Accused of killing his daughter’s boyfriend’s dogs, a Laramie man faces up to four years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
Samuel Buck, who is 51 this year, is charged with two counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, both felonies, for allegedly intentionally killing two dogs. His case ascended to the felony-level Albany County District Court late last month.
The investigation started Aug. 31 when Albany County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jesse Calhoun responded to Sand Creek Road because someone found a wire cage off the road with two dead dogs inside it, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed in Laramie Circuit Court.
Calhoun met the caller, who led the deputy about a quarter mile down a two-track road that branched off to the northwest of Sand Creek Road. There, Calhoun looked down a steep gully and saw a black wire crate with two dead dogs inside it, says the affidavit. The dogs looked like they’d been dead for a week.
One black dog resembled a pit bull; the other dog was white and tan. Neither had a collar, Calhoun wrote in the affidavit.
Familiar Dogs
Calhoun loaded the whole cage into his patrol truck and took them to the animal shelter to see if they had microchips that would reveal their owner. They didn’t, says the affidavit.
But one shelter staffer reportedly recognized the dogs as having been at the shelter one week earlier, and Samule Buck had picked them up, the affidavit says.
Deputy Michael Flores contacted Buck over the phone and learned the dogs belonged to Buck’s daughter’s boyfriend.
Calhoun reached out to the boyfriend. The affidavit says that the boyfriend said that about a week earlier, his dogs got out of his house and he couldn’t find them.
Calhoun saw one small kennel, not big enough for both dogs, in the boyfriend’s home, the document says.
Shroud Of Anonymity
Over the weeks that followed, multiple people who were either involved in the case or witnesses reached out to deputies, one at a time. They sought anonymity and claimed to be afraid of Buck. They said that Buck took the dogs out of his daughter’s boyfriend’s home and shot them while they were still in the cage, says the affidavit.
Some witnesses reportedly said Buck shot the dogs because the dogs had killed his daughter’s cats.
Buck’s case is ongoing.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
