark. The rabbits disappeared Dec. 8.
Diltz reportedly told a local counselor and staff at a Shreveport, La., psychiatric facility that maiming and killing animals gives him a thrill, according to reports prepared by investigators with Texarkana, Ark., Animal Services. Diltz allegedly told others that he tortured and suffocated the rabbits before nailing them to a tree, dismembering and burying them at Ed Worrell Park in Texarkana, Ark.
Diltz allegedly disinterred the rabbits later, dismembered them further, and burned their remains before burying them a second time at two sites in Texarkana, Ark. Diltz reportedly showed a friend an area near a lone tree in Ed Worrell Park where he claimed to have buried the remains of one rabbit. The friend reported that Diltz also showed her a second burial site on the grounds of the Sugar Hill Methodist Church in Texarkana, Ark.
Investigators located two areas of ground that had been disturbed by recent "digging activity" near a large tree situated to the east side of the parking lot at Ed Worrell Park. While remnants of burned "plant matter" were discovered, animal remains were not.
"Also the tree contained two holes on the side that were consistent with nails being driven into the tree," the report states, but no nails were found.
Investigators inspected an area of recently disturbed ground at Sugar Hill Methodist Church, where Diltz allegedly buried some of the remains of one rabbit in a cardboard box he claimed to have set on fire there. The charred remains of a cardboard box containing maggots were collected as evidence as was a Dr Pepper soda bottle filled with yellowish liquid.
One of Diltz's family members said he had taken lighter fluid from her room and that he often drank Dr Pepper. The family told investigators the liquid could also be whiskey, which they had in their home.
Diltz was taken into custody when he arrived in court Tuesday morning. Johnson signed an order revoking Diltz's bond last week because Diltz was arrested in Garland, Texas, for burglary of a habitation May 13. That offense is punishable by two to 20 years in a Texas prison.