Plant City Police arrested a man on March 6 on two charges of aggravated stalking and cruelty to animals resulting in the death of an animal.
The victim originally sought an injunction against Shawn Gilliam, 35, in January of this year, according to a report from Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. The injunction was later served. Gilliam was not to have any contact with the victim and was told he could not violate the injunction through an “intentional unlawful threat, word or act to do violence to Petitioner (Victim).” However, despite the injunction, the victim received a string of text messages from an unknown number from someone who was threatening to hurt her.
In one of the texts, the sender said he would kill her if she “betrayed him.” Another again referenced killing her so she wouldn’t make court and thus the injunction would “drop,” according to the HCSO report. The verbiage of the messages led the victim to believe they came from Gilliam, so she informed Plant City Police Department he may have violated the injunction.
The HCSO report said Gilliam is currently homeless and still resides in Plant City.
Sgt. Al Van Duyne, spokesman for PCPD, said after one of the PCPD officers arrested Gilliam for the injunction violation and began transporting him to Orient Road Jail, things took a turn.
“While he was being transported to jail in the back of a police car, he made some spontaneous statements that centered around dogs and killing dogs,” Van Duyne said. “After these statements were made he was turned over to Orient Road Jail and was booked on that initial charge, but then based on his spontaneous statements, contact had been made with a female victim of the injunction and the presumed owner of the dogs.”
The victim informed the police that on Dec. 26, 2019 she returned home to find her dog, which had been in good health, lying motionless on the floor with his eyes open. The dog was dead and, due to its prior good health, that discovery was very unexpected.
Gilliam revealed in a video recording filmed on March 2 he aimed to retaliate against the victim by poisoning her dogs, according to HCSO. The report said Gilliam told them he accomplished the task by feeding the dogs five chocolate bars, which resulted in the death of one of them. He called the dogs “barking little suckers.”
“The victim showed law enforcement this video that had been recorded in March and he was recognized in the video,” Van Duyne said. “Things were said in that recording that led us to believe that we knew who he was in the video, and who the victim was by things that were said specifically. He made several statements that he did it, why he did it and he described the method in which he attempted to cause the dogs harm.”