A 27-year-old woman in the US who killed and ate a cat has been sentenced to one year in jail after a furious judge slammed her for the stomach-turning act. According to the New York Post, Allexis Ferrell committed the gruesome act in August outside her home in Ohio. A bodycam footage from police officers who reached her house showed the 27-year-old on all fours outdoors eating the cat as horrified neighbours looked on. “What did you do? Why did you kill the cat?” a police officer is heard asking the woman in the clip.
On Monday, Stark Country Common Pleas Judge Frank Forchione called Ferrell a national embarrassment. “You’ve embarrassed this county. You’ve embarrassed this nation. More importantly, you’ve embarrassed yourself,” the judge said, per the outlet.
“To me, you present quite a danger to our community. This is repulsive to me. I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not. I can’t express the disappointment, shock, disgust that this crime has brought to me. I don’t know what could prompt anyone to want to eat a cat,” Mr Forchione continued.
The judge sentenced Ferrell to one year in jail after she pleaded guilty to a felony charge of animal cruelty. According to the Post, her one-year sentence will be added to a separate 18-month sentence she is facing for two previous crimes including a theft in 201 and a child endangerment case from last year.
Stark County Prosecutor Chelsea Small called the cat incident disturbing. “It’s one of the most disturbing cases that I’ve seen as a prosecutor,” she said.
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Ferrell’s attorney Stephen Kandel, however, said that that shocking video makes it clear that the 27-year-old “has an issue with drugs and alcohol, through her evaluation, through her past history”. He added that he has arranged for his client to undergo inpatient treatment after her release.
Notably, Ferrell’s case became a part of online presidential campaign chatter after Donald Trump and JD Vance claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating local pets. Later, officials clarified that Ferrell is not an immigrant and her case is not tied to that claim. She was born in Ohio and graduated from Canton McKinley High School in 2015.
