A California dog trainer, Kwong “Tony” Chun Sit, and his girlfriend, Tingfeng Liu, have been convicted for their roles in the deaths of 11 dogs and a subsequent cover-up involving secret cremations and deceptive text messages to grieving owners.

Conviction Details

Sit was convicted of 11 felony counts of animal cruelty, seven misdemeanor counts of attempting to destroy evidence, and one misdemeanor count of destroying evidence. His girlfriend, Liu, was convicted of one felony count of accessory to a felony, one misdemeanor count of destruction of evidence, and two misdemeanor counts of attempted destruction of evidence.

According to prosecutors, Sit left the animals inside small crates in a hot van, where they died of heat stroke. To hide the cause of death, Sit and Liu hatched a plan to scatter the dogs’ bodies across several local crematoriums to avoid drawing suspicion. Sit then sent near-identical text messages to the owners claiming the pets had died unexpectedly in their sleep.

Necropsies performed on the animals revealed that eight of the dogs died from heat stroke, while one puppy died from blunt force trauma. The remaining two dogs were cremated before police could recover them.

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.