Confessed Pit Bull-Killer Greeted With Protests

A boxer-pit bull mix, allegedly killed by one of his owners, was stage center on the steps of Superior Court on New Haven’s Elm Street Tuesday morning as 25 to 30 protesters held up signs demanding ​“Justice for Desmond.”

The 6‑year-old dog, who was allegedly strangled in a Branford apartment and then dumped in a lake in Madison, was loved by those who cared for him at the New Haven shelter. Now they want the courts to act.

The protesters showed up for a court appearance for the man accused of killing the dog.

“We are just devastated,” said Micah Rapini, one of Desmond’s shelter moms and the primary organizer of the protest. She said after the brief court appearance that the demonstrators would be back on June 5, the next date Judge Susan Connors set for the case. Rapini said she wants the courts to act in a meaningful way. She has created a Facebook page about Desmond.

Police charged Alex Wullaert, 22, of 57 East Main St. in Branford, with one felony count of cruelty to animals and littering. In Part A of the courthouse Tuesday, the protesters quietly took seats near him as he sat waiting for his case to be called.

His case, taken out of order, was the first to be heard. It took less than a minute for the lawyers to agree on the June 5th court date. The defendant did not speak.

Wullaert, dressed in a blue shirt and khaki pants, did not enter a plea at his arraignment. He was not held on bail. He stood accused of ​“maliciously wounding and killing” Desmond on Jan 12, 2012. The dog was thrown into a lake in Madison and later found by a town resident. No one from his family accompanied him to court.

His attorney, Richard P. Silverstein, escorted Wullaert from the courtroom. They decided against leaving via the main door, where the demonstrators waited. Instead they left via a side door. Once the protesters realized he was coming out the side door, they pursued him and Silverstein on Elm Street.

One protester said they followed him into a garage. Then the protesters returned to the courthouse. They promised to return for Wullaert’s next court appearance. Silverstein would not speak to reporters either leaving the building or returning to it. 

Wullaert, who is accused of strangling his boxer-pit-bull dog to death because he peed on him, has admitted to police that he subjected Desmond, a dog owned for six years by his former girlfriend and himself, to what officials say was daily physical beatings and mental abuse. In the eight months he lived covertly, he hit the dog often. ​“Blunt trauma,” the necropsy report called it.

A Search For Desmond

Unbeknownst to Wullaert’s girlfriend, with whom he had been living when she gave Desmond up for adoption in January, 2011, Wullaert decided he wanted the dog back. So he went in search of Desmond, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. First he went to the New Haven shelter, where his girlfriend had placed him. Once there he learned the dog had been transferred to a quieter shelter outside New Haven. Wullaert found him there. He adopted him without his girlfriend’s knowledge on April 14, 2011.

One of the shelter workers told the Eagle today that ​“Desmond knew him right away.” She said he brought Desmond a hot dog. She described Desmond as mellow, a dog who liked people and was very affectionate. 

Eight months later, emaciated, according to the necropsy report and subjected to routine kicking and ​“spanking” Desmond was dead. Wallaert confessed to strangling the dog with his own choke collar in a moment of rage.

According to the arrest warrant, the necropsy or autopsy report and interviews with those involved in the case, Wullaert said in a confession to Madison police that he routinely kicked and ​“spanked the dog quite hard,” sometimes with a shoe because he did not want him to bark. 

He locked Desmond up in a small bathroom in his East Main Street apartment, where he still apparently lives, for 12 hours a day, sometimes longer, State Animal Control Officer Todd Curry said. In his confession to Madison Police Officer Kimberly Lauria, Wallaert said he fed the large dog ​“a cup of rice a day,” explaining that he did not have the money to feed him. At least part of the time, Wullaert was working.

The necropsy report showed Desmond had broken teeth and hemorrhages on his head, ribs and stomach. The dog’s stomach contained segments of gauze, paper, fabric and plastic tissue, items found in a bathroom.

This treatment ​“went on for quite some time and the dog was showing some kind of illness. He was lethargic; there was a lack of food. Desmond was seriously ill, disoriented and probably starving,” Curry said in an interview.

“Wullaert told us he came home one morning; it was Jan. 12 at about 8 a.m. and he took the dog out of the bathroom. 

“The poor dog was totally screwed up. He brought the dog outside so the dog could go to the bathroom but the dog wouldn’t go to the bathroom. “

When he brought the dog back inside Desmond lifted his leg and urinated on him,” Curry said. 

“And that infuriated him so much that he instantly grabbed the dog by the collar, picked the dog up, twisting the collar. The dog was trying to bite him, of course, and he ended up killing the dog. He used the dog’s choke collar while it was on the dog. He then was contemplating what to do with the dog. He couldn’t afford to take to vet to have it cremated. So he put a plastic bag over the dog’s head because the dog kept looking at him.

“That’s what happens when a dog dies, his eyes stay open,” Curry said. 

The description of the dog’s condition is described in an arrest warrant affidavit and necropsy report filed in Superior Court.

Curry, a retired Madison police officer who now works for the state Department of Agriculture, which oversees town and city shelters, said that the case began two months ago, on March 11, 2012, when a resident located a deceased dog discarded in a plastic bag in the woods by Lake Drive and reported it to Madison police. Wullaert, it turns out, grew up in Madison and knew the woods and lakes well.

The arrest warrant says that Wullaert took the dead dog to a lake, broke a hole in the ice and threw the dog in. He told police he went to a local store, bought some flowers, returned to the location and threw them in the water. ​“Wullaert stated the flowers were to symbolize ​‘the great memories they had’ and considered them to be an apology to the dog.”

Desmond’s Family

Wullaert’s girlfriend said she owned the dog for six years with Wullaert. She got the dog at the New Haven shelter. On Jan 19, 2011, the girlfriend told police, she decided to return Desmond to the New Haven Animal Shelter because she claimed the dog ​“exhibited jealousy toward [her] baby.” She said she hoped that the dog would be adopted by a good family.

His girlfriend told police she learned of Desmond’s death when Wullaert called her to tell her he returned home to find the animal dead. She was under the impression, she told police, that Wullaert had buried the dog. She was stunned to learn from police in March that her dog had been adopted by her former live-in boyfriend. He had not told her. 

During the period she decided to give Desmond up, she and Wullaert were having serious emotional problems. Three weeks after she brought Desmond to the New Haven shelter on January 19, 2011, she brought criminal charges against Wullaert for attempting to strangle her and took out a restraining order against him. They separated.

At the time Wullaert located and adopted Desmond, in April, 2011, the couple was in Superior Court in New Haven. The former girlfriend moved for custody of their child after Wullaert allegedly attempted to strangle her. Over the next seven months they engaged in a serious custody and financial battle, presumably involving their two-year-old daughter. None of this was known to any the animal shelters that cared for Desmond. 

While the Madison police did not discuss the domestic dispute, it took place in a house on Short Beach Road in East Haven where the couple lived at the time. According to a police report listed in the East Haven Patch, on Feb. 5, 2011, Wullaert was arrested at his East Haven address on charges of strangulation in the third degree, unlawful restraint in the second degree, disorderly conduct, interference with an emergency call and assault in the third degree. His girlfriend filed the complaint.

Three days later Wullaert’s girlfriend filed a custody and support case for their daughter in New Haven Superior Court. She also obtained a restraining order against him. It is no longer in effect, officials said.

Soon after she moved to a low-income housing complex in Branford. Wullaert moved to a separate apartment at 57 East Main St., where, police said, Desmond was killed.

The court case seeking custody and support began on Feb. 8, 2011, and ended sometime in October, 2011. In June, 2011 the judge overseeing the case entered an order to garnish Wullaert’s wages, apparently for child support payments. 

Desmond’s alleged abuse at the hands of Alex Wullaert coincides with a period in Wullaert’s life when his relationship with his live-in girlfriend was ending.

The Microchip

While Wullaert lived with the dog and his girlfriend for some years, his girlfriend, whose name we are not disclosing, actually owned the dog. Lauria, the lead Madison police officer in the case, learned from a microchip inserted in the dog that the dog was registered to a woman, who, it turned out, was Wallaert’s girlfriend. The dog’s name was Desmond, the chip said. But Wullaert’s girlfriend, the owner of Desmond, no longer lived at the address on the microchip.

So police reached out. 

The animal control officer in Madison contacted Laura Burban, the director of the Branford Animal Shelter.

It turned out Wullaert was well known at the Branford Animal shelter. At some point in 2009 Branford police arrested him in connection with an assault. Apparently he was ordered by the court to do community service at the Branford animal shelter, which he did. After that the case was nollied or dismissed. So it is still not known what the assault entailed. 

Burban remembered Wullaert and his girlfriend. During his time at the shelter he learned the correct way to handle animals. When Madison animal control officers reached out to see if anyone knew Wullaert’s girlfriend, the name on Desmond’s microship, Burban and her staff gave them the information they needed. It is believed that Wullaert’s girlfriend notified him that the police wanted to talk to him.

At some point, Officer Lauria contacted Wullaert and asked him to come to the Madison Police Department. He did so and gave a voluntary confession, which was taped.

But the Madison police could not actually bring the case because the killing of Desmond took place in Branford. So the Branford police arrested Wullaert, booked him and took his mug shot. He was released with a promise to appear in court Tuesday.

This is not the first time that Wullaert has been in trouble with the law. But the courts have treated him well. His first case, the one involving a 2009 assault in Branford, was wiped off the books after he completed community service. His second arrest, the attempting strangling of his former girlfriend, was apparently dismissed.

Now the protestors are asking people to sign a petition on Facebook to get ​“Alex Wullaert the maximum sentence.”

Doreen Doty, (pictured) who came to New Haven from Burlington this morning, works with rescue dogs. She realized after the fact that she was sitting next to Wullaert in court. All the protestors were in the courtroom. 

She said she thought he was ” a troubled young man. Something happened to this kid,” she added as she stood on the corner of Elm and Church. Her sign read: ​“Cruelty is a choice. Accountability should not be.”

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