Missouri Man Sentenced to 9 Years for Stabbing Ex-Girlfriend’s Dog to Death

Missouri Man Sentenced to 9 Years for Stabbing Ex-Girlfriend’s Dog to Death
Stock photo of police tape. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)
Jack Phillips
10/2/2019
Updated:
10/2/2019

A Missouri man was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to animal abuse charges, according to local reports.

Andrew Nipper, of Cape Girardeau, was accused of stabbing a dog to death before leaving its remains at the owner’s doorstep.

After dumping the remains, Nipper then messaged the owner, Katlynn Biggerstaff, on Snapchat that it was sounding like she was having a “ruff” day, reported the Southeast Missourian.

The incident occurred in May of this year. Biggerstaff responded to a knock on her door to find her dog inside a trash bag.

He has been sentenced to four years for the felony animal abuse charges, two years for stealing the dog, and three years for stalking, KFVS reported.
Andrew Nipper was sentenced for animal abuse, stealing the animal and first-degree stalking Missouri Department of Corrections)
Andrew Nipper was sentenced for animal abuse, stealing the animal and first-degree stalking Missouri Department of Corrections)
Court documents said that Nipper, who was 18 at the time, took a photo with the dog before sending it to another person, according to the Kansas City Star. That was before he left the remains on her doorstep.

Police searched Nipper’s vehicle and home and found trash bags similar to the one the dog was placed in.

Police also found black hairs that were similar to the dog’s hair in his vehicle, the SE Missourian reported.

Biggerstaff also told officials that Nipper, who was her ex-boyfriend, killed the animal, the paper reported.

She also claimed he had been stalking her and alleged that he tried to hit her with his car.

A stock photo of a Labrador Retriever. (Holly Kellum/Epoch Times)
A stock photo of a Labrador Retriever. (Holly Kellum/Epoch Times)

The Star reported that Nipper had previously pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree assault charge and was placed on supervised probation. He also pleaded guilty to stealing in a separate case.

Local reports did not indicate what type of breed the dog was.

Other details about the case are not clear.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).
The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.
The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.
The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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