Woman testifies at Lake County dog shooting suspect's trial

Dana Deutsch testified Wednesday she was initially relieved when she saw the dog she had spent much of Jan. 26 in pursuit of running in a field off Townline Road.

Then she heard the first gunshot.

In the second day of Elvin Dooley's trial for animal cruelty and animal torture in Lake County circuit court, the woman who says she confronted Dooley about the dog he is accused of killing took the witness stand. Dooley, 57, could face up to three years in prison if convicted.

Deutsch, the manager of the Save A Pet animal shelter near Grayslake, and most of her staff had spent hours trying to corral the dog that had been abandoned by its owners in the shelter's parking lot. Before the shooting, their greatest concern was that the dog would run into the street.

The dog was spooked by the people trying to coax it inside, Deutsch said, and it had refused to be fooled into the offerings of food and water that had been left near opened doors of the building.

Around 2:45 p.m., Deutsch said she saw the dog in a field about 200 yards back from the 24000 block of Townline Road as she drove past what she would eventually learn is Dooley's house.

Then, she heard a disturbing sound.

"I heard a gunshot," she said. "There is nothing there except this house, and the first thing I thought of was they were shooting at the dog."

A second shot convinced her to pull into Dooley's driveway, she said, and Deutsch said she looked through a window in the front of the house and saw a man standing at a window in the back of the house.

"I saw him raise the rifle, the scope (mounted on the rifle) caught my eye," Deutsch said. "He held the scope up to his eye and aimed the rifle, then I heard the third shot."

Deutsch said she got out of her vehicle, pounded on the door of the house and a man she would later identify as Dooley came to the door.

"He just opened the door and I shouted 'You're shooting my dog, you're shooting my dog,'" Deutsch said. "I got back into my car, drove out into the field, stopped and ran to the dog."

Deutsch said two employees of the nearby Round Lake Public Works facility also drove a vehicle to the area where the dog fell and she handed her cell phone to one of them and asked him to call police.

Deutsch's voice caught in her throat Wednesday as she described what she found.

"He was lying there twisted and there was blood everywhere," she said. "There was a lot of blood on his throat and coming out of his mouth."

She said the public works employees loaded the dog into her vehicle and she drove the dog to emergency animal hospital in Grayslake, but the dog died on the way.

Under cross examination by Assistant Public Defender Sharmila Manak, Deutsch admitted she could not see the dog when she was in Dooley's driveway watching the man at the window.

She said she believed the man with the gun was firing in the direction of where she had seen the dog, but could not say she was certain the dog was the target.

Manak has said in the past that Dooley was shooting at cans he had positioned in his back yard for target practice, and that the dog was shot by mistake.

Also on Wednesday a doctor at the animal hospital who examined the dog testified she believed the dog suffered severe pain because of the wound.

Assistant State's Attorney Michael Mermel said earlier in the week prosecutors would have to convince the jury that Dooley had "inflicted extreme physical pain motivated by a desire to prolong pain and suffering" to convict him of animal torture.

Sharon Grogan testified that she believed the small caliber bullet that hit the dog, as well as the fact that the dog was hit in the neck, caused the type of pain the legal standard expects.

"The dog's death was slower and most likely more painful because of the nature of the wound," Grogan said. "The death was not immediate; it certainly took many minutes."