Howard Taft Blair, a 55-year-old resident of Warwick Place in Palm Coast, was arrested and charged with aggravated animal cruelty, a third-degree felony, for killing one of his dogs by asphyxiation.
Blair told Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies that killing Nutmeg, a 15-month-old American bulldog and labrador retriever mix, was necessary after Nutmeg attacked one of the family’s four other dogs. Blair was arrested early this morning, four days after the State Attorney’s Office filed the charge against him.
The charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. Blair will not be subject to a new law, going in effect on July 1, that–if he were to be convicted–could have multiplied his sentencing-guideline points and potentially lengthened his sentence.
The incident took place on Jan 25. Blair and his wife were hanging out in the garage, having dinner, drinking and singing karaoke. When Blair was done with his dinner, he placed his plate on the floor for the five dogs to finish the gravy. The dogs included three teacup chihuahuas, Jackson, Pico, and Squirrel, and a fourth mixed breed.
As the dogs ate, Jackson growled at Nutmeg. Nutmeg attacked Jackson and hurt him “pretty bad,” in Blair’s words to sheriff’s deputies. Nutmeg had attacked the dog before, but didn’t hurt him as badly. Blair had decided at the time that if Nutmeg were to gon on the attack again, “that was it and I’ll take her out.”
Blair did exactly that, even though Nutmeg could be separated from the other dogs by being placed in her crate. “There was no spanking her and putting her in the crate,” Blair told deputies. “It was a ‘that moment’ emotion.” He got Nutmeg in a headlock and choked her to death. As his wife was preparing to take Jackson to the vet, she asked her husband what he had done with Nutmeg. “She ain’t with us no more,” Blair told her.
She went over to the dog and shook her. Nutmeg was limp “like jello,” she told deputies. Dismayed, she asked her husband why he had not just spanked her and placed her in her crate. She left him to stay at her son’s house in St. Augustine.
A deputy asked Blair “if he thought taking Nutmeg to the vet to be put down due to her behavior would have been more humane,” the arrest report states. Blair “sighed and advised that he would not have been able to come back without Jackson and see Nutmeg because of what she had done to him.”
“That’s what she’s upset about, in defense of trying to protect the small one,” Blair told deputies, asserting to them that there was “nothing criminal here, but something that needed to be done.” Before the incident, he’d been in contact with veterinarians to gather information about behavioral euthanasia. But that night’s violence prompted him to act.
He told deputies he wrapped Nutmeg’s body in a blanket, placed her in a plastic bin, dug a hole in the backyard and buried her there, taking pictures of his actions along the way. He showed the pictures to deputies. “She’s wrapped up because she was very loved,” he told them.
Blair, the report concludes, “explained multiple times that he got Nutmeg separated from Jackson, which resulted in Nutmeg no longer being a threat to Jackson nor the other dogs. Even after the separation, [Blair] still proceeded to chase Nutmeg into the living room, stopping right next to her crate before he began choking her, ultimately ending her life.”
His wife told deputies that her husband did not have a violent history. He was charged with battery in 2019, and successfully completed a deferred prosecution agreement. But today, an injunction for protection against domestic violence was filed against him in Circuit Court.
Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols signed the warrant for his arrest on the aggravated animal cruelty charge on May 27. Sheriff’s deputies served the warrant after 1 a.m. this morning. “Let it be known that while in the residence,” deputies reported, “there were multiple dogs, along with an excessive amount of urine and dog feces on the home’s floor.” He was being held on $2,500 bond.
