An Ethete, Wyoming, man accused of beating a puppy to death has agreed to spend between 18 months and two years in prison.
Cedric Glenn Shakespeare, who turns 38 this year, filed a plea agreement Monday in which he agreed to plead “no contest” to a felony animal cruelty charge and spend between 18 and 24 months in prison.
Shakespeare’s attorney also asked for the court to set a change-of-plea hearing for him so he can give the no contest plea.
A no contest plea behaves like a guilty plea, but it can spare a person from civil ramifications.
In addition to the potential two years in prison, Shakespeare’s plea agreement says he also will pay any restitution on the animal cruelty charge, and other court costs and fees.
Next Up, Wife Beating
Shakespeare filed a second plea agreement Monday in a separate case accusing him of spontaneously beating his wife as she drove him and some friends through Riverton in a car.
The charge is a third-time domestic battery, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Shakespeare faces the felony-level charge because he was convicted of domestic battery in Billings, Montana, on Nov. 6, 2017, and in Riverton on Feb. 26, 2021, according to his court file.
He agreed in his Monday plea deal to give a no contest plea to felony domestic battery, and to serve two years of probation once his prison sentence for animal cruelty ends.
Should he fail the terms of his probation, he could go back to prison for another two to five years, the agreement says.
Again, his agreement specifies that he would pay restitution and court costs and fees.
Blood On The Hood
The domestic battery case dates back to the evening of Oct. 14, 2023, when Riverton Police Department Officer Cassandra Barnes went to the Riverton SageWest Hospital to respond to a report of assault.
Barnes met with Shakespeare’s wife, who said they’d gotten married just five months earlier.
She said she was riding through town with Shakespeare and two female friends when Shakespeare started punching her, says an evidentiary affidavit filed in the case.
He punched her in the nose and her nose bled, the document says.
She tried to get out of the car. When he also got out of the car, she tried getting back in and locking him out, but she couldn’t re-lock the doors, and he got back in and hit her some more, allegedly.
During this discussion, Barnes reportedly noticed that the woman’s face, hands, arms and clothes were bloody.
Barnes talked with another woman who’d been in the car. The woman said Shakespeare’s wife had been driving, and Shakespeare had been sitting in the front passenger seat, when Shakespeare just, “Started to beat the f*** out of her,” relates the affidavit.
One Month Earlier
The animal cruelty investigation started about a month prior, when the 33-year-old tenant of a home in Shoshoni, Wyoming, reported Shakespeare for allegedly beating her blue heeler puppy to death.
She told Shoshoni Police Chief Chris Konija that Shakespeare and her boyfriend had been up since early morning of Sept. 16 drinking.
Shakespeare brutally attacked her puppy, the affidavit says.
The document says that when Konija went with the landlady to inspect the place, he found fresh blood on the door, the entryway floor, the walls, a trail of blood leading into the bedroom, blood in the middle of the room and pools of blood in the room’s southwest corner.
Konija followed the trail.
He saw little paw prints leading into the area under the bed, indicating the puppy had crawled there for shelter, the affidavit says.
The landlady lifted the bed.
Konija saw a blue heeler puppy in a pool of blood against the wall, reportedly.
“It was apparent based upon the pools of blood in various locations and the crawling marks in dried blood, the dog had been repeatedly beat before crawling under the bed where it ultimately suffered until it was deceased,” the police chief later wrote in the affidavit.
Is My Dog OK?
Konija called the tenant, who asked if her dog was OK.
He told her the puppy was dead.
The tenant became emotional, says the document.
She said her boyfriend and his friend, Shakespeare, were at her home and already drunk when she woke that morning at about 8. And they drank all day, she added.
The woman said Shakespeare’s 9-year-old daughter was also there and was playing rough with the puppy. The dog nipped at the girl, scratching her cheek and causing slight bleeding, said the woman.
That’s when Shakespeare started to beat the dog, the affidavit alleges.
The woman said she tried to get him to stop, but as she rushed to the puppy, her boyfriend blocked her and wouldn’t let her go into the room where Shakespeare had allegedly taken the dog. She eventually got around her boyfriend and grabbed her dog from Shakespeare, so he threw the dog against the wall and it fell to the ground, says the affidavit.
The woman stands 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and was six months pregnant and showing, Konija wrote in the document.
Shakespeare reportedly stands about 6-foot-1 and weighs 230 pounds.
The affidavit says Shakespeare kept beating the dog.
The woman fled to the Fast Lane gas station and called her grandmother, who picked her up and took her to Riverton.
Also, Stabbing
The tenant’s boyfriend spoke with Konija four days later. He described the drinking and the dog bite.
He said Shakespeare was furious about the dog bite, and besides beating the puppy, he also pulled a knife and started stabbing it, the affidavit relates.
The man said he didn’t stop Shakespeare because he was nervous that he or his girlfriend could get stabbed if he did.
The man then started crying, saying he loved that dog and it didn’t deserve what had happened, the affidavit relates.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
