White trash puppy killer heads off to the big house
February 16th, 2005 at 10:00 am by Preston Taylor Holmes
Human debris pleads guilty to killing puppy, laughing about it.
A Knoxville man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges he crushed the neck of his stepdaughter’s puppy, suffocated it with liquid makeup and then laughed about his misdeed.
Timothy David Sawyer, 40, admitted at a hearing in Knox County Criminal Court that he was guilty of aggravated cruelty to animals. His case is the first-ever felony animal cruelty case pursued in Knox County.
And how did he actually off the pup?
Harper told Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner that Knoxville Police Department officers summoned to the home of Sawyer’s estranged wife on Jan. 13 found the two-month-old Jack Russell terrier named “Sophie” dead on a bed with “makeup around her mouth.”
The puppy belonged to Sawyer’s 13-year-old stepdaughter.
Sawyer told police the puppy must have accidentally ingested the liquid makeup, Harper said.
Police asked for a necropsy. A necropsy is the equivalent of an autopsy.
The necropsy showed that the puppy suffered “blunt trauma to the head,” Harper said. The puppy’s neck was broken, she said, and makeup was found in the puppy’s lungs.
“Basically, as the puppy was dying, it was forced to take the makeup into its lungs,” Harper said.
Five days later, Sawyer called his estranged wife.
“He told her if she pursued (charges) she’d be dead,” Harper told Baumgartner.
Timothy Sawyer: displaying bravery in the face of insurmountable odds (a 13-year-old girl and her 2-month-old puppy) – truly a White Trash Wednesday hero.










February 16th, 2005 at 10:24 am
are they putting criminals in black and white stripes again, or does he just like to dress the part?
February 16th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Does it say in the article WHY he did it? Based on the makeup, it seems to me he was saving himself the cost of a farm animal blow up doll.
February 16th, 2005 at 11:15 am
Canuck, ’round here, we dress all our prisoners up like the Apple Dumpling Gang.
Hector, your speculation certainly adds a different WTW angle doesn’t it?
February 22nd, 2005 at 4:32 pm
So if he plead guilty to this, and he threatened to kill his wife, I’d say we have ourselves someone who can and should be summarily executed. There is no need for appeal. We do not and cannot have someone like this existing in our society, and I will not pay for his upkeep in jail.